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You wouldn’t necessarily pick Cassian Owen out of a crowd.
He’s 12. He lives on a farm near Vanscoy. He loves playing hockey and mini sticks with his friends.
He’s pretty much what you’d expect a 12-year-old Saskatchewan kid to be.
Until he picks up a fiddle.
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The sound that comes out of that instrument doesn’t quite match the person holding it. It’s practiced, polished and fast, the product of years spent listening, playing and competing.
Owen has a way of making it look easy, which is usually a pretty good sign that it isn’t.
Earlier this year, he put his fiddling skills to the test.
He entered the Grand North American Old Time Fiddle Championships in Fort Saskatchewan, competing in the 14-and-under category and taking home first place. He then went on to compete at the Canadian Grandmasters Fiddling Championship.
It’s a remarkable resumé for a 12-year-old.
But the funny thing is, Owen doesn’t seem particularly interested in making a big deal about it.
Ask him what makes a good fiddle player and he doesn’t offer some grand philosophy.
“Practicing and listening. And having a good teacher.”
Cassian Owen recently competed on the national stage at the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship. (Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Championship/Youtube)
Owen’s relationship with the instrument goes back almost as far as he can remember.
“I did a year [of lessons] when I was three, but I was a bit too young,” he said.
He moved on to piano for a few years. But at the ripe old age of seven, he found his way back to the strings.
“I’ve been doing fiddle ever since.”
There is a subtle difference between saying you play violin and saying you play fiddle, and Owen knows exactly what it is.
“It’s the same instrument, just the style of playing,” he explained.
He says violin is more classical and orchestral. Fiddle is something else. It’s a style. A sound. A rhythm.
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He practices about an hour a day, although he says something has changed over the years:
“Well, I’m starting to like practicing more as I get older.”
Owen also had the benefit of an instructor who makes sure there is plenty of fun along the way. His teacher, Kim de Laforest, has him in regular lessons, group classes and even a trio called The Busking Savants.
“She always puts us in all these groups,” Owen said. “We’re in group class, and we have our regular lessons, and then we have the trio and other classes.”
When asked what he thinks of all that, his answer is immediate.
“It’s so much fun.”
Watch Cassian Owen perform live on The Evan Bray Show:
His dad, Corey Owen, has watched that enjoyment turn into something pretty remarkable.
Corey started playing around the same time as his son, but these days, the gap between them is considerable.
“I have to practice three times as much to be less than half as good,” he laughed.
And yet, for all that skill and all those years of practice, Owen still hasn’t grown out of performance jitters.
“I do get nervous,” he admitted. “Pretty much every show, I get nervous.”
That’s understandable. Being 12 doesn’t come with a special exemption from stage fright, even if you’ve already competed at some of the biggest fiddle events around.
The difference is that Owen has learned to play through it.
And when the performance is over and the fiddle goes away, he’s right back to being a kid.
He can spend an hour working on his playing, walk into a major competition and hold his own against kids older than him — then go home and pick up a mini stick to play with his friends.
He takes the fiddle seriously without taking himself too seriously.
And maybe that’s the sweet spot: a Saskatchewan kid who is already exceptionally good at something, without ever having to stop being a kid.
At 12, Cassian Owen is already one of Saskatchewan’s standout young fiddlers. He’s winning championships, putting in the practice — and still making plenty of time for hockey and mini sticks. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
