'Completely surreal': CSU Pueblo musician Eavia Ryan wins national fiddle contest
Playing against some of the best fiddlers in the country last month, Colorado State University Pueblo student Eavia Ryan took home the championship prize at the Walnut Valley Festival's Old-time Fiddle Contest in Winfield, Kansas.
The four-day festival ran from Sept. 14 to 22 and attracted over 10,000 visitors to four music stages. In addition to the Old-time Fiddle Contest, the festival included national mandolin, dulcimer and bluegrass banjo competitions, as well as an international autoharp contest. During the competition's 50-year history, several contest winners have gone on to have successful music careers, including 1984 Fiddle Championship winner Alison Kraus.
"(Winning the competition) was completely surreal," Ryan said. "I didn't expect that to happen going into it my first time there. I didn't really know what was going to happen."
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Ryan, 19, doesn't remember a time when she wasn't playing music.
She began taking piano lessons when she was around 3 years of age. She started playing classical music on the viola, a string instrument with a deeper sound than a violin, when she was 10. After watching a fiddle competition in Central Texas, she developed an interest in old-time traditional fiddle music five years ago.
"It is a look at the freer, more improvising side of music," Ryan said. "With classical, it's like you are always trying to re-create what came before, but with this you can go new places... What I do is a little more closely related to Texas fiddle, but it's all old-time ... It's not bluegrass but it's kind of a cousin."
Ryan's younger sister Orly was the first to start playing fiddle music on the violin, their mother, Joy, said. Eavia tried to replicate fiddle music on the viola but eventually got a violin of her own. She also got training from Chris Daring, a 1996 National Adult Fiddle Champion based in Pueblo.
Since May 2019, Ryan has been the lead fiddler for her family's group, the Apache Creek Fiddlers. She is joined by Orly, her sister Charlotte and brother Max. Her older brother Ian plays upright bass and their father, Don, plays guitar. Joy, who has a college degree in music education, occasionally is a background singer and keyboard player for the group.
"I don't play fiddle at all ... but my grandfather did," Joy said.
Joy's grandfather, A.M. Holaday Sr., played fiddle with Country Music Hall of Famer Red Foley. Generations later, music continues to run in the family as the Apache Creek Fiddlers play shows in southern Colorado, the Texas Panhandle and northern New Mexico.
"We see ourselves in the blessing business," Joy said. "Yeah, it's nice that the kids get to meet wonderful people and go to interesting places, but we are able to take people's stresses, absorb it and replace it with fun things — with things that make them feel better."
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Ryan is a nursing major and music minor at CSU Pueblo. In addition to playing old-time fiddle music with the Apache Creek Fiddlers, she continues to play classical music on the viola with the Pueblo Symphony. Charlotte and Orly play cello and violin for the symphony as well.
The Apache Creek Fiddlers will perform at the Sonshine Show at Colorado Springs' Norris Penrose Events Center from 10:30 a.m. to noon Nov. 26 and 27. Additional information about the Apache Creek Fiddlers can be found on their Facebook page.
Pueblo Chieftain reporter James Bartolo can be reached by email at JBartolo@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: CSU Pueblo student wins national fiddle championship
