Featuring:
Jennifer Armstrong
Visit Jennifer’s website (http://www.jenniferarmstrong.com/).
233 Poors Mill Road Belfast ME 04915 207-322-2265Mia Bertelli
Mia Bertelli grew up in the mountains of New Mexico, singing at every chance she could get. Her love of song led her to Vermont at the age of fifteen, where she dove into the polyphonic singing camps of Village Harmony like a penguin into the sea. Since then she has been filling kitchens, streets, concert halls, vegetable gardens, and public restrooms with song, both in the northeast and overseas. Her irrepressible inclination to harmonize and great love of playful nuance have mostly gotten her into all the right sorts of trouble, so she counts them among her blessings. (more…)
Aidan Boardman
Aidan Boardman is a musician and teacher, providing general music education at Greene Hill School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and a pursuer of songwriting and recording under the pseudonyms, anguid and Dreamt. At the first (and best) ever Maine Fiddle Camp winter edition, Aidan’s teaching focuses on right-hand technique for guitar and ear-training.Greg Boardman
Greg is the founder of Maine Fiddle Camp and has been a major inspiration for many fiddlers over the last three and a half decades throughout all of Maine. He has steered a career in folk music by playing for concerts and dances, especially by learning the regional “DownEast” fiddling style from the likes of Otto Soper and Simon St. Pierre, and by teaching music and fiddling in the Lewiston area.
Contact Greg at bowandstring @ gmail.com.Basically two changes, the Lewiston thing and more significantly for me, no more posting music online!Call it the luddite in me… : )THANK YOU Steve, for all your help with fiddle camp!Baron Collins-Hill
Baron grew up playing the mandolin in Maine and graduated from Hampshire College with a degree in music performance and ethnomusicology. Versed in traditional music, bluegrass, and jazz, he is known for his rhythmic experimentation and unique harmonic sense on both the mandolin and the tenor guitar. Baron plays with fiddler Julia Plumb in their duo Velocipede and runs MandoLessons, a website offering free online mandolin lessons.
www.velocipedemusic.com
www.mandolessons.com
www.mandobaron.comJim DiCarlo
A self-described “tune hound,” Jim DiCarlo has been playing Irish music on whistle and wooden flute for contra dances, at sessions, and in the hallways of music festivals for the past 25 years. He loves learning new tunes and has even composed a few of passable quality. A long-time member of the Maine-based, not-entirely-traditional group Wake the Neighbors, he played alongside Lissa Schneckenburger, John Cote, Jessie & Greg Boardman, Ed Howe, Anthony Shostak and Alfred Lund. (more…)
Louisa Engle
Louisa started playing violin as and eight-year-old through her public school’s strings program. In high school, she taught private violin lessons to younger students. Her music became more fiddley by the day. As a sophomore at Marlboro College, she founded a contra dance band, named “Wendy and the Lost Boys” by their admirers. The band studied with musician Keith Murphy. Louisa then hosted a monthly contra dance series that ran for four years. (more…)
Éric Favreau
Éric Favreau comes from a family of traditional musicians and has spent a great deal of time playing with other fiddlers, learning their repertoire and studying their varied styles. Éric has explored and exploited various sources including archives and personally made field recordings and has accumulated a rich and fascinating repertoire. Over the years, he has garnered a profound understanding and vast knowledge of Québécois traditional music. (more…)
Noah Fishman
Noah Fishman is a multidimensional performer, composer, and educator who bends the lines between folk, chamber, and jazz. Raised in coastal Maine, Noah studied music at Princeton and the University of Michigan, and in 2019 was selected for the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead residency at The Kennedy Center. Noah attended and volunteered at Maine Fiddle Camp for many years before joining the staff, and adores the MFC community. For more information go to noahfishmanmusic.com.
Mary Fraser
Mary Fraser began her musical life by training in classical violin for thirteen years, concluding with a Suzuki method violin teacher certification. She then left the classical music world and traveled extensively throughout the UK, immersing in the traditional music of her heritage. Carrying right on into the southern US states to study the old time fiddle styles of eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and North Carolina. (more…)
Ellen Gawler
Ellen Gawler is a celebrated fiddler, masterful in many styles, including Irish, French-Canadian, Maritime, Shetland and New England. Her fiddling possesses sparkling clarity, authentically rooted in tradition while at the same time inventive and playful. Her lively delivery of traditional fiddling has sent many a contra dance hall into whirling delight with soaring melodies and driving rhythms. (more…)
Pascal Gemme
Pascal Gemme has a degree from St-Laurent College (Montreal) in arranging and classical/jazz guitar, he has since been searching for seldom-heard songs and melodies, interpreting them in his unique and unmistakable style. Originally inspired by his fiddling grandfather, he has played with (and learned from), most of today’s great Quebecois fiddlers and singers. Since 2003, he has taught intermediate and advanced fiddle classes at Montreal’s folk music school, École des Arts de la Veillée. (more…)
Ed Howe
Born into a musical family, Ed started playing fiddle at the age of 4, learning Suzuki method. His musical interests cover a wide spectrum from Bluegrass to Celtic and beyond and he has been a regular instructor for Maine Fiddle Camp since 2003. Howe has an extensive electronics background, and took an interest in the electric violin. He plays a 5-string NS Design electronic violin and is a featured artist on the NS design artist page. (more…)
McKinley James
McKinley James is a cellist studying at New England Conservatory. After years with the Vermont Youth Orchestra, she joined the Boston Youth Symphony, and then the premier youth orchestra led by Ben Zander, the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. With the BPYO, she toured Europe twice, playing in concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonie and at the Alhambra in Spain. (more…)
Jim Joseph
Jim Joseph, from Phippsburg,ME, was actually on staff a couple years ago for the inaugural June week. That was before we had an actual accordion track, and now he is back as an accordion teacher. Jim plays button accordion in the Quebecois, New England, and Cajun styles and also plays 5 string banjo, mandolin, fiddle, percussion (foot and otherwise) and is a member of several Maine bands including, T-Acadie, Scrod Pudding, and JimmyJo and the Jumbol’ayuhs, with Fiddle Camp staffers Pam Weeks and Bill Olson. Jim plays single row Cajun accordions (built by Marc Savoy and Junior Martin) and a 2 row Saltarelle D/G box. Here are some videos of Jim in action: A Cajun song with the Jumbol’Ayuhs, and a set of Quebecois reels with T-Acadie.
Stuart Kenney
One of the most in demand upright bass, and five-string banjo players on the US contradance circuit, Stuart Kenney’s regional musical interests sweep from Southwest Louisiana to Acadia. He has a long career in many traditional music genres. His interest in Quebecois music formed through the fiddling of Lisa Ornstein, and performances by La Bottine Souriante. The inclusion of French Canadian music into the living tradition of New England contradance music caught his attention early on. (more…)
Grey Larsen
Grey Larsen has been playing anglo concertina since 1970, when he was 15 years old. He is a masterful player in the traditional Irish style, and also has a great deal to offer students who wish to use the anglo in other contexts, such as in Québecois dance music, Morris dance music, with song accompaniment, etc. In past anglo concertina workshops he has explored numerous topics with students including Irish traditional ornamentation techniques, basic fingering and alternate fingering strategies, bellows management, how to relax with the instrument, and approaches to song accompaniment. Check the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=956S53rZEz4
Glen Loper
Glen gives private lessons for mandolin and tenor banjo from his home in Portland, ME, and plays for contradances throughout the Northeast, and at festivals across the country with bands such as Frigate, Steampacket, Riptide, and Stomp Rocket. Visit Glen at www.glenloper.com.
49 Brackett St, Portland ME, 04102
Phone: 207-837-8249Elaine Malkin
Elaine Malkin has played the violin since the age of 5. She was part of the resurgence of contra dances in Maine in the early 70’s, having learned from Otto Soper and Dudley Laufman. She played New England contra dances until 2009, when she began an intensive study of Québécois fiddle with mainly Éric Favreau, but also with Lisa Ornstein, André Brunet, Yvon Mimeault, and Liette Remon. This music has completely captured her heart and she uses a traditional Québécois repertoire for contra dances, concerts, and other venues. Learning, teaching, and sharing this special music is her greatest joy.
Owen Marshall
Vogue magazine calls musician Owen Marshall “A guitar/mandolin/banjo player rivaled in character only by the occasional three-pronged carrot” (Vogue 2009). Owen has accompanied and collaborated with many of traditional music’s top performers including Aoife Clancy, Liz Carroll, Darol Anger, John Doyle, Andrea Beaton, Jerry Holland, Ari & Mia Friedman and his own traditional Irish trio “The Press Gang”. (more…)
Eric McDonald
Eric McDonald has been instructing and performing on the mandolin for a number of years. In addition to his experience in the world of traditional music, Eric spent two and a half years studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he learned from some of the best including mandolinist John McGann and cellist Eugiene Friesen. Exposure to jazz and other styles come through in his playing. Eric has spent the last three years touring with bands such as The Dave Rowe Trio, Matching Orange, Jaded Mandolin and others. You can hear him on many independent recordings by Boston based artists, and you can catch him teaching at the Passim School of Music in Cambridge.
Nina Miller
Nina began her love affair with the ukulele at the tender age of 8, after her parents went to Hawaii and brought back a sweet little soprano with painted Hula dancers. One night, after months of plucking and strumming, her brother stepped on that Hula gem, thus ending the happiest period of her life. Four decades later, on a whim (and to spite her brother), she picked it up again and started The FLUKES (Falmouth Library Ukulele Society) and has been blissfully plucking, strumming and singing once again, along with 30 of her new best friends. When not parading around with ukulele in hand, Nina can be found tooting her own French horn in the Portland Symphony Orchestra. You can reach Nina at: ukuleles4me@aol.com or 207-774-0717
Helen Newell
Helen Newell started playing violin at the age of three, and has spent every year of her life at Maine Fiddle Camp, including in utero! Helen grew up playing both folk and classical fiddle, performing in notable orchestras and chamber groups, as well as playing gigs and contra dances with the Newell Family Band and her contra dance band, Volution. Helen is currently attending Berklee College of Music, studying jazz, folk, and classical violin. Helen also has a private violin studio and is also a personal trainer and nutrition coach.
Kaity Newell
Kaity teaches fiddle in Damariscotta and has played for dances for many years with The Maine Country Dance Orchestra, and with the band The Lady Bugs. A native of Great Britain, Kaity has brought many a fine tune from the British Isles to our local dances. Kaity also plays viola in the local community orchestra and has four children, all of whom play music and come to camp every year.
7 Creek Lane Damariscotta ME 044543 207-563-8440Bill Olson
Bill Olson teaches both guitar and upright bass at Maine Fiddle Camp. He is probably best known at home and abroad as a contradance caller and choreographer. Bill has played and called for dances in 25 states and his dance compositions, known for their high potential energy and excellent flow, and are called by contradance callers all over the world. Bill started playing guitar in 1958, dancing in 1976, calling in 1985, and playing bass in 1993. He has been singing all his life.
Gordon Peery
Gordon Peery started playing contra dance piano in the late 1970’s He was fortunate to be in the neighborhood of Bob McQuillen, who was an inspiration and mentor. Though Gordon quickly evolved his own style of playing, he was permanently influenced by Bob’s commitment to providing a solid bass line for dances. Gordon was the piano player for the band Fresh Fish, (with fiddler Kerry Elkin), which became a nationally prominent contra dance band. They toured the country extensively between 1985 and 1995, and produced a recording, “Turning of the Tide”. (more…)
Julia Plumb
Julia lives in Belfast, Maine where she plays music, grows a yard full of spring bulbs and miniature fruit trees, and teaches fifth grade at Captain Albert Stevens School. Julia has always loved the percussive interplay between traditional music and dance forms and has enjoyed soaking up bits and pieces from players and dancers throughout New England and in Québec, Ireland, Brittany, and the southern Appalachians. Julia performs with Baron Collins-Hill in their duo Velocipede (www.velocipedemusic.com). In addition to teaching at Maine Fiddle Camp, Julia hosts freefiddlelessons.com, a site with YouTube fiddle lesson videos and learning materials.
Doug Protsik
Doug likes to play the “old-time piano” for dances, melodramas, honky tonk saloons, and silent movies. He learned his style from Otto Soper, Geneva Walton, and Danny Patt among many others. He plays with Old Grey Goose and produced all three of their recordings, including the group’s first recording in 1978 for Folkways, “Old Time Country Dance Tunes and Songs from Maine”, now available again on CD. Doug also plays piano, accordion, and fiddle. He is the Camp Director again this year.
116 Pleasant Cove Dr. Woolwich ME 04579 207-522-3800Sharon Pyne
Sharon has been a student of tin whistle and wooden flute since 1977 when she attended the Willy Clancy Summer School while working in Ireland for the year. On her return to Boston to care for her grandmother, she studied with master flute players in the Hanafin /Cooley Comhalthus branch. She move to Maine to raise her children and became a member of the Portland Ceili Band and Ladies of the Lake. She runs a music studio in Bath, Maine where she teaches flute and whistle and Music Together. For a few months every year since 2000, she happily lives and breathes Maine Fiddle alongside director Doug Protsik. Sharon can be contacted at sharonpynemusic@gmail.com or 207-522-3900.
Kenny Raskin
Kenny first picked up a ukulele at age 8, when a family friend bought him one. Now 50 plus years later, he’s not half bad! He’s got a menagerie of them, from soprano to baritone, and plays a variety of styles, swing music being his favorite. He taught an afternoon workshop in 2016 and Doug spied on him. He must have liked what he saw, because lo and behold, he put him on the staff! Kenny has been an actor and physical comedian for 35 years, and has performed internationally, as well as on Broadway. He also starred as the lead clown in Cirque du Soleil’s Nouvelle Experience. He, his wife Joanna and their son Evan are perennial campers at August week 1.
Alden Robinson
Alden Robinson learned to play the fiddle as a child growing up in coastal Maine. His earliest lessons came from Tamora Goltz, Katie Newell, and from the teachers at Maine Fiddle Camp. In college, he studied Irish fiddle in Ireland at University College Cork, and in several pubs.
For the past five years or so he has toured and recorded with The Press Gang, an Irish trad band from Portland. (more…)
Maggie Robinson
Maggie Robinson has been teaching fiddle since 2003. She began taking fiddle lessons the age of 10 and became concert mistress of her school orchestra during her senior year. Many years later she discovered Contradancing and fell in love with the music She took the violin out of the closet and began learning fiddle tunes. She completed a course in 2003 at the Hartt College of Music, Theater, & Dance on “Teaching Fiddling”.
Currently she is teaching at several locations in greater Portland, and also regularly calls for contra dances around the state.
David Stimson
David Stimson began backing up country dance music on the guitar in 1965 at the age of eleven. During several summers the 1960s he attended Pinewoods cape with his family while his stepfather, Bob Guillard, taught Morris Dancing and English Country Dance. David’s was first exposed to Contra Dance during the evening dances at Pinewoods; however, the disease remained latent until he learned English Concertina and joined the Woods Hole Folk Orchestra in1979. (more…)
Ken Sweeney
Ken has been drawn to old and traditional songs and tunes since childhood. Playing harmonica since age 18, five-string banjo following a few years later, along with guitar and finally acquiring an English concertina a decade later – the object of interest that started it all – he has been actively playing and performing one thing or another since 1970.
Travelling extensively by thumb, boxcar, motorcycle, and homemade canoe since the age of thirteen (and still at it) and living in numerous rustic and out-of-the-way places has given Ken a unique understanding of the lifestyles of which he sings, and a first-hand sense of the regional and cultural nuances in the tunes he plays. (more…)
Emily Troll
Emily Troll plays fiddle and accordion and currently hails from South Portland, ME. An avid lover of French-Canadian and Old-time traditions, she’s spent many years at Pinewoods and Maine Fiddle camp honing her skills as informally as possible. You’ll often see Emily playing with her all-girl band, Anadama. When she’s not playing, she’s probably dancing. When she’s not dancing, she’s probably pulling up bittersweet roots from her garden.
Bethany Waickman
Bethany Waickman is a guitarist based out of Portland, Maine. She grew up in a musical family in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York state. After college she spent some time traveling, hiking, and playing music in Ireland. Upon returning, she moved to Boston to focus on music. She co-founded the contra dance trio, Anadama, and is the guitarist for VT-based fiddler/singer Lissa Schneckenburger. (more…)
Pam Weeks
Pam sings and plays several instruments in the folk trio, T-Acadie, is fiddler and singer for the Maine-based Cajun dance band, Jimmyjo & the Jumbol’Ayuhs, plays fiddle and mountain dulcimer in the contradance band, Scrod Pudding, and performs solo or with guitar player and caller Bill Olson. She is an accomplished tunesmith and has composed scores of tunes, from lively jigs and reels, to entrancing airs and beautiful waltzes.