North American Fiddlers Judges Association

The North American Fiddlers Judges Association, Inc, (NAFJA) has been providing skilled judging for fiddle contests throughout New England and other parts of the Northeast since 1977. It is most important to have judges whom the fiddlers can trust to provide knowledgeable, fair and unbiased adjudication. Because of their training and experience, NAFJA judges can do just that.

Drawing on their experience with many groups and organizations over the years, they have developed and fine tuned both a scoring system and contest rules which strike a balance between technical skill and those elements of style, phrasing and rhythm which differentiate traditional fiddling from other violin music. A trained violinist is as welcome as any other player but to carry off the prize against good traditional fiddlers, dazzling technique without mastery of traditional style and repertoire is not enough. The scoring system makes this balance much for objective.

The judges will be giving a presentation of different styles (what will they be looking for?) and answering questions at 9:30am, Saturday, August 8, before the Blueberry Fiddle Festival Fiddle Contest formally begins. See you there!