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Our 2009 Instructors |
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 Paul
Anastasio
Paul Anastasio began playing classical
violin at age nine and was soon drawn to
American Folk music. In his early 20s
Paul began studying with the great jazz
violinist Joe Venuti, and is considered
to be one of the foremost authorities on
Venuti's passionate, swinging approach
to jazz violin. At about the same time
he began working on the road in the band
of country music legend Merle Haggard,
the first of several jobs he would work
with top western swing and country music
bands including Asleep at the Wheel,
Larry Gatlin, Ray Price, Mel Tillis and
Loretta Lynn.
Today Paul is considered not only a fine
performer but a respected popular music
historian, as he has spent over thirty
years studying the role of the violin in
American popular music. He has studied
informally with some of the best
fiddlers on the music scene, including
country and western swing legends Cliff
Bruner, Joe Holley, Johnny Gimble and
Buddy Spicher. He recently spent over a
year in Mexico studying with top folk
violinists including the phenomenal
Mexican violinist Juan Reynoso. His
recording company, Swing Cat Enterprises
has issued both his own recordings and
those of Joe Venuti and others.
Paul is in great demand as an instructor
at summer music camps throughout the
U.S. He writes a regular column for
Fiddler Magazine and he teaches
privately in the Seattle area.
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Stephen
Bennett
Stephen Bennett is an extraordinary
musician, an acknowledged master of the
harp guitar, a challenging teacher, a
gifted composer, and a performer of
astounding sensitivity. He's been called
“the Jedi Master of Fingerstyle Guitar."
Stephen has traveled the world and
performed with the best. Across the
US--California to Maine, Texas to
Tennessee--and in Europe, Canada,
Australia and Japan, Stephen has played
all sorts of venues and events. He has
released 15 CDs of recorded music, DVDs,
books and other instructional materials
- and he’s always working on something
new.
Whether playing his great-grandfather's
harp guitar, his 1930 National Steel or
a standard 6-string, Stephen Bennett is
a guitarist to hear. Since his 1987
first-place win at the National
Flatpicking Championship, he has become
known as a versatile fingerstyle and
flatpicking guitarist who consistently
garners critical praise and audience
enthusiasm for his recordings and live
performances.
See a few videos of Stephen.
Go to Stephen's home page.
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Cary
Black
Cary Black is a bassist, teacher, vocalist,
and producer who lives in Olympia,
Washington. Described by Alan Senauke
in Sing Out! magazine as “a
musician's musician,” Cary is at home in
a wide variety of musical settings.
His performance and recording credits
include work with Laurindo Almeida,
Ernestine Anderson, Tex Beneke, The Boys
of the Lough, Bob Crosby, Nokie Edwards, Dan Hicks, The Kingston
Trio, Laurie Lewis, Rose Maddox, Mollie
O'Brien, Eddie Pennington, Johnny Ray,
Kay Starr, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson,
Ernie Watts, and Claude “Fiddler”
Williams.
Cary has toured extensively, appearing
at festivals and concerts throughout
North America, Europe, and Asia. He has
made numerous radio appearances
including the Grand Ole Opry and A
Prairie Home Companion; and he has
performed on the PBS, ABC, FOX, and TNN
television networks. During the period
when Cary played and sang with Laurie
Lewis and Grant Street, the band was
awarded the Song of the Year and
Entertainers of the Year honors by the
International Bluegrass Music
Association.
Cary taught music theory and
improvisation for six years at The
Evergreen State College in Olympia, and
has taught upright bass for twenty years
at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. He
has also taught bass at the California
Coast Music Camp, Greater Yellowstone
Music Camp, Bluegrass at the Beach, B.C.
Bluegrass Workshop, Sound Acoustic Music
Camp, and Wintergrass Academy.
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David
Coe
David Coe began playing fiddle in
southern Oklahoma where he was born and
raised. The music that he was drawn to
was not the “contest” style of that
region but old time Appalachian tunes as
well as traditional Irish fiddling.
This interest led him to play in
bluegrass bands at festivals around
Oklahoma, and later in country dance
bands around Oklahoma, Texas and New
Mexico. In the late 1970s he met and
began touring with nationally-known
country artist Michael Martin Murphey
and that musical partnership continues
to this day. Together they have played
venues from Carnegie Hall to the Grand
Ole Opry with many TV shows, studio
recordings and live concerts along the
way. David concurrently pursued his
interest in Irish music, eventually
making his way to Ireland and studying
at the prestigious “Guinness School of
Musicology” (i.e. playing in pubs with
great local Irish musicians).
In the late 1980s David moved to
Nashville where he has kept up a steady
schedule of touring and recording. He
began playing with the Nashville Irish
band The Rogues in the 1990’s in
addition to doing his own regular
performances and workshops at the
Country Music Hall of Fame. David has
recorded several CD’s of fiddle music
over the years in styles ranging from
bluegrass, to Irish, to Appalachian. He
has taught private fiddle lessons for
over 20 years. He also teaches Irish
fiddle and improvisation at Texas State
University Strings Camp. David lives in
Nashville continues to share his love of
fiddle music wherever he goes.
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Julie
Davis
Julie Davis has long been at the heart
of Denver's folk music scene, so much so
that at Swallow Hill, the second largest
folk music school in the nation is now
known as the Julie Davis School of
Music.
Julie has been bringing music to
people’s lives for most of her own.
Harry Tuft, owner of the Denver Folklore
Center and the granddaddy of Denver folk
music, says that “Julie was the second
employee of the Folklore Center, and the
youngest.” At age fourteen, she and
Harry struck a deal: he’d teach her
intermediate guitar; in return, she’d
teach a beginner class for him. Over
forty years later, she’s still teaching
and making a difference through music.
Besides performing, Julie teaches
guitar, recorder, pennywhistle, flute,
autoharp, and beginning piano, and
offers group classes on guitar, singing,
storytelling, ensembles, and performing.
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Dave
Firestine
Dave
Firestine is probably best known as the jam
leader at the Carp Camp, an institution at the
Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, KS.
The Carp Camp is the center of the universe for
fiddle tune jamming, where one can hear Irish,
old-time, New England and French Canadian tunes
from the crack of noon to the wee hours of the
morning. Dave's style is eclectic,
incorporating a blend of old time and Irish
styles. He is especially fond of tunes that have
a unique twist, or sets that introduce
interesting changes of tempo or keys to perk up
the listener's ears.
Dave
plays mandolin, banjo, bouzouki, bodhran, and
guitar with three bands around Tucson, AZ: Round
the House, the Privy Tippers and The New
Potatoes. As a Roster Artist for the
Arizona Commission on the Arts, he teaches
workshops in schools. He also co-hosts the
Tucson Irish session and old time/contra dance
music session and leads jams and teaches
workshops at the Tucson Folk Festival, Sharlot
Hall Music Festival, the Dewey Dulcimer Festival
and the CTMS Summer Solstice Music Dance and
Storytelling Festival.
Go to Dave's home page.
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Mark
Johnson
Mark
Johnson is an American master of the 5-string
banjo. Highly accomplished as both a
three-finger style bluegrass player and a
clawhammer player, he has revolutionized the art
of playing clawhammer style banjo and advanced
the five-string banjo well into uncharted
territory with a style he calls “Clawgrass.”
Mark
has released four albums, the latest two with
his amazing mandolin partner, Emory Lester.
Mark’s first release, “Clawgrass,” recorded in
1994 and featuring his friends Larry, Ronny,
Tony and Wyatt Rice, was highly acclaimed in the
Bluegrass and acoustic music print and radio
media and earned him praise throughout the
acoustic music industry.
Mark's unique style doesn't really fit into a
strict category. It's very bluegrass but has
overtones of traditional folk, progressive
acoustic, newgrass and old-time all mixed into
one. It's authentic. It's unique. It's
Clawgrass.
See a few videos of Mark.
Go to Mark's home page.
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Tim May
Tim
May is one of today’s hottest flatpickers,
period. For fifteen years, he performed with
the progressive bluegrass band Crucial Smith,
playing most of the high-profile festivals in
the country including Telluride, Winfield and
Winterhawk. In 2002-2003 he toured with Patty
Loveless in support of her bluegrass albums
Mountain Soul and White Snow: A Mountain
Christmas. In 2005, he recorded on Charlie
Daniels’ album Songs from the Long Leaf Pines,
and was solo guitarist on the Grammy-nominate
track I’ll Fly Away.
Tim
has also toured with John Cowan Band, performed
at the Grand Ole Opry as a member of Mike
Snider’s Old Time String Band and recently
played on the all-star Rounder recording
Moody Bluegrass: a Nashville Tribute to the
Moody Blues, of which Mark Hurley of
Higher and Higher, the Moody Blues fan
magazine, said “The jaw-dropping guitar solo on
The Voice would cause Eddie Van Halen to
week from insecurity.”
Tim's taught at Nashville Guitar College, South
Plains College and Nashcamp, and is a national
clinician for Breedlove guitars.
Of
his playing, Pat Flynn said “Tim always says
that I influenced him, but the truth is that
I’ve learned something every time I play with
him. I owe him a lot,” and Dan Crary said
simply, “Tim May has just become one of my
favorite guitar players.”
See a
few videos of Tim.
Go to Tim's home page.
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Carol
McComb
Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and
educator Carol McComb has performed from
Carnegie Hall to the Ash Grove in Los Angeles.
At age 19, she was half of the duet Kathy and
Carol when she and Kathy Larisch signed with
Elektra Records. For eight years, she toured
with the nationally-known Gryphon Quintet as a
lead singer, songwriter, and guitar and Dobro
player. Most recently, she toured with Linda
Ronstadt in the summer of 2007. Her eighth and
most recent album, Little Bit of Heaven,
has received high critical praise.
Carol has taught private and group lessons for
Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, CA
for over 30 years, and since 1988, her popular
instruction book and tape set Country and
Blues Guitar for the Musically Hopeless has
sold more than 100,000 copies. She’s been called
a “songwriter’s songwriter” and her songs have
been recorded by Bill Staines, Laurie Lewis, the
Good Ol' Persons and 2004 Grammy winners Cathy
Fink & Marcy Marxer, among others. She’s a
co-founder and former director of the California
Coast Music Camp, and has spent thousands of
hours working with students.
Go to Carol's home page.
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Raul Reynoso
Guitarist, singer and composer Raul Reynoso was
born in Los Angeles, California. He started
playing bluegrass guitar in 1974 and soon
acquired the skills that would earn him two
California State Flatpicking Guitar
championships as well as many Western regional
titles. Today, he is most noted for his
expertise on acoustic guitar and mandolin with a
mastery of styles ranging from bluegrass and
western swing to ‘30s jazz in the tradition of
the legendary Django Reinhardt.
Raul
first rose to prominence in the band of banjo
virtuoso Larry McNeely, and his three-year stint
with the band included one recording and two
appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. The release
of Raul’s CD “Royal Street” has brought Raul
international acclaim from jazz reviewers in the
US, UK and Europe. The instrumental and
compositional skills displayed on his CD have
solidified his position as one of the world’s
greatest guitarists. Music critic Jim Hilmar
said “When it comes to guitar styles, Raul
Reynoso’s clean, lithe, articulate picking
technique is to die for.”
Along with John Jorgenson, Raul is one of the
pioneers of the Gypsy Jazz movement, and has
been nominated Instrumentalist of the Year three
times by the Western Music Association.
Raul
has taught privately for over 35 years, and has
done workshop and clinics for the last fifteen.
He is a mentor at the Booher Family Music Camp,
and has done workshops with John Jorgenson for
the JazzMasters Workshop. Raul has also
taught Bluegrass workshops with Dan Crary, John
Moore, Beppe Gambetta, and Steve Kaufman.
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Doug Smith
Doug
Smith, winner of the 2006 International
Fingerstyle Guitar Championship, weaves together
folk, classical, jazz and contemporary forms
into a unique, flowing fingerpicking style
recalling the playing of Chet Atkins, Leo Kottke,
Michael Hedges, and Alex de Grassi. Of his
playing,Billboard writes
“Inviting melodies... stunning fingerpicking”;Fingerstyle
Guitar magazine
raves “Smith's fretboard brilliance continues to
dazzle.”
He’s
been heard nationwide on radio and TV, including
The Discovery Channel, Martha Stewart Living,
CNN, TNN, ESPN, and Encore. He also played
guitar on the soundtracks for the movies Moll
Flanders, Twister,
andAugust Rush.
Doug
has released six of his own albums, and in 2005,
he earned a Grammy award for his role in the
album Henry
Mancini: Pink Guitar along
with a who’s who of fingerstyle guitarists
including Laurence Juber, Pat Donohue and Ed
Gerhard, Mark Hanson and William Coulter.
See a few videos of Doug.
Go to Doug's home page
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Radim
Zenkl
Radim Zenkl, mandolin player, composer and
instructor, plays many musical styles including
bluegrass, folk, flamenco, jazz and classical.
He has taught at a variety of music camps, with
repeat engagements totaling over 70 week-long
workshops in the last fifteen years.
Originally from the Czech Republic, Radim
emigrated to the U.S. before the fall of
communism. Shortly after settling in the San
Francisco Bay Area, he was performing at major
music festivals and sharing the stage with
artists such as Jerry Garcia & David Grisman,
Tuck & Patti, Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, the
David Grisman Quintet, the Preservation Hall
Jazz Band, Tim O'Brien, Peter Rowan, John
McCutcheon, Dan Hicks and many others.
He’s
recorded five solo CDs and appeared on many
more. Two were recorded for David Grisman's
Acoustic Disc record label, and his 1996
Shanachie Records release “String & Wings”
features improvised duets with 20 different
artists including Jerry Douglas, Bela Fleck,
David Grisman, Tony Rice and Rob Wasserman.
Winner of the 1992 U.S. National Mandolin
Championship, he’s at the cutting edge of the
mandolin’s future, performing solo concerts
worldwide, collaborating with leading artists of
the acoustic music scene and inventing new
playing techniques.
See a few videos of Radim.
Go to Radim's home page.
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