The Colorado Fiddle Championships on Saturday and Sunday will feature novices and national champions, hoedowns and waltzes at the National Western Stock Show.
“A lot of really good people show up in Denver,” said Kimber Ludiker, the defending National Oldtime Fiddlers’ grand national champion. “In many ways, it’s like a family reunion.”
That’s especially true for Ludiker, whose father, Tony Ludiker of Colorado Springs, is a five-time national champion and one of this year’s three stock show judges.
That won’t give her an advantage, she said, because her father tends to be tougher on her than on other competitors.
Kimber Ludiker, 24, won the stock show contest in 2007 and performs professionally with an all-girl bluegrass band called Della Mae.
The fiddling is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day in the Beef Palace Auction Arena. The show is free with a general admission ticket to the stock show grounds.
About $8,000 in prize money is at stake.
The cash, however, is secondary to the sound of bow across string, said Denice Carter, president and founder of the Colorado Old Time Fiddlers’ Association.
“People come to the contests mostly just to play music,” she said.
But the music doesn’t end with the competition.
The Ludikers and other players perform in a jam session Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at the Doubletree Hotel at 8773 Yates Drive in Westminster, where many of the contestants stay.
The sessions are open to all who wish to play, from beginners to pros, Carter said.
“We don’t care if you make money as a musician or not,” she said. “But I think it’s safe to say that if any of our contestants could make a living just playing fiddle, that’s what they would do.”
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
