BUDDY SPICHER
Buddy Spicher is an accomplished, genre-bending swing, country and bluegrass fiddle player, well known as a Nashville session musician. At a young age, he was performing on The Grand Ole Opry, and began touring in the late 1950s with Audrey Williams and later with Hank Snow. He has been a member of the bluegrass band, The Charles River Valley Boys, the swing band, Asleep at the Wheel, and Area Code 615, the Grammy-winning progressive country outfit formed out of Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline recording sessions. In an illustrious recording career, he has lent his talents to more than 3,000 recordings, and in 2008, he was honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame as a featured artist in their Nashville Cats: A Celebration of Music City Musicians series. In order to take the pure swing sound his audience loves into a variety of genres, Buddy formed his own group, The Nashville Swing Band, and he continues to inspire and educate musicians through teaching at camps, colleges and seminars and at his own studio The Fiddle House in Nashville.

LAURIE LEWIS
Laurie Lewis has long been a key figure in bluegrass, traditional country, and folk music circles. She was a founding member of the west coast bluegrass group the Good Ol’ Persons in the mid ’70s, and of the Grant Street String Band in the ’80s, a member of the bluegrass all-woman supergroup Blue Rose, and sang in The Bluebirds with Linda Ronstadt and Maria Muldaur. Laurie is highly regarded as a singer (twice voted International Bluegrass Music Association’s “Female Vocalist of the Year”), duet partner (she has recorded wonderful duet albums with fellow Good Ol’ Person Kathy Kallick and long-time bandmate Tom Rozum); and instrumentalist (she is a renowned fiddler, and a solid rhythm guitarist and bassist). Her instinctive feel for the lyric content of bluegrass, country, and folk material is a major reason for her popularity among lovers of traditional repertoire. A dedicated and enthusiastic teacher, Laurie was coordinator of Bluegrass Week at the Augusta Heritage Workshops in Elkins, VW for over ten years, teaching fiddle, vocals, harmony singing, and ensemble playing. She has taught at Centrum Foundation’s Voiceworks and the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, WA; Telluride Academy; British Columbia Bluegrass Camp, Wintergrass Academy, Camp HeHoHA in Alberta, Canada; Rocky Grass Academy; and for 15 years, she has been the coordinator and an instructor at Bluegrass At The Beach in Nehalem Bay, OR, and for 25 years at numerous other vocal and harmony singing workshops throughout the US and Canada. www.laurielewis.com.

JOE CRAVEN
Creativity educator, former museum curator, visual artist, actor/storyteller, festival emcee and recipient of the 2009 Folk Alliance Far-West Performer of the Year, Joe has made music with many folks ranging from jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli to Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, and from The Persuasions to The Horseflies. Always looking for the next expression and object to make music with, he is a musical madman with anything that has strings attached; violin, mandolin, tin can, bedpan, cookie tin, tenor guitar/banjo, mouth bow, canjoe, cuatro, berimbau, balalaika, boot ‘n lace and double-necked whatever. Joe has created music and sound effects for commercials, soundtracks, computer games and contributions to several Grammy-nominated projects. He performed at Carnegie Hall with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O’Connor as part of Stephane Grappelli’s 80th birthday concert. Joe has presented at numerous schools, universities and the American String Teacher’s Association, and is the Artistic Director of The American River Music Camp. No matter who he’s connecting with; a community workshop in Costa Rica, a university lecture demonstration in Washington, or on stage in front of thousands of school kids in Scotland, he’s at home and loving every minute. ‘Everything Joe touches turns to music,’ says mandolinist David Grisman, who Joe played with for almost 17 years. www.joecraven.com

RUTHIE DORNFELD
Ruthie Dornfeld is an eclectic fiddler, fluent in a wide range of styles from old-time to Irish, Scandinavian to Eastern European. She has been performing and teaching for over thirty years throughout the US and abroad. From classical violin, Ruthie made the leap to fiddle at age 18 and has been exploring that vast world ever since. Ruthie spent 15 years in New England where she was a mainstay of the thriving contra dance scene, played with the twin-fiddle stringband The Poodles, the Hungarian stringband The Pulis, and formed The American Cafe Orchestra with Danish guitarist Morten Alfred Høirup. Frequent trips to Scandinavia led to continuing musical collaborations with musicians in Denmark, Finland, France and Hungary. Now based in Seattle, Ruthie continues her overseas collaborations and fiddles locally for dances and with French cabaret band, Rouge, and medieval music duo Cinnamon Bird. Ruthie has an active teaching studio and has taught at numerous camps including the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Augusta, Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp, Sibelius Academy (Finland) and Carl Nielsen Academy of Music (Denmark). www.ruthiedornfeld.com

BARBARA LAMB
Growing up in the Pacific northwest, Barbara Lamb learned her fiddling chops by playing for square dances and Scandinavian dances. She started teaching American-style fiddling when she was fourteen, and her first student was an eleven-year-old Mark O’Connor. With Kenny Baker and Byron Berline as her bluegrass fiddling heroes, she began playing bluegrass when she was fifteen, and eventually, in 1994, she moved to Nashville, where she played with John Cowan, Scott Vestal, Peter Rowan, Tony Trischka, Kathy Chiavola, Continental Divide and many more well-known bluegrass folks. She toured for twelve months as a fiddler with Asleep at the Wheel, and was a member of the genre-hopping swing band, Ranch Romance for seven years. She has recorded five solo CDs, including two for Sugar Hill Records, and works in Nashville as a freelance session player and producer. www.barbaralamb.com

LISSA SCHNECKENBURGER
Raised in a small town in Maine and now living in Vermont, Lissa began playing fiddle at the age of six, inspired by her mother’s interest in folk music and a family friend who was a professional violinist. Soon she was studying with influential Maine fiddler Greg Boardman and sitting in with the Maine Country Dance Orchestra. By the time she was in high school she was playing concerts on her own, specializing in the sprightly New England dance tunes that combine influences from the British Isles and Quebec with homegrown twists that have been evolving since Colonial days. She graduated in 2001 from the New England Conservatory of Music with a degree in contemporary improvisation, and since then has been performing around the US and internationally for a growing audience of enthusiastic listeners. She has recorded seven CDs (four solo and three with various groups), including her latest project, a pair of CDs dedicated to reintroducing some wonderful but largely forgotten songs and tunes from New England that she uncovered through archival research at the University of Maine and elsewhere. Song contains ten timeless ballads that go back as far as the eighteenth century that she set to carefully-crafted modern arrangements, while Dance features older fiddle tunes. Whether playing for a folk club audience or a hall full of dancers, Lissa brings to the stage enthusiasm, energy, and the bright future of New England’s musical traditions. www.lissafiddle.com

EMILY SCHAAD
Emily plays fiddle and banjo for contra and square dances around the Hudson Valley of New York State and in western North Carolina. She performs solo and with several stringbands, including The Bailers, first-place winners at the Appalachian Stringband Music Festival in Clifftop, WV. As part of the Appalachian studies program at Appalachian State University, Emily had the opportunity to learn fiddle and banjo from Clyde Davenport, Benton Flippen, and Joe Thompson. She is executive director of Stringendo Inc., a non-profit community orchestra school, and Strawberry Hill Fiddlers, a program that introduces teenage string players to a wide array of traditional fiddling styles. www.myspace.com/emilyschaad

PATRICK OURCEAU
Patrick Ourceau has been playing Irish music since his early teens. Born and raised in France, Patrick moved to the U.S. in 1989, lived for seventeen years in New York City and now lives in Toronto. Patrick’s taste for Clare and East Galway music developed early in his playing after being introduced to recordings of the legendary fiddle players Paddy Canny, Bobby Casey and Paddy Fahey, and he still regularly visits Clare, where he learns from many local musicians. During his years in New York, Patrick often played with legendary fiddlers Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds, and Galway flute player Jack Coen. Patrick has toured all over North America and Europe in a variety of duets, trios and bands, most notably with Clare concertina player Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin; Tulla accordion player Andrew Mac Namara and with the legendary Tulla Ceili band. Patrick is a member of the trio Chulrua, with accordion player Paddy O’Brien and guitarist and singer Pat Egan. He has been featured on a host of recordings by Chulrua, Cathal McConnell, John Whelan, Steve Johnson and others, including the CD and DVD release Geantrai, a compilation celebrating the first ten years of TG4’s popular traditional Irish music television program. He has taught at many international festivals and summer schools including the Catskill’s Irish Arts Week, Augusta’s Irish Week, France’s Europadanse Week, the Alaska Fiddle Camp, the St. Louis Tionol, at the Armagh Piper’s Club, and at the Fleadh Nua in Ennis, Co. Clare. www.patrickourceau.com

TOM ROZUM
Tom Rozum plays primarily mandolin with the renowned Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands, but is also an accomplished fiddle, mandola, and guitar player, whose style encompasses bluegrass, folk, swing, country and rock. His rhythmic approach to mandolin especially punctuates the band’s repertoire, adding a verve and excitement to their on-stage shows, which has become a distinctive feature of their performances. Having played mandolin for 36 years, Tom has been recording and touring internationally for the past 25, with frequent appearances on the Grand Ole Opry and A Praire Home Companion. He is featured on over fifteen of Laurie’s recordings, including the most famous of their duet collaborations, The Oak and the Laurel which was a Grammy nominee for “Best Traditional Folk Album. www.tomrozum.com

ADAM TANNER
Adam grew up in northern California, and was exposed to old-time and bluegrass music in his early teens. Proficient on fiddle, mandolin and guitar he spent countless hours slowing down records trying to pick out every detail of the traditional music he loved. Adam’s approach to playing the fiddle reflects the diversity of styles heard on the early 78rpm discs and field recordings from which he draws his greatest inspiration. Over the last six years, Adam has toured in both the US and Europe as a member of both The Crooked Jades string band and The Hunger Mountain Boys. In 2006, he taught both mandolin and fiddle during the Gathering’s Old-Time Music & Dance Week. He currently lives in Weaverville, NC, where he teaches fiddle, mandolin and guitar and performs with Mark Jackson as the The Twilite Broadcasters, a duo specializing in vintage country vocal harmonies and fiddle and mandolin tunes. www.adamtannermusic.com

KIMBERLEY FRASER
Kimberley Fraser was born on Cape Breton Island and nurtured within its rich musical heritage. She first impressed audiences at the age of three with her step-dancing talents, and soon thereafter took up both the fiddle and the piano. Still in her 20s, Kimberley’s career is already distinguished. She has performed around the world, from touring Sweden with Cherish the Ladies, to performing at the Celtic Connections festival in Scotland and entertaining NATO troops in Afghanistan. With two recordings to her credit, she has shared the stage with such notables as Alasdair Fraser, Lúnasa and Danú. Kimberley holds an honours degree in Celtic Studies and a minor in Jazz from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, and is also a graduate of the Berklee College of Music. An advocate for the importance of traditional music education, she has been a long-time instructor at Cape Breton’s Gaelic College and Ceilidh Trail Music School as well as teaching at the Valley of the Moon Fiddle Camp, the American Festival of Fiddle Tunes, and the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in Aberdeen, Scotland. Following the success of her award-winning recording, Falling on New Ground, Kimberley is currently working on her third album. www.kimberleyfraser.com

PETE SUTHERLAND
Raised on a diet of Broadway show tunes, operatic arias and British invasion melodies, native Vermonter Pete Sutherland discovered both traditional music and songwriting in college and like Huck Finn, “lit out for the territories.” An accomplished multi-instrumentalist and singer known equally for his fiery fiddle tunes, potent originals and intense recreations of age-old ballads, his music covers the folk map. Pete has toured nationally and internationally with the likes of Metamora, Rhythm In Shoes, Ira Bernstein and the Clayfoot Strutters, and is also a sought-after record producer. The old-time music of his diverse but always tradition-hugging fiddling life layers all of these influences on top of a groove both rocking and lyrical. www.epactmusic.com

DAVID GREELY
David Greely is a Breaux Bridge, LA, based fiddler, vocalist and songwriter. As a founding member and co-leader of the hugely popular Cajun band, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, he has appeared at major festivals and venues worldwide, and been nominated for three Grammy awards. He received a Louisiana Folklife Apprenticeship grant in 1992 to study with the master Cajun musician Dewey Balfa, and in 2004, he received the Artist Fellowship Award in Folklife from the Louisiana Division of the Arts. David has taught Cajun fiddle and song at the Augusta Heritage Center, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Ashokan, Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week, and the Sibelius Folk Music Academy in Helsinki. He revels in archival research, rare melodies, linguistic arcana and historical prose and poetry of the Cajuns and Creoles of Louisiana. David has developed his own distinctive approach to Cajun fiddle, and his acquired fluency in Cajun French allows him to teach songs clearly and efficiently from the viewpoint of a native English speaker. His teaching style is positive and creative, revealing the defining ingredients of the Cajun sound, and the secrets of how music works. He recently released a solo CD, Sud du Sud, and tours with young fiddle wizard Joel Savoy as GreelySavoyDuo. www.davidgreely.com.

JAMIE LAVAL
“One of North America’s finest practitioners of traditional Scottish music” (Mercury News), Jamie Laval delivers passionate performances of the traditional music of Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, and Quebec rendered with superlative tone and a depth of expression usually associated with classical virtuosi. Winner of the 2002 U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Championship, Laval has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, collaborated on the Dave Matthews Band album Some Devil, and given a command performance for Her Majesty the Queen. Zephyr In The Confetti Factory, the second of his three solo albums to date, won “Best World Traditional Song” in the 2007 Independent Music Awards Vox Populi. Laval tours full-time throughout the U.S. and Scotland with over 125 concerts per year and is an active educator, producer, and composer. www.jamielaval.com

JULIA WEATHERFORD
Fiddle Week Coordinator Julia Weatherford has been a full time artist/musician for more than 25 years. She played cello for 13 seasons with the Asheville Symphony, while moonlighting as a square dance fiddler. Julia has toured internationally as a dance musician, and performs regionally with Akira Satake, the string band, Far Horizons, a contra dance band, Fly by Night, and a classical trio, Trillium. Among her performance and teaching venues are the LEAF festival, the Black Mountain Festival, Berea Country Dance School, Pinewoods, Folkmoot International, and the Biltmore Estate. Julia teaches both cello and fiddle and has worked extensively as a cellist on recordings by various artists. In 2004, she released her debut CD, The View from Here, which was voted a top Celtic release by the listeners of public radio’s WNCW. She was the Artistic Director of the legendary Black Mountain Festival for many years, and as a textile artist, Julia is a long-time member of the Southern Highlands Crafts Guild. Her fabric work is available locally at the Folk Arts Center and the Arts and Heritage Gallery in the Grove Arcade. Julia has been the Swannanoa Gathering Logistics Assistant since 2005. www.juliaweatherford.com

OWEN MORRISON
Owen Morrison has been accompanying fiddle tunes on the guitar for most of his life. He began playing for contra dances at age 15 and he now makes his living playing for many types of dancing. While steeped in fiddle music, Owen has also studied classical, jazz and flamenco guitar, and graduated from Guilford College with a degree in music/classical guitar performance. He has taught guitar styles at Ashokan, Augusta and Pinewoods Camp, and has been a featured performer at many festivals, including the National Folk Festival, LEAF and the Old Songs Festival. His dance bands include Elixir, Night Watch, House Red and The Morrison Brothers Band. Owen has also worked extensively as an accompanist with fiddlers such as Rodney Miller and Jamie Laval. www.myspace.com/owenmorrison

HANK BONES
Known as the “man of a thousand songs,” Hank specializes in swing, gypsy jazz and a solo approach that combines jazz, swing, country, ragtime, classical and more into an eclectic “unified string theory.” He has performed with Bill Haley’s Comets, the Platters, Steve Holley (Wings), Jimmy Vivino (Conan O’Brien Band) and toured the world with the Foot and Fiddle dance company, playing all styles of American vernacular music. His CDs include Hank Plays Hoagy, an all-Carmichael disc, Modern Stone Age Music, (Acoustic Guitar magazine award winner 2000), featuring Vince Giordano, and the Leadfoot Vipers with Vollie McKenzie. He has composed and performed several film scores for Academy Award-nominated animator Bill Plympton, as well as stock music heard on countless daytime TV shows. He performs several times a week in Asheville, at restaurants and clubs with swing combos, in a solo setting, with the Firecracker Jazz Band, or with the tropical vocal group Kon Tiki, for which he also plays Hawaiian steel guitar and cornet.

ANDREW FINN MAGILL
Andrew has studied fiddle with such masters as Seamus Connolly, Liz Carroll, Tommy Peoples, Martin Hayes, Brendan McGlinchey, James Kelly, Brian Conway and Brendan Bulger. He is a four-time gold medalist at the New York Fleadh Cheoil, and has twice competed on fiddle and low whistle at the All-Ireland Championships in Ireland. He served as an instructor in Irish fiddle at the Swannanoa Gathering for two years, and at age 17, released his first CD of Irish fiddle music, Drive & Lift, featuring fellow SG staffers John Doyle and John Skelton, that Sing Out! magazine called “a stunning debut....the perfect balance of precision and intensity.” Cuts from that CD have been featured on several compilation CDs as well as on NPR’s Thistle & Shamrock. A recent honors graduate from UNC-Chapel Hill with a major in ethnomusicology, he was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to develop a multimedia fundraising project to benefit AIDS patients and their families in Malawi, east Africa. Working with noted Malawian musician Peter Mawanga, their CD, Mau a Malawi: Stories of AIDS, and a video documentary of the project are due for release in 2011. www.storiesofaids.com