Person Davene Browne 12175

Davene was born as Davene Kelly in 10 January 1924 in Saskatchewan, Canada. She first learned to play the tuba and later the string bass. She was playing with a number of bands and orchestras including the New Westminster Symphony Orchestra and the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra. At the Vancouver Philharmonic she got to know Celia Collin encouraging her to also play Scottish music and they both joined the Schiehallion SCD Band formed by Ian Price and Ian Brady in 1975, playing together with Ian Brady, Derek Hill and Murray Shoolbraid. They played together for about 12 year mainly in western Canada and also Washington state.

After 1990 she also joined the the Vancouver Fiddle Orchestra (VFO, formed by Ian Price and Tom Scott) and played with other SCD bands like Scuttlebutt, (Ewan ‘Sudsy’ Clark, fiddle; Kristi Lind, piano; Janet Wright, guitar) and the “Tartan Players” (Julie Smith, piano; again with Celia Collin, fiddle; Carole Berger, flute; later Deborah Jones and Lucasz Wieczorek, both fiddle, replacing Celia).

She was regarded a great mentor to new musicians, pointing out the things they got write rather than mistakes.

In the end she played SCD music for about 40 years.

At some time she gave her double Bass to Janet Wright who is now the leader of the Vancouver Fiddle Orchestra.

Davene Browne died in 2020.

There are two very nice and informative obituaries by Janet Wright and Ian Price in the Nov-Dec/2020 issue of the White Cockade released by the Vancouver branch and additional information in the Vancouver 2020/21 Ceilidh Newsletter #2.