Matthew Thomas Lin Memorial Scholarship

The Grand Master Fiddler Championship Inc. has established the Matthew Thomas Lin Memorial Scholarship to honor the memory of Matthew Lin. Matthew, the 2014 Grand Master Youth Fiddle Champion was extremely bright, ambitious, and compassionate.  He was an accomplished musician and athlete with a passion for community service. Matthew’s genuine interest in others and his sincere desire to see everyone succeed resulted in countless friends from all walks of life. Throughout his life, Matthew valued excellence, integrity, good citizenship, and education.

With this in mind, it is our intention that the Matthew Thomas Lin Memorial Scholarship will offer exceptional students and musicians who display academic achievement, a commitment to serving others, a strong work ethic, active leadership, and financial need the opportunity to continue their musical and academic pursuits. Please click here for more information and/or to apply for the scholarship.

GMFC Youth Fiddle Workshop

The GMFC will hold a free Free Youth Fiddle Workshop on June 28 and 29, 2023, hosted at the W. O. Smith School of Music  in Nashville, TN. Led by Former Grand Master Fiddler Champion Justin Branum, the workshop will cover beginning to advanced fiddle concepts, demonstrations, and activities. Fiddlers 18 years of age or younger are eligible. 

All registered participants will receive materials including sheet music, USB drives with recorded music and other resources.  Registration is limited to 40 people. There is no cost for the workshop. For more information, please click here.

Funding for this educational program is made possible by a grant from the Tennessee Nonprofit Arts & Culture Recovery Fund  and the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Fiddling In The Schools

The Grand Master Fiddler Championship is working with our Board Member Crystal Plohman to participate and support her “Fiddle and Song” Fiddle curriculum as part of our Fiddling In the Schools initiative.  “Fiddle and Song” fiddle curriculum is designed to work in sync with Suzuki and traditional violin methods, from the beginning level through books 2 (though the optional advanced fiddle solos are good for books 3-5ish). Kids learn fun traditional songs and chord progressions from the first pages and learn how to make fiddle breaks from these melodies, as well as variations and harmonies.

Crystal recently presented this curriculum on a national stage to an enthusiastic group of string teachers at American String Teachers Association Conference (ASTA) in Atlanta. The materials are available for purchase for $15 each for violin, viola, cello and bass at your local string provider or order from www.fiddleandsong.net. Orders of 12 or more include the piano accompaniment book for free.

Learning by Listening

Many muscians learn by ear and this has long been a wide-spread and accepted method of transmitting and learning fiddle tunes. To help make these educational materials available, the Grand Master Fiddler Championship provides free recordings of our competitions on the internet.  You find find materials both on our You Tube site as well as the Livestream recordings of the entire competitions starting in 2016.  Please visit our "Videos" page for a complete list of these materials.  We also have several CDs for sale to support our organization and these can be found on our "Store and Merchandise" page.