-----Thursday, January 27, 2005       The Halifax Herald Limited
   ...
   TERA CAMUS/Cape Breton Bureau
   Weighing 10 tonnes and costing $100,000, this massive solid steel fiddle was hoisted into place at the newly renovated Sydney
   Marine Terminal on Wednesday.

   Artist doesn't fiddle around
   Huge sculpture to dominate Sydney waterfront

   By TERA CAMUS / Cape Breton Bureau

   SYDNEY - If you could find a giant to play it, this baby could sing.

   A massive solid steel fiddle, which weighs 10 tonnes and cost $100,000, was hoisted into place Wednesday outside the newly
   renovated Sydney Marine Terminal on Sydney's waterfront.

   Crafted by artist-welder Cyril Hearn at Elks Fabricators, the fiddle - once its steel strings and bow are added - will reach 16.5
   metres high and span 4.5 metres, making it among the largest in the world.

   "I knew he had talent, but this is just amazing," Mr. Hearn's mom Mary Poirier said with tears in her eyes as she stood watching a
   local crew and crane gingerly move the fiddle onto its steel supports.

   "There's no words to explain how I feel," she added, her voice breaking. "It's just fantastic."

   Mr. Hearn worked on the piece for months at the Sydney Steel site and told this newspaper earlier that in fashioning the huge
   replica, he included the same supports and holes you'd find on fiddles in music shops. His hope was to make it play, which
   apparently it does.

   Adrian Gatrill of Gatrill Management Associates was project designer for the $5-million renovation of the Sydney Marine Terminal
   that will officially open Friday with a Cape Breton ceilidh. It was a project that was almost three years in the making.

   "The main idea was to set up a symbol that's symbolic of Cape Breton's heritage," Mr. Gatrill said Wednesday, noting the fiddle
   has been played in dance halls and the kitchen parties of Cape Breton's Scottish, Acadian and Mi'kmaq homes for the past 200
   years.

   "The other objective was we wanted to make sure everyone gets off the cruise ships (that dock at the site)," he said. "We
   want to make sure they are enticed off the ships to visit the area, to shop, even just to take photos."

   There was "a lot of engineering on this," he added, to ensure that the fiddle is able to withstand the strong winds that often
   batter the coast. "It's also tilted back five degrees, and tilted sideways by five degrees, which makes it even more challenging,"
   he said, noting "significant safety factors were taken into account for all forces and wind factors."

   Steve Antle, spokesman of the East Coast Music Awards show to be hosted in Sydney next month, joked the fiddle is proof of
   Cape Breton's "huge musical footprint."

   "This is the Celtic version of the Trojan Horse, the Celtic Horse, and I keep expecting a bunch of Cape Bretoners to come out
   playing," he said to laughter at an unrelated news conference in the terminal Wednesday as the fiddle was being moved into
   place outside.

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   Copyright © 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited



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