AUBURN — Wherever they play, a group of multi-age musicians is bringing smiles to the faces of listeners with their mix of old and new folk music.

Under its recently adopted name, “Great Falls Community Folk Orchestra,” the group will present a debut performance on Sunday, Dec. 29, at the Auburn Unitarian-Universalist Church in conjunction with a noted touring trio from Prince Edward Island known as “Ten Strings and a Goatskin.”

Musicians in the Great Falls Community Folk Orchestra range in age from 12 to 60-plus, and they come from as far as Falmouth and Waterville for twice-monthly rehearsals at Schooner Estates Retirement Community in Auburn.

One of these folk musicians is Victor So, 14, a fiddler and a freshman at Lewiston High School.

He said playing in the folk orchestra “has opened my eyes to folk music.”

An added benefit, he said, “is learning from one of the best fiddlers in Maine, Doug Protsik.”

Protsik, fiddler, pianist and accordionist, is the organization’s musical director and a resident of Woolwich. He is a founding member of the legendary Maine Country Dance Orchestra and he continues to play with the bands Old Grey Goose and Frank Ferrel and the Feral Cats. He also is director of the Maine Fiddle Camp.

Julie Gordon of Oxford said she loves the orchestra because it offers the opportunity for several family members to participate. She plays accordion. Her husband, a physician, and son, 13, play guitars, and a daughter, 7, dances.

Mona Theriault of Turner joined the group as fiddler and she emphasized her appreciation for the orchestra carrying on Franco-American musical heritage, as well as Scottish and Cape Breton traditions.

Miranda Phelps of Waterville also plays fiddle and she said the orchestra offers chances to broaden the experiences of the three-member “family band” that includes her husband and 14-year-old son.

Cindy Larock, who has organized numerous cultural activities in the Twin Cities, laid the foundation for this community folk orchestra about three years ago when USM Lewiston-Auburn College and board members of its Franco-American Collection, which is archived there, asked her to coordinate some outreach activities.

These included a monthly series of French sing-along sessions. Larock said the sing-alongs attracted an average of 70 Franco-American community elders to join in singing the songs that they or their predecessors brought to the Twin Cities from Quebec and New  Brunswick.

Larock recalls that the sessions also attracted a number of instrumentalists, including a pianist, two accordionists and, most memorably, a fiddler, Maurice Pelletier. He immigrated to Maine from Canada as a young man. Before his death a few months ago at the age  of 89, he was one of the last old-time Franco fiddlers in this area.

She also was acquainted with the growing number of talented young folk musicians in the area, many of them students of Greg Boardman, director of the string music program for the Lewiston public school system.

With the inspiration of Pelletier’s traditional tunes and the talent of the present generations, Larock said, “I set out on a mission to bring these youngsters together with the elder tradition bearers.”

The Sunday performance of the Great Falls Community Folk Orchestra will be at 2 p.m. at the Unitarian-Universalist Church at 169 Pleasant St., at the corner of Spring Street in Auburn.

The award-winning young French Canadian folk trio, Ten Strings and a Goatskin, will play dance tunes and songs. The Great Falls Community Folk Orchestra will join the trio onstage for a tune or two, and more music and dancing will take place in the lower hall following the show.

Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for youth (including students up to age 22). For more information, go online to www.mainefolqueco-op.com or call 782-0386.

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