Meet Julie from the Left Coast
Julie and her late husband Steve after playing at the Los Angeles Hogmanay Ball Jan. 1, 2019
I’m a long-time Scottish country dancer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I met dancer and fiddler (and future husband) Steve Wyrick while dancing with a local performance group. Around 2007, I began reviving my childhood piano skills to accompany Steve and others for dancing. Steve and I frequently played together for classes, workshops and dances in the San Francisco, Los Angeles and Pacific Northwest areas until Steve lost his battle with cancer in 2019. Our CD “Second Chances” was released in 2019 and consists mainly of tunes written by Steve to accompany locally written Scottish country dances and celebrate dancing friends. Although missing my musical collaboration with Steve, I’m still playing with others for dance classes and parties.
As to how we connected with the SRSNH/NHSMC…. Steve was a long-time participant on the Strathspey Server, an online forum for Scottish Country dance teachers and musicians. He “met” Sylvia Miskoe through this forum and we visited her in New Hampshire in 2009. A few other SRSNH musicians came to her home and we had a lovely time playing through SRSNH tunes. We enjoyed the SRSNH folks so much that we became members on the spot. We have also known Barbara McOwen, one of the SRSNH founders, for many years as she started the local Scottish country dance music in Berkeley, California in the 1970’s.
I’m heading out to Maine and New Hampshire in June. After a stay with Steve’s brother and wife in Falmouth, Maine, I’ll be staying with Anne Baier from June 19-25. She has so graciously opened her home to me, and I do hope that I’ll be able to meet many of you in person and play some music while I’m there. We’ll both be attending the Acadia Trad music camp June 26-July 2 and hopefully many other NHSMC members will be there as well. There’s nothing I enjoy more than getting together with fellow Scottish music lovers, so please let me know if any of you ever come out to California. As Connie can attest, I have a good fiddle and guitars that are begging to be played and a large home with plenty of extra bedrooms.