Louisville Old Time Fiddle Contest

On Saturday, August 1, 2026, Colorado Day, the fiddlers took the stage at Steinbaugh Pavilion, 824 Front Street, in downtown Louisville, while the Saturday Louisville Farmers Market went on around them. The pavilion is the city’s outdoor venue. It has a stage 34 feet wide and 17 deep, a backstage, and a covered seating area of movable picnic tables, with lights hung over both the stage and the seats. The same roof serves the summer Street Faire concerts, the market, and in winter Old Town Skate, the outdoor rink once called WinterSkate.

The contest is free. It is open to local and regional players of every skill level, and the City of Louisville’s Cultural Services Department, which runs it, calls it “ever so slightly competitive.” During the same hours on Colorado Day 2026, the Louisville Historical Museum at 1001 Main Street held its own celebration, with pizzelles, Italian games, a slipper kicking contest, historic actors on the museum campus, and the Blue Parrot back in town as a food truck.

A breakdown, a waltz, and a tune of choice

The preliminary round begins at 11 a.m. Each player offers a breakdown, a waltz, and a tune of their own choosing. Will Scherer of Scherer Violin Shop, who helps run the contest, advised anyone hoping to reach the second round to have two of each ready. Finalists are named at 12:30, the final round follows, and first, second, and third places are announced at one o’clock. The one firm rule, in Scherer’s words: “participants do need to keep it old-time. That means no music outside the old-time tradition.” If time allows and people stay, a jam session follows.

First prize in 2026 was an antique fiddle from Scherer’s shop, which he described as “a wonderful old German violin that I’ve restored and set up to sound great.” Second place won $250 in cash. Accounts of third place differ. Scherer said it was a $75 gift certificate to the Louisville Farmers Market, while the Yellow Scene listing gave it as a farmers market goodie basket valued at $100. The city’s listing names one more prize above these: the right for the winner to call themselves the best fiddle player in Louisville.

The violin maker at Main and Walnut

Scherer is a luthier. He apprenticed for more than six years under Thomas Verdot in Missouri. In 2018 his wife took a position at the University of Colorado and the couple moved west. “We actually chose to live in Louisville in part based on the fact that there was no violin maker here,” he told Denver Life. The Marshall Fire of December 2021 made the family home uninhabitable and ended his home-based shop, taking tools and materials with it. Within months he had started again on the corner of Main and Walnut, and in 2025 he doubled the space. He hosts fiddle jams and small concerts there. “The technology that I use on a daily basis peaked in the 1700s,” he said. “Everything is carved out using chisels and finger planes.”

By Scherer’s account, the contest grew out of the city’s search for ways to show off talent in Boulder County. “Through conversations with the city, the idea came up to host music competitions,” he said. “I suggested a fiddle contest—but not just any fiddle contest.” Bluegrass and Western swing contests were plentiful, but old-time music, he said, “is really at the root of the musical traditions connected to RockyGrass and so many others. It’s dance music, after all.” He explained the difference this way: “In old-time music, everyone plays in unison. When people gather for an old-time jam, they’re all playing the same tune together.”

The city held its first Old Time Fiddle Contest on the morning of August 2, 2025, at the pavilion during the Farmers Market. Its bulletin told residents they could “grab your week’s worth of fresh produce while you are there!” Denver Life credited Scherer with organizing that first contest and donating a restored violin as the prize.

Second place, 2025

Joe Vittetoe took second that year. He moved to Colorado in 1990 and soon afterward went to Telluride, where he heard the fiddle and fell for it. Until then, he said, his only exposure had been “things like The Andy Griffith Show,” though he had taken Suzuki lessons as a boy. He started out on bluegrass, found old-time music through John Hartford, and learned mostly in jam sessions with friends from the Central Rockies Old Time Music Association, playing for square dances along the Front Range. “These are tunes people played in their homes, for dances, and within their communities,” he said of the music. “There aren’t featured solos. It’s all about the tune.”

He spent weeks preparing for the first contest and was, he said, “definitely nervous.” Asked what he would tell a player on the fence, he answered, “Do it. Don’t hesitate.”

In July 2026 he sat with Scherer in the KGNU broadcast tent behind the main stage at RockyGrass, on the Planet Bluegrass grounds, and explained that a wedding in Madison would keep him from defending his place. The host suggested his absence might make room for other fiddle stars. Vittetoe replied, “Come and get it.”