Now 31, April Verch said she first picked up a fiddle at 6 years old.

“I love it,” she added. “I always will. It’s just kind of a part of me.”

Speaking by phone as she toured through Maine recently, Verch has been making her way literally cross-country, stopping first in California before heading to the Northwest.

Twice honored as the Canadian national champion with her chosen instrument, Verch and her two-piece band are next up in the Kenmore concert series in St. Edward State Park.

Verch will take to the park stage 6-8 p.m. July 9.

Born in Pembroke, Ontario, Verch is a past winner of both the Canadian Grand Master Fiddle Championship and the Canadian Open Fiddle Championship. She was still in college at the time she won the prestigious awards, but started touring full time in 2000. Verch went to Nashville to create her seventh recording, “Steal the Blue,” in 2008.

Incidentally, Verch apparently has known for sometime what she wanted to do with her life. Her first two CDs were self-recorded while she was still in high school.

The newest effort is mellow almost throughout and Verch sings and plays on most of the tracks, which has a few instrumentals thrown in, as well. One of the latter is a piece she penned herself, inspired while on tour through Virginia. Appropriately enough, what Verch described as a slow, waltz track carries the title of “Independence, VA.”

Verch stated whether performing her own or someone’s else’s songs, traditional fiddle or country music are by far her biggest influences and “Steal the Blue” seems to mine somewhat the same vein as that of Alison Krauss. Verch plans on going back into the studio again, though it will likely be more than a year before her next release.

Verch said her native Ontario, or more specifically the Ottawa Valley, has a fiddle and musical style all it own — “a specific flavor,” as she put it. But Verch said if she started out playing in that style and still enjoys it, she has branched out considerably.

Verch especially mentioned what she called Old Time Canadian and Old Time American, as well as bluegrass. She said the differences in fiddle techniques are sometimes fairly subtle and perhaps not immediately evident to non-musicians, but added they are there.

For example, Verch said Americana requires a different tuning of her instrument and “lets the strings ring a little more.”

“In bluegrass, you solo over the changes,” she added.

Verch said she doesn’t have a favorite style, more enjoying to mix things up and trying various ways of producing music.

Besides learning to fiddle at a young age, Verch also took up traditional Canadian step dancing even earlier, at about age 3. Always a part of her performances, she described Canadian step dancing as a combination of tap, clogging and the Irish version of step dancing made popular with such Broadway shows as “Riverdance.”

“If you throw all that together, it’s close to what I do,” Verch said. She added her version of step dancing isn’t as straight-backed as the Irish variety.

“You’re flailing around a bit,” she said. “It’s very energetic.”

As a sort of a grand finale, Verch said her last few numbers always combine dancing and fiddling, a feat she said isn’t easy, but described as a lot of fun. You can get a preview of what’s in store for the Kenmore show by visiting Verch’s You Tube pages.

While she’s not familiar specifically with the Kenmore area, Verch she has performed in Seattle in the past. She is accompanied on stage by Cody Walters on bass and banjo, along with Clay Ross on guitar. A percussionist, husband Marc Bru, toured with her until this year, when Verch said he just got tired of life on the road.

“My dad always says, ‘Don’t forget where you came from,’” Verch said at one point, which in her case shouldn’t be hard, as she and her husband still make their home in her hometown of Pembroke. She talked briefly about getting homesick, but said she likes touring, as well.

“I love what I do,” she said.