Abbie MacQuarrie

      Abbie MacQuarrie has stormed onto the Celtic scene with her talents of fiddle and dance. A featured performer at Club Passim, Coolidge Corner Theater, the Childrens Museum, and Kennedys Pub, Abbies sparkly personality and rhythmic fiddling has left an impression on the Boston Celtic scene. A founding member of the hip fiddle band 5AM, Abbie helps arrange and manage the bands repertoire. She is also the bodhrán player and dancer for 5AM. Abbie also plays an active role in promoting and organizing events in Boston, such as the (rained-out) Harvard Square fleadh in June 2006.

     Abbie started fiddle at the tender age of nine with the 1997 Scottish Fiddle Champion, Hanneke Cassel. She has been instructed by the likes of Buddy MacMaster, Jerry Holland, Stan Chapman, Alasdair Fraser, Bruce Molsky, Pete Clark, and Glenn Graham. Abbie focuses mainly on Cape Breton and Scottish music (keeping to her heritage), but she has dabbled in Appalachian, Swedish, and Irish music. She travels regularly to Cape Breton and California to study at camps in the summer. Abbie also is becoming a talented bodhrán player, having played since January 2005, under the instruction of Matt Heaton.

    Music does not consume all of Abbies time; she is also a gifted dancer. She started dancing when she was a mere 4 years of age, mainly ballet, tap and jazz. Four years later, she realized that she wanted to explore her heritage and she started Scottish Highland dancing. Presently she is qualified as a Premier dancer and is a member of Highland Dance Boston. Abbie has performed at Sanders Theatre, the Copley-Fairmont Hotel, the Berklee Performance Center, and the Concord Auditorium. Abbie was not content with one style of dance, and she has moved onto many other forms. She is a brilliant Cape Breton step dancer, and she was studied with Cheryl MacQuarrie, Mac Morin, Bonnie Jean MacDonald, Four on the Floor. Abbie also draws from Irish (sean-nos and hard shoe), Quebec, and Appalachian traditions to create her own unique style of dance. 

   Abbie is currently based in Edinburgh majoring in Celtic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. This has given her the opportunity to meet and perform around Scotland and recently Germany with the Scottish band Malinky.