April Verch returns to this area after a long absence for what should be a highly entertaining show this weekend in Midland.

The multi-award-winning fiddler can write songs with the best of them, sing and step-dance, sometimes all at the same time.

“It is hard to do, takes a lot longer to work up that way, but it’s fun,” said Verch, who likes to use her feet as percussion instruments, step-dancing her way through catchy rhythms and recording it on her new 10th album, The Newpart.

Her current tour is in celebration of its release.

The album is named for an addition to her family home, a one-room schoolhouse where her parents went to school. The addition was built same year Verch was born and was dubbed The

Newpart. It has served as a family room, rehearsal space and the place where Verch has written a lot of music, including the title song off the new album.

“I wrote it, in the Newpart, before I wrote the album and when the recording was completed I sort of looked back on it and though that really does tie everything all together at this point for me, my Ottawa Valley roots, and my family and my music, all the important things in my life,” Verch said.

Step-dancing came first for the Pembroke native. She started taking lessons at the age of three, following in the footsteps of her older sister. Her family is musical. Her father plays guitar and sings and the two team up occasionally for gigs when she returns home. Her sister dances and plays the piano. Verch is the only fiddler and her interest grew out of step-dancing.

“I love the instrument and the energy of the music,” Verch said. “I was practising dancing to it and I sort of grew up around it. We were always at jamborees and stuff. Also there was a social aspect to it. Every time I was fiddling and dancing everyone was having a good time. I think I was attracted to that side in addition to the music and the instrument.”

She started playing the fiddle at age six. Formal classical lessons followed, as did fiddle competitions. She is the only female to win both the Canadian Open Old Time Fiddle Championship and the Canadian Grand Masters Fiddling Competition.

Verch wrote her first fiddle tune at the age of 10 when she was on a family camping trip and realized she didn’t have a present for her parent’s anniversary. She released her first record at the age 13 and her second before she graduated high school.

Plans for the show include a wide variety of music, including different fiddle styles, old-time Canadian songs she grew up with as well as old-time American tunes, a bit of bluegrass, originals, and the combination of vocals and step dancing.

She likes to switch up instruments with her trio because it keeps it fun for the musicians as well as the audience. She also likes to bring back some covers written by people in the 1920 and '30s. The challenge is to add her own stamp to an already perfect tune.

“It’s a little bit more heavily weighted to the new album, but we always include a bunch of new stuff we’re working on for our next (record) and old favourites people ask for,” said Verch, who tours with two other musicians, including bassist and clawhammer banjo player Cody Walters and guitarist Alex Rubin.

April Verch performs on Sunday, Sept. 4 at the Midland Cultural Centre, 333 King St., Midland, beginning at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $25, available at the box office, www.midlandculturalcentre.com or 705-527-4420.