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Eisteddfod - NYA Festival of Traditional MusicPerformers - 2010 |
Concert Emcees
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Sound Reinforcement |
Performers (alphabetical order) | |
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Paul Brownis a prize-winning fiddler and banjo player and a fine singer. He started playing banjo at age ten, and spent years learning music from some of the last great southern players and singers from the age before radio and recordings. Many of his songs come from his mother, who learned them in the 1920s and 1930s in rural Virginia. Paul has performed with numerous outstanding musicians of all generations. He's appeared at dozens of festivals and camps. He's recorded and produced highly acclaimed albums featuring master traditional musicians. His solo album is titled Red Clay Country. He currently plays with Terri McMurray and John Schwab in The Mostly Mountain Boys. |
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Martha Burnsdiscovered folk music growing up in New York's Greenwich Village during the 1950s and 1960s. She spent the 1970s in Ann Arbor, Michigan, then a center for traditional folk music in the Midwest, and has appeared at major folk festivals across the United States, Canada, and Great Britain since then. |
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Jerry Epsteinis a fine singer of (mostly) unaccompanied traditional song of the Eastern US and Canada, and a pretty fair concertina player. He has taken the American traditional songs and ballads to far-flung places around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, China, and Russia. |
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Alan Friendplays old time music on a variety of instruments (banjo, guitar, concertina) and is also a singer of ballads. He is a founding member of the Chelsea String Band. |
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Howard Glasseris the founding father of the Eisteddfod and Festival Director Emeritus. He recorded an important and impressive collection of songs in Scotland from the original source singers in the 1960s. He generally provides us with samples of his collection and his stories of the people he collected from. A noted calligrapher, Howard designed the Eisteddfod-NY logo. |
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Lorraine & Bennett Hammondplay and sing in perfect complement: blending their instruments with consummate skill, they create a new voice for music that ranges in style from classical through Celtic, blues and contemporary. The joy they take in their music is contagious, and their flair for tailoring their selection of songs and tunes for individual audiences lends a lively freshness to each performance. Bennett began teaching himself to play guitar in 1959 and has been helping others learn to play since 1960. His workshops bring a wealth of technical ability and understanding within reach, derived from the simplest and most familiar chords and strums. A lifelong New Englander, Lorraine has played fretted dulcimer for over thirty years, performing mountain ballads and jazz standards with equal skill. |
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Sharon Katzcreated a large multiracial musical group in her native South Africa in 1992 and traveled throughout the country by train to promote the first free elections. She and her Freedom Train group went on to tour Africa, the United States and Europe, recording with Sting, Paul Simon, Elton John, and other artists. In the U.S. crowds respond to her uplifting songs: staccato, twinkling notes fly from the frets of her guitar, maintaining a muscular rhythm: an uplifting aural swirl of funk, jazz and African folk music. |
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Alison Kinnairdis recognized as one of the foremost exponents of traditional Scottish harp music. She plays both gut and wire-strung harps and has recorded several critically acclaimed albums. She has been researching the repertoire of the harp in Scotland for more than 25 years, written several books of harp music, and co-authored the first published history of the harp in Scotland, The Tree of Strings. Her album The Harp Key - Crann nan Teud was the first ever recording of Scottish harp music, still essential listening for people interested in the Scottish harp, as indeed are her other harp albums. Alison published a very popular tutor The Small Harp 20 years ago, which people still use as their reference to playing the harp. This tutor is now being translated into French. Alison is also a glass artist, and her work is held by the Royal Family; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Tutsek Museum, Munich; Scottish National Museum; and the Murano Hotel in Tacoma. Alison also combines her glass and music, and this can be seen in "Psalmsong" in the Scottish Parliament Building. In 1997 she was awarded an M.B.E (Member of the British Empire) by the Queen for her services to art & music. |
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John
Kirk is known for his lyric voice and versatile
instrumental skills. On fiddle, mandolin, guitar, banjo and tin
whistle, John demonstrates a vast knowledge of musical traditions. He
is also a composer, dancer and dance caller. John teaches music at
Bennington College in Vermont, and at Skidmore College in Saratoga
Springs, NY. Trish Miller has been teaching and performing Appalachian clogging since 1980. She plays guitar, banjo and a little ukelele and is a dance caller and country dance choreographer. As a member of the Green Grass Cloggers, from Asheville, N.C., she toured throughout the U.S. and internationally. Trish and John are teaching artists in school music and dance programs. Trish teaches banjo at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. |
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Debbie Lanwas born and raised in South Africa. She is an international performer, composer and recording artist. Debbie is a Teaching Artist in Ulster County schools and founder/director of BLOOM, a local adult vocal ensemble. Her passion is building community through song, which she facilitates with masterly musicianship and a wide-ranging repertoire. She absorbed Kwela pennywhistle based sound and spirit music in her native Capetown. |
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Vic Leggwas born into one of the best known West Country travelling family, the Orchards, and many of his relatives sang. It was from is two aunties, Charlotte and Betsy Renals, and his mother, Sophie Legg, that he gained his early interest in singing. Vic has gathered his songs from a variety of sources. As he says; "Some were learned on purpose, while others were by osmosis!" Songs have come to him throughout his life, such as dockyard songs from the days when he served his apprenticeship in the Devonport dockyards. Then there's the anti-drink anthem he picked up somewhere along the line: "The Hell-bound Train." Vic dances with Trigg Morris. |
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Bob Malenkyis an eclectic performer, concentrating on the blues but at home with union songs, Woody Guthrie, and traditional folk songs. He plays guitar (learned from Muddy Waters and Lightnin' Hopkins); has performed with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and has taught courses in world folk music at City College |
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Val Mindelhas been giving harmony workshops across the US and abroad for the past 10 years. She focuses on the tight harmony so prevalent in early country music. A versatile musician and performer, she has played with a number of bands, including the West Coast's Any Old Time String Band. In addition to working with singing partner Joe Newberry, she often works with daughter Emily Miller. She is regularly found on staff at such music camps as Augusta Heritage Center, Village Harmony, and the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. |
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Robin Mortonwas a founding member of Irish folk group the Boys of the Lough and has continued to influence Celtic music as a record producer and owner of Midlothian, Scotland-based label, Temple Records. Morton's involvement with traditional Celtic music traces back to the early '60s when he formed a Folk Music Society at the University of Belfast. An avid folk song collector, Morton compiled and edited two books, Folksongs Sung In Ulster and Come Day, Go Day, God Send Sunday. Morton produced a number of field recordings for Topic Records, a London-based label, and these recordings are soon to be released on the Temple Records label. Since the early '80s he has been managing Battlefield Band and producing their albums for Temple Records. |
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Joe Newberryhas played music most of his life. Best known for his powerful and innovative banjo playing, he is a prizewinning guitarist, fiddler, and singer as well. In addition to singing and playing with singing partner Val Mindel, Joe makes music with the string band Big Medicine; old-time music stalwarts Bill Hicks, Mike Craver, and Jim Watson; and with mandolinist and singer Mike Compton. He writes songs that show up on the Bluegrass charts, does solo and studio work, and teaches and performs at festivals at home and abroad. |
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Caroline Patondraws upon a vast repertoire developed over many years of collecting folksongs, with her late husband, Sandy, throughout the English -speaking world, from the Southern Appalachians to the Ozarks, from Scotland and England to the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Sandy and Caroline were the founders of Folk Legacy Records. |
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John Robertsis a superb English singer who plays banjo, guitar, concertina, and hurdy-gurdy, as well as being a fine musicologist and music editor. He, with long-time performing partner Tony Barrand, has performed to great acclaim in every corner of the US and Canada for more than 35 years. Their numerous recordings are available from Golden Hind Records. |
 | Sonja SavigHer mother, from Eastern Norway, would read her stories, poems, and sing songs to her. Her father, from Western Norway, also sang, and played Norwegian melodies on the mandolin and violin. When she was six years old, she moved to Denver where there were few Norwegians, and in 1958 She traveled around Norway living with relatives in various regions. Her repertoire contains old medieval ballads, newer folk songs from rural traditions, and written songs by well known composers. |
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Steve Suffetis best described as an old-fashioned folksinger. His repertoire is a mixture of railroad songs, trucker songs, cowboy songs, union songs, old time ballads, ragtime, Gospel, bluegrass, topical-political songs, and whatever else tickles his fancy. He is a tireless researcher into the lesser-known songs of Woody Guthrie. |
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Dwayne Thorpeis a guitarist and powerful singer of blues and material from Black tradition, Dwayne is also a powerful performer of gospel from his home in Kansas, and cowboy and other Western songs. A friend of the Eisteddfod for most of four decades, Dwayne is a rarely heard treat in the East. |
 | Triboro(Phyllis Elkind, Don Friedman, Evy Mayer) hails from the boroughs of New York, but looks beyond the Hudson, to other places and other times, for songs and inspiration. They are an acoustic vocal trio that applies fine three-part harmony to an eclectic mix of musical genres - great old-time, new-time, Carter Family, country, Western, bluegrass and beyond. |
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Mickey Vandowwent to the Little Red School House with Eric Weissberg, where they learned folk songs from Charity Bailey, the music teacher. In addition,they were campers at Camp Woodland, in Phoenicia, NY, where they learned Catskill history, folklore, and the folksongs collected by Herbert Haufrecht and Norman Cazden from singers in the region. Eric and Mickey have been singing these songs for nearly sixty years. Mickey learned guitar from Laura Rosenblatt and Bob Claiborne and banjo from Pete Seeger. While at the University of Rochester, he organized hootenannies, led folk dances, and called square dances on a regular basis. He taught theater, cinema, and video production at SUNY Cobleskill. |
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Eric Weissbergis considered by aficionados to be one of the best five-string banjo players, He has been a major force on the folk scene and a ubiquitous prescence on the studio scene for more than four decades. in 1958 he was a founding father of the New York bluegrass trio "The Greenbriar Boys." He joined the folk group "The Tarriers" in 1959, recording and touring worldwide for six years. As a top New York studio musician Eric has done thousands of sessions; he had a number one single and album with "Dueling Banjos," which earned him two gold records and a Grammy award. He has won numerous other awards. Lately Eric has reappeared on the live scene singing and picking music in concert, both solo and as accompanist. |
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Heather Woodis a veteran singer from the English revival for some 40+ years, dating from her days with The Young Tradition. She has a great repertoire of ballads, historical songs, love and agricultural songs, and a lot from the humorous side. In addition to the old songs, she has written some dynamite new ones. |
Concert EmceesOur concert emcees each host a show called Traditions — this is pure coincidence! Both have been emcee at several previous Eisteddfodau [note: that's the plural. Really. It's Welsh.]. | |
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Mary Cliff
hosts Traditions, a twice-weekly show on WAMU 88.5 HD Channel 2 in the Washington, DC area and on 105.5 FM (Reston, VA).
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Ron Olesko
hosts Traditions,a weekly program on WFDU, with studio guests and recordings from the unique and expansive world of folk music.
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Sound Reinforcement | |
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Don Wade
has
four decades of experience in sound reinforcement and will be providing
excellent sound, as he has done at all our programs.
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