IRA BERNSTEIN
Ira Bernstein has been performing traditional Appalachian clogging and flatfooting for thirty years, and he has been a member of the Mill Creek Cloggers (PA), the Fiddle Puppets (MD), and the Vanaver Caravan (NY). Since 1984, he has toured internationally as a full-time solo dance performer. His performances and workshops have taken him to nineteen countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Noted for his attention to stylistic detail, clarity of sound, and musicality, he has won first place at both the Mt. Airy Fiddlers’ Convention and the Appalachian Stringband Festival at Clifftop, West Virginia numerous times. Ira has produced a flatfooting instructional video and a clogging and flatfooting instructional manual, and he also plays old-time fiddle. He currently performs with Riley Baugus as Appalachian Roots www.irabernstein.com

RODNEY SUTTON
Rodney has a passion for sharing his love of traditional Appalachian step-dancing with everyone, even those who are not sure that they can learn to dance! He is a traditional dancer, caller, musician, storyteller, a veteran of the early days of the Green Grass Cloggers, and co-founder of the Fiddle Puppets. Over the years, he has traveled all across the U.S. and in the British Isles, performing and teaching clogging, and calling square and contra dances. He has been on staff at numerous music and dance weeks including Pinewoods, Augusta, and Ashokan. As a member of the state’s Visiting Artist Program, he taught traditional dance in dozens of schools throughout western North Carolina. Rodney Sutton stays active as traditional dancer, caller, musician, and storyteller. He continues to promote and share his love of old-time music and dance by producing the Bluff Mountain Festival each June in Hot Springs for the Madison County Arts Council and by serving on Asheville’s Folk Heritage Committee, which produces Shindig on the Green and the Mountain Music and Dance Festival.

MEREDITH McINTOSH
With a degree in music education and a great love for old-time music, Meredith is known as a patient and enthusiastic teacher. She plays fiddle, guitar, bass, flute and piano. Over the years she has performed with Ida Red, the Heartbeats, Balfa Toujours, The Rockinghams and the New Southern Ramblers, and has been a part of the Swannanoa Gathering since its inception. She lives in Asheville, NC where she is a certified massage therapist and teacher of the Alexander Technique.

CAROL ELIZABETH JONES
Carol Elizabeth Jones has made her mark as a singer of traditional mountain music and as a writer of new songs in the traditional style. As a member of the Wildcats and the Wandering Ramblers, she made memorable recordings that combined well-honed vocals with sharp-edged string band music. She has also recorded with James Leva, Ginny Hawker, Hazel Dickens, and Laurel Bliss. Carol Elizabeth can be heard on A Prairie Home Companion as a member of the Hopeful Gospel Quartet with Garrison Keillor and Robin and Linda Williams. Originally from Berea, Kentucky, she now lives in Lexington, VA where she is the Children’s Librarian at the Public Library.

CARL JONES
Carl Jones has been involved in the old-time music community ever since he first attended fiddlers’ conventions in Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia back in the 70’s. As a student in the commercial music program at the University of North Alabama, he was able to hear many great songwriters in the famous Muscle Shoals Studios. He later toured with Norman and Nancy Blake and James Bryan as a member of the Rising Fawn String Ensemble, and now often plays at home and abroad as part of a duo with Beverly Smith. Known for a humorous and enthusiastic, light-hearted approach, Carl has taught at many music camps around the country including Swannanoa, Pinewoods, Ashoken and Mars Hill. His songs have been recorded by the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Rickie Simpkins, Little Windows, and a growing list of others. A self-described “confusion enhancement specialist,” he considers it a real honor and treat to be part of your camp experience.

DENISA RULLMOSS
Denisa (known as “The Queen” to kids everywhere) will once again bring her exuberant, creative energies to the Gathering. She is a multi-talented and innovative organizer who has managed to retain a child’s viewpoint on the world while remaining a fully-functioning adult! In addition to being the homeschooling mother of two teens, and part-time nanny to toddlers, Denisa is the Coordinator for the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF) Kid’s Village. With shaving cream, parachutes and donuts being tools of her trade, she also provides wild & wacky games and activities for families and kids at LEAF. Her past accomplishments include co-founding the newspaper Mothertongue: A Progressive Parenting Source; Panther Paws, a public school newspaper for and by kids (funded by a grant from the Asheville City Schools Foundation), Kindred Kids, the Mothertongue paper for kids, and the newsletter HOME (Homeschooling Opens Minds Everyday). As a kid’s crafts & games specialist Denisa is excited to bring her silly songs, cool crafts and good times to the Gathering for the 13th year, as she teaches and coordinates the Children’s Program during Sing & Swing/Dulcimer, Celtic, Old-Time and Fiddle Weeks.

GUEST MASTER ARTISTS

LEE SEXTON
Lee Sexton was born in 1928 in Linefork, KY. He and his wife, Opal, still live in Linefork about one hundred yards from his homeplace. He started playing banjo as soon as he was old enough to hold the instrument, and quit school after the eighth grade in order to earn his own way, first by playing music and then in the coal mines. His playing was featured in the square dance scene in the film, Coal Miner’s Daughter. David Holt calls Lee “one of the finest traditional old-time banjo players in the country.” Lee will be accompanied by Rich Kirby of Kentucky’s Appalshop.

BOBBY McMILLON
The youngest recipient of the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award, Bobby McMillon is a walking encyclopedia of all things Appalachian. From his father’s family in Cocke County, Tennessee, he learned Primitive Baptist hymns and traditional stories and ballads. From his mother’s people in Yancy and Mitchell Counties, North Carolina, he heard “booger tales, haint tales,” and murder legends. Growing up in Caldwell County, he went to school with relatives of Tom Dula, learned their family stories, and heard ballads, gospel songs, and Carter family recordings. He has performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the A. P. Carter Memorial Festival, and the National Storytelling Festival, and his ballad singing was featured in the film, Songcatcher.

BENTON FLIPPEN
Born in 1920, and raised in Surry County, North Carolina, Benton started playing two-finger style banjo in his early teens and then fiddle when he was about eighteen. Influenced by local fiddlers Esker Hutchins and Tommy Jarrell, as well as Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith on the radio, Benton developed his own distinctive style which includes unique slides on the fingerboard. Benton and his band, the Smoky Mountain Boys, won numerous ribbons at old-time fiddlers’ conventions from Union Grove to Mt. Airy to Galax throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Best known for his driving square dance tunes and breakdowns, he continues to play local dances regularly throughout the Mt. Airy region. A recipient of the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award, he has performed at the National Folk Festival, on National Public Radio’s Folkmasters, and at countless music festivals nationwide.

THOMAS MAUPIN
Thomas Maupin describes himself as a “self-taught buckdancer with a flatfoot style.” Growing up in central Tennessee, he was exposed to dance at an early age at a Saturday night hoedowns and barn dances. Thomas has performed at the Museum of Appalachia’s Fall Homecoming and Uncle Dave Macon Days in Tennessee, and he has won the senior flatfooting competition at the Appalachian String Band Festival in West Virginia.