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.