Helen Brown plucks out the highlights at the region's latest festival

WHETHER you call a fiddle a violin or not makes little difference – folk music wouldn’t be the same without them. Fretting will begin at Sage Gateshead’s Fiddles on Fire Festival tomorrow and over the weekend.

The concert halls and education centre at Sage Gateshead will host artists including Catriona McKay and Chris Stout with the Scottish Ensemble, Väsen, Frigg, Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick and Jackie Oates Trio. There are more than 80 workshops offering an opportunity to learn from great artists, whatever the ability level.

Families and non-fiddlers are well catered for with a free family ceilidh on the concourse on Saturday from 2pm to 4pm, and there’s a Big Fiddle Family Song and Dance on Sunday at 11am. The programme of workshops includes talks and sessions for other instruments. Absolute beginners can take a full-day crash course on Sunday with fiddles provided. There’s also a workshop session on Danish Dancing.

The English Fiddle Symposium covers two days of discussions and performances with leading fiddle players and academics aiming to document and provide a meeting place for further dialogue about regional styles and repertoire belonging to traditional English music.

The opening concert features Carthy and Swarbrick and the Jackie Oats Trio. Hall One on the Saturday night boasts a rare North-East performance from the legendary Swedish group Väsen. The trio, Olov Johansson on nyckelharpa, Mikael Marin’s five-string viola and Roger Tallroth’s guitar combine in the dynamic of a string quartet crossed with a bluegrass band.

The show will also bring together Finnish-Norwegian folk powerhouse Frigg (Catriona McKay and Chris Stout) and the Scottish Ensemble – humorously described in the programme as a "Nordic sandwich with a Scottish filling". Frigg, from Finland, took Hall 2 by storm on their previous visit. Named after the Norse goddess of love and fertility, this freewheeling septet have created their own captivating style of music – Nordgrass, fusing Nordic folk and American bluegrass.

Full lineup of artists:

Catriona McKay and Chris Stout with the Scottish Ensemble, Vasen, Frigg, Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, Jackie Oates Trio, Celtic Fiddle Festival, Gavin Marwick’s Journeyman, Alan Jabbour, Iva Bittová, RANT, Gina Le Faux, The Devil’s Violin, Dermot McLaughlin, The Bottle Bank Band, D.UK.

Tickets available at sagegateshead.com and via Sage Gateshead Ticket Office on 0191-443-4661