GINNY HAWKER & TRACY SCHWARZ
Whether in close harmony or soul-stirring solos, Ginny and Tracy know how to create a sound that is authentic to the time and place from which their music springs. They have been communicating that to students for more than sixteen years in classes and workshops throughout the country. Ginny grew up in southern Virginia, and has been singing all her life the gospel harmony, early bluegrass and unaccompanied hymns of the Primitive Baptist Church. Tracy has been a traditional music legend for over forty years as a dedicated Cajun musician, and as a member of the seminal old-time stringband, The New Lost City Ramblers. Together their singing is strong and energetic and goes straight to the heart of southern Appalachian music and culture. www.ginnyandtracy.com

RODNEY SUTTON
With a “good as new” repaired right knee, Rodney is ready for another year of 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 US 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 Fiddlehead, Pinewoods, Augusta, Ashokan and 16 years here at the Swannanoa Gathering. As a member of the state’s Visiting Artist Program, he taught traditional dance in dozens of schools throughout western North Carolina. 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. This past year, Rodney has been “instrumental” in organizing the Regional Junior Appalachian Musicians program into a certified non-profit group that oversees JAM programs here in our mountain communities.

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.

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! Denisa is a part time Nanny, homeschooling mother, and Director for the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF) Kid’s Village. Shaving cream, parachutes, bubbles and squirt guns are the tools of her trade, as she provides wild & wacky games and activities for families and kids everywhere. 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 15th year, as she teaches and coordinates the Children’s Program during Traditional Song/Fiddle, Celtic and Old-Time Weeks.

GUEST MASTER ARTISTS

ROAN MOUNTAIN HILLTOPPERS
From Carter County, Tennessee, the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers have performed old-time music, the “real old”-time way, since the 1970s. Bill Birchfield, “the main Hilltopper man,” plays fiddle, guitar (left-handed, upside-down and backwards), banjo, and autoharp. Janice Birchfield plays the washtub bass. Rounding out the band are Amy Michels on banjo and Matt Kinman on guitar. View their video with Malcolm McLaren (manager of Boy George and the Sex Pistols) at www.myspace.com/roanmountainhilltoppers.

JERRY & EVELYN HYATT
Jerry and Evelyn Hyatt are an old-time gospel duo who have been singing for the past twenty-five years in churches from Michigan to Florida. In recent years, they have also performed at bluegrass festivals, benefit singings, and senior centers, sharing their music with an even wider audience. The Hyatts have recorded three CDs on which Jerry displays his unique two-finger style of lead guitar playing that he developed growing up in the mountains of North Georgia.

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.