| Fall
Newsletter - Nov. 2007 - Recap of Last Summer
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Dear
Friends,
Welcome to this year’s edition of our newsletter, the Postcard
from Swannanoa. It’s been one of the warmest and driest
seasons on record here in the mountains and even though the temperatures
are still fairly balmy, the trees have finally started to turn color
and we’ve had a few days of rain. We’re now entering our
17th season, and the Gathering continues to grow and
evolve. For next summer we have a brand-new program and several new
coordinators, a few programs shifted around in the calendar, and continued
refinement in some of our long-standing and popular programs. You can
read more about it in the Coming Next Summer
section elsewhere in this newsletter. Several of this year’s staff
faced health challenges and were unable to attend. Sean Regan
and Mark Stone continue to improve, and Jerry
Holland continues his struggle with cancer. We wish them all
well, and hope to see them in our mountains again soon.
Our Celtic Series, a part of the Mainstage Concerts
at Asheville’s Diana Wortham Theatre, continues to showcase many
of the world’s finest Celtic acts and last year featured concerts
by such artists as Celtic acts as Solas, Martin
Hayes & Dennis Cahill, Dervish, and Back
of the Moon. See
the P.S. section
for details on next spring’s Celtic Series.
Our eclectic dance/vocal/instrumental program, Sing & Swing
Week, paired with Dulcimer Week and the college’s
growing Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts, kicked things
off again with a great group of musicians and dancers featuring communal
singing, dance and instrumental classes and a children’s program,
all developed and coordinated by singing teacher and performer Elise
Witt. The staff included vocal leaders Moira Smiley,
Peggy Seeger, David Roth, Velma
Frye, and Leah & Chloe Smith (Rising
Appalachia), dance instructors Masankho Banda,
Abby Ladin, Cis Hinkle, Leah
Smith & Jesse Edgerton and dance musicians
Mick Kinney, Jeff Hersk, Maurice
Turner, Sam Bartlett and Bruce Lang,
with juggler & accordionist Rodger French, special
guest musician Eric Byrd and T’ai Chi/Qi Gong
instructor Cate Morrill. Denisa Rullmoss
again offered a program for children during Sing & Swing,
Celtic, Old-Time and Fiddle
Weeks.
Dulcimer
Week’s usual top-flight staff included hammered dulcimer
masters Jody Marshall, Guy George,
Ken Kolodner, Bill Troxler and Joe
Holbert. The mountain dulcimer staff was led by week coordinator
Lois Hornbostel, and included Neal Hellman,
Stephen Seifert, Rob Brereton, and
Wayne Seymour. This year’s guest artists included
banjo wizard Akira Satake, and that master of exotic
instruments, Ken Bloom.
Celtic Week featured a number of new faces this year,
including fiddlers Gerry O’Connor, Jamie
Laval and Pete Clark, singers Seán
Keane and Aoife Clancy, ex-Lúnasa guitarist
Donogh Hennessy, guitar/banjo player Eamon
O’Leary, accordionist Patty Furlong
and Scottish dancer John Sikorski. Stephanie
Johnston did a great job filling in on bodhran for an ailing
Mark Stone and returning staff included fiddlers Séamus
Connolly & Liz Knowles, uilleann piper
Kieran O’Hare, Scottish singers and folklorists
Margaret Bennett, and Jack Beck, flute
player Kevin Crawford, concertina/harper Grainne
Hambly, harper Billy Jackson, anything-with-frets
wizard Robin Bullock, and tinwhistle player Kathleen
Conneely, who brought along her father Michael,
a wonderful whistle and fiddle player. John Skelton
continued to do a sterling job keeping the program running smoothly
as Celtic Week Host, and Scottish fiddle champ Jane MacMorran
offered a fiddle class for complete beginners, an intro to Celtic fiddle
for advanced beginners and a class in fiddle technique for all levels.
Old-Time Music & Dance Week was our biggest program
this year and featured a nice mix of old and new staff including the
New Southern Ramblers John Herrmann, Gordy
Hinners, and Old-Time Week coordinator Phil Jamison,
fiddlers Brad Leftwich, Jim Cauthen,
Tom Sauber, Cecil Gurganus and Matt
Brown, ballad singer Sheila Kay Adams, singers
Alice Gerrard, Jim Miller, Carol
Elizabeth Jones, Beverly Smith and Carl
Jones, folklorist and shape-note singer Ron Pen,
autoharpist Laura Boosinger, cloggers Rodney
Sutton and Andy Edmonstone, banjo ace Adam
Hurt, Wayne Erbsen, Ellie Grace,
Don Pedi on dulcimer and Meredith McIntosh
teaching bass. This year’s Guest Master Artists were Robert
Dotson, The Whitetop Mountain Band, and Joe
Thompson with The Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Contemporary Folk Week re-focused on the needs of today’s
singer/songwriters and featured a number of new faces and class subjects.
The staff was perhaps the program’s strongest ever and the amazing
lineup included Ellis Paul, Christine Kane,
Brooks Williams, Kate Campbell, Cliff
Eberhardt, Tom Kimmel, Billy Jonas,
Andrea Stolpe, Alan Rowoth, Siobhan
Quinn, and Ray Chesna, with special sessions
on Alexander Technique taught by Meredith McIntosh,
entertainment law taught by Bob Hicks, a partial-capo
workshop by Randall Williams & David Wilcox,
a film on the current state of the recording industry and a special
performance by folk legend, Tom Paxton. The concert
also featured a special reunion, after 20 years, of Hot Shandy,
consisting of Rick Bouley and Gathering Director Jim
Magill.
Guitar Week continued its steady growth with classes
in a variety of guitar styles as well as banjo, mandolin and dobro.
Coordinator Al Petteway once again outdid himself with
a dazzling staff that included master fingerstylists Pat Donohue,
Pat Kirtley, Stephen Bennett, Rolly
Brown, Todd Hallawell, and the percussive
pyrothechnics of Vicki Genfan, veteran blues players
Paul Asbell and Andy Cohen, flatpicker
extraordinaire Robin Kessinger, bluegrass player Ed
Dodson, Celtic fingerstylists Steve Baughman,
Tony McManus and Robin Bullock, Grammy-winning
dobro player Sally Van Meter, and slack-key guitarist
Patrick Landeza. The week also featured demonstrations
from instrument repairman Randy Hughes and was highlighted
by daily displays of the guitars of master luthiers Michael
Bashkin, Gerald
Sheppard and John
Slobod, along with selected inventory from Dream
Guitars,
a local shop specializing in high-end instruments.
Fiddle Week‘s third year added a number of new
classes in various Canadian styles to the regular lineup of swing, bluegrass,
Irish, old-time, and Scottish fiddle as well as a Children’s Program.
The staff consisted of such fiddle greats as bluegrass legend Richard
Greene, swing players Matt Glaser & Randy
Sabien, Irish fiddler John Daly, old-timer
Alan Jabbour, multiple title-holders Daniel
Carwile and Canadian April Verch, Quebecois
fiddler Éric Favreau, cellist Abby Newton,
and Scottish/jazz player Jeremy Kittel. Jamie
Laval pitched in to teach Cape Breton fiddle for Jerry
Holland who continues to battle cancer, Ashley Broder
taught technique and a class for beginners, and guitarists Al
Petteway and Roger Bellow were on hand to
teach various accompaniment styles.
Check
out the Coming Next Summer
section
below for a sneak preview
of the 2008 lineup.
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