PHIL JAMISON
Founding coordinator of Old-Time Music & Dance Week, Phil is nationally-known as a dance caller, musician, and flatfoot dancer. Since the early 1970s he has been calling dances and performing and teaching at music festivals and dance events throughout the U.S. and overseas, including thirty years as a member of the Green Grass Cloggers. His flatfoot dancing was featured in the film, Songcatcher, for which he also served as Traditional Dance consultant. From 1982 through 2004, he toured and played guitar with Ralph Blizard and the New Southern Ramblers. He also plays fiddle and banjo. He has done extensive research in the area of Appalachian dance, and has published many articles on traditional dance in The Old-Time Herald. Phil teaches mathematics and Appalachian music at Warren Wilson College, where he has also hosted Dare to be Square!, a weekend workshop for square dance callers. In 2008, Phil became the twelfth recipient of the Gathering’s Master Music Maker Award for lifetime achievement.
www.myspace.com/newsouthernramblers

BRUCE GREENE
Bruce Greene is best known for preserving and playing the fiddle music of Kentucky. As a young man, he traveled throughout the state collecting and learning from the last generation of traditional fiddlers there, some born as far back as the 1880s. Bruce apprenticed with a number of older fiddlers including Hiram Stamper, the family of John Salyer, Manon Campbell, Gusty Wallace, and Jim Bowles, learning their archaic repertoires and bowing techniques. Since the late 1970s, Bruce has lived in western North Carolina with his family, where he has continued to learn from local traditional musicians. He has taught at Swannanoa, Augusta, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, and Mars Hill, and he has been invited as a master fiddler to numerous other events. In addition to fiddling, Bruce has studied banjo with the Helton family of eastern Kentucky, and he sings with his partner, Loy McWhirter. www.brucegreene.net

RAFE STEFANINI
Rafe was born and raised in Italy where he performed with his brothers in the old-time band, the Moonshine Brothers. His passion for old-time music led him to visit the US for seven summers before moving here in 1983. Since then, he has established himself as a dynamic and skillful interpreter of traditional mountain music on fiddle, banjo, and guitar, winning numerous ribbons on all three instruments. He has performed and recorded with the premier old-time bands, The Wildcats with Carol Elizabeth Jones, Big Hoedown with Bruce Molsky and Beverly Smith, and the Rockinghams with Beverly, John Herrmann, and Meredith McIntosh. In 1999 Rafe’s first solo recording, Hell and Scissors, was voted Best of 1999 by The Roanoke Times, received favorable reviews nationwide, and was one of the top ten titles sold by County Records. Rafe currently performs as a duo with his daughter, Clelia Stefanini. www.rafestefanini.com

ERYNN MARSHALL
Erynn Marshall has played fiddle for over twenty-five years. Several of these were spent in West Virginia where she conducted fieldwork visiting older fiddlers and singers and later completed an Appalachian Fellowship at Berea College in Kentucky. Erynn has written a book, Music in the Air Somewhere: The Shifting Borders of West Virginia’s Fiddle and Song Traditions, and recorded three CDs: Calico, Meet Me in the Music and a new recording called Shout Monah with The Haints old-time stringband. In 2008, she was the first person from outside of the US and the first female to win the Appalachian Stringband Festival (Clifftop). Erynn continues to teach at many festivals and camps across North America including the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, North Atlantic Fiddle Convention, Augusta’s Old-Time Week, Midwest Banjo Camp, and others. Whether solo or teamed up with the Haints, Erynn radiates a love of fiddling that is deep and sincere. She is glad to be returning to Swannanoa in 2010. www.hickoryjack.com

PAUL KOVAC
Singer, multi-instrumentalist, and scholar of American country music, Paul Kovac has been playing old-time and bluegrass music on guitar, mandolin, and banjo since he was a teen. Over the years, he has performed with a long list of musicians, including old-time with Dirk Powell and Rick Good, and bluegrass with Bill Monroe and Hazel Dickens. He has accompanied fiddlers Chubby Wise, Art Stamper, and Vassar Clements, and played dance music with Critton Hollow String Band and the Fiddle Puppets. In 1993, Paul wrote and produced the instructional DVD, Learn to Play Guitar with Roy Clark and Paul Kovac. He has been on staff at numerous music and dance camps, and he coordinated the Bluegrass Week at the Augusta Heritage Center from 1996 to 2007. When not playing music, Paul grows Christmas trees and blueberries and makes maple syrup on his farm in Chardon, Ohio.

JOHN HERRMANN
John has been traveling the world playing old-time music for over thirty years. He plays fiddle with the New Southern Ramblers, but he has performed with many bands including the Henrie Brothers (1st place Galax, 1976), Critton Hollow, the Wandering Ramblers, One-Eyed Dog and the Rockinghams. Equally adept on banjo, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and bass, he is known as the “Father of Old-Time Music” in Japan(!), and the originator of the ‘slow jam.’ John has been on staff at numerous music camps from coast to coast. He lives in Asheville, NC. www.myspace.com/newsouthernramblers

DAVE LEDDEL
Dave Leddel started playing banjo in junior high school and bluegrass and old-time fiddle in high school. At that time he performed in coffee houses, bars, and at the local USO. By the 1970s, he was playing fiddle for monthly contradances and leading open-mic dance bands. Since moving to Seattle in 1988, Dave has been recognized as one of the Northwest’s most versatile banjo players. He has taught at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, performed at California’s Summer Solstice Festival, and placed in the Senior Banjo contest at West Virginia’s Appalachian Stringband Festival (Clifftop). Over the last nine years, Dave has assisted during Old-Time Week in banjo, fiddle, guitar, and string band classes, and in 2008, he initiated Young Old-Time, a staff-guided jam for teenagers, which he leads each evening during the week.

JOHN HOLLANDSWORTH
A native of Christiansburg in southwest Virginia, John grew up listening to friends and relatives play stringed instruments, and he developed his own autoharp style incorporating both chromatic and diatonic techniques. John has performed and led workshops at the Mountain Laurel Autoharp Gathering, the Willamette Valley Autoharp Gathering, Sore Fingers Summer School, Augusta, the John C. Campbell Folk School, and elsewhere. John has served as editor of the “Interaction Lesson” feature in Autoharp Quarterly magazine, and in 1991, he became the first champion of the prestigious Mountain Laurel Autoharp Gathering Competition. In his native region, where there are many local fiddlers’ conventions, John is well-known for his autoharp playing. He has been named the “Best All-Around Performer” of the Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention three times, being the only autoharp player ever to win this recognition. www.blueridgeautoharps.com

MAC & JENNY TRAYNHAM
Mac and Jenny Traynham are a husband and wife duo who live in Floyd County in the Blue Ridge of southwest Virginia. They are known both locally and nationally for their brand of mountain music that features old-time country duet singing – inspired by the country music of the 1930s – along with solid instrumental back-up. Mac, a prize-winning multi-instrumentalist, is known primarily for his traditional style of clawhammer banjo playing, as well as his keen sense of rhythm and timing that influences not just how he plays banjo, but guitar, fiddle, and harmonica as well. Jenny’s guitar playing provides a solid backup to Mac’s lead playing. Flatfoot dancers, as well as fans of traditional old-time and bluegrass, appreciate their spirited and lively dance music, however, they also have a broad repertoire that includes solo ballads, humorous songs, waltzes, and gospel duets. Mac and Jenny often perform as a stringband trio with fiddler, Shay Garriock. www.macandjenny.blogspot.com