Christina Smith and Jean Hewson Play MUN's Petro-Canada Hall, November 12 and 13

This weekend, Newfoundland musicians Christina Smith and Jean Hewson are celebrating 25 years of making music together with two concerts at Memorial University's Petro-Canada Hall.

Christina Smith (left) is a classical cellist, but she's best known as a fiddler. Smith has played all over, including Japan, England, Ireland, Mexico, and the U.S. She's backed up some of the province's best musicians, including Emile Benoit, Buddy Wassisname, the Irish Descendants, Fergus O'Byrne, Jim Payne and Ron Hynes. For the past ten years, Smith has taught more than a hundred young people the music of Rufus Guinchard and Emile Benoit.

Jean Hewson (right), talented balladeer and guitar player, was a member of the now defunct folk group Barkin Kettle. Other bands Hewson has been involved in include Tuckamore, the Sub-Sisters, Strings Attached, Saddle Sorority, This Side Up and Sweet Absalone. She and Smith co-produced and arranged a critically acclaimed instrumental album, Fiddle Me This (1995).

Click here to watch a video of Smith and Hewson performing at the 2009 Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival.

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Christina Smith provided the haunting music for Rattling Books' audio edition of Sir Wilfred Grenfell's Adrift on an Ice Pan. Listen to a sample from this famous saga of the missionary doctor's harrowing near escape from death in the pitiless North, narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence. Adrift on an Ice Pan is available from Rattling Books as an MP3 download and an MP3 CD.