Russ Alvey has played guitar for more than 40 years. He has performed
rock, folk, traditional American, blues, classical and traditional
Irish music and all of these influences can be heard in his
accompaniment style. He began his professional playing career as a
contemporary folk musician and songwriter at the age of 18. An
interest in traditional folk music began in 1980 as guitarist with The
New Dallas String Band, four members of which developed an interest in
traditional Irish music. This led to the formation of Tinker’s Dam. A
perpetual student, Russ’ music education has included classical and
contemporary voice, tabla and northern Indian music, and classical
guitar. He currently plays with the Trinity Hall Session Players,
performs as a singer/songwriter, and sits in with musicians all over the Southwest.
Clare Adkins Cason began violin studies at the age of 4, having been born into a family of musicians. She attended the University of North Texas, where she was chosen as Outstanding Undergraduate in Music. Presently she holds leadership positions in the Sherman Symphony, East Texas Symphony, and the Dallas Bach Society. Teaching, however, has been her chief enthusiasm, and in addition to maintaining an active private studio for seventeen years, she is the author of the thirteen-volume Mountain Road series for violin and viola students. In the last few years, she has also enjoyed having the opportunity to learn more about Irish music, and to share the fun of it with her students of all ages. She is particularly interested in the music of the Sliabh Luachra region of Southwest Ireland.
Janis Deane has been playing Irish flute/whistle for 25 years and played with the bands Mad Sweeny and Tir Na Nogh in North Carolina and Ohio respectively. She currently performs with the Trinity Hall Session Players. Recording credits include Morning Star, Transilience and Confluence with husband Christopher Deane on the Quiet Hall Music label, and Music from Trinity Hall with the Trinity Hall Session Players.
Michelle Feldman has over thirty years of experience as an Irish fiddler, including performance and teaching. She became an Irish session fiddler while attending California State University at Sonoma, and has played for contra and ceilidh dancers and performed with Shannon, the only all-girl Celtic band in Los Angeles. Since coming to Texas, Michelle has played Celtic music for festivals, parties, and pub gigs with several Dallas area groups, and is currently performing with the eclectic/Celtic acoustic band, 5 Second Rule. She is also a composer in both traditional and folk/pop styles and has performed and recorded her tunes and songs with several bands.
Ken has played traditional Irish music for more than 30 years on a number of instruments including guitar, bouzouki, tenor banjo, mandolin, tinwhistle, button accordion and Anglo concertina. Ken and his wife Peggy are co-founders of the Southwest Celtic Music Association and the North Texas Irish Festival of which Ken was their first president and festival director respectively. He has also been a member of Tinker’s Dam, Waifs & Strays, Loose Change and is a current member of Jigsaw, the Lone Star Ceili Band and the Trinity Hall Session Players. He is the founder and former president of the Traditional Irish Music Education Society (TIMES) and the founder and current director of the O'Flaherty Irish Music Retreat and founder of the O'Flaherty Irish Music Youth Camp.
Vanessa Gordon studied piano and violin while growing up in Cape Town, South Africa. While living in Israel, in the 1980's, she recorded a jazz / gospel album with the group "From The Other Side." After moving to Texas, she played fiddle and piano with the Cornell Hurd Band, in Austin . She studied Suzuki teacher training and has been teaching Suzuki piano for over ten years. She has worked as a pianist and fiddler for eurythmy and dance classes at the Austin Waldorf School for the past 8 years. She has played solo fiddle for Austin's Scottish Country Dancers. In 2008 she founded the "Deer Creek Fiddle Club," a children's Celtic group. Vanessa has a wide range of musical interests and influences, including Celtic, Folk music, jazz, blues, American old time, Baroque and Early music. Vanessa's first introduction to Irish music was through the recordings of Kevin Burke, whom she considers a major inspiration.
Allison fell in love with Irish and other traditional music while studying piano at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX. Weekly sessions at The Oldtime String Shop and a concert by a Dallas based Irish band, "Tinkers Dam" fueled the fire that has now become a lifelong passion. Allison is known in many musical arenas. As a teacher, she has been a staff member at the annual Winter Acoustic Music Festival in Irving, Texas, the Fiddler's Dream Music and Dance weekend on Lake Texoma and at the Festival of Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington. As a performer, she plays currently with the Trinity Hall Session Players, Lone Star Ceili Band and Happensdance, playing for contradances and ceili's throughout Texas. She is also a music teacher in Dallas schools.
Daniel is originally from Dallas, Texas and has been playing Irish music for approximately fifteen years. Beginning on the tinwhistle, he eventually picked up the wooden flute, and soon became heavily involved in the Dallas Irish music scene. In 1999, he went on to play and compete around Ireland and the U.S., leading him to win first place in the senior whistle competition at the 2001 Midwest Fleadh Cheoil. Meanwhile, he joined the traditional Dallas-based band Idle Road, and played with them for several years before moving in 2002 to study philosophy and music in the northeast. Having now graduated from college, Daniel currently lives and works as a professional musician in New York City, where he can regularly be found teaching, recording, sessioning, and performing with a variety of traditional musicians.
Gordon has been performing professionally on fiddle and guitar for over 30 years. Gordon founded and performs regularly with the band Beyond The Pale and also with The Aisling String Trio and in a duo with his wife, Christy. He is a regular participant in Irish music sessions in the DFW area and also performs with the Trinity Hall Session Players. He has traveled to Ireland regularly to study with many notable Irish fiddle experts and play traditional Irish music. He is the director of the O’Flaherty Irish Music Youth Camp, a two day camp for youth ages 6-16 in Richardson, Texas near Dallas, and the current president of the Traditional Irish Music Education Society that organizes the camp. In addition to performing music Gordon owns and operates a recording studio and produces recordings of all types of acoustic music.
Rebekah Passmore - a national award winner in both Celtic and Classical harp competitions, is sought out as an ardent performer noted for her ethereal arrangements, spicy touch, and captivating musicality. Educated throughout North American and Europe with early instruction in Celtic harp repertoire, and then as a university student receiving a BM and MM in harp performance. Rebekah performs not only with International Symphony Orchestras but also for leading Irish/Scottish festivals. http://www.rebekahpassmore.com/
A Kentucky native now living near Houston, Kendall Rogers is a piano and bodhran player who also dabbles in accordion, whistle, and DADGAD guitar. He grew up amid the rich folk music and dance traditions of Kentucky, with traditional dance music from Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, England, and North America. In his younger days, Kendall studied classical piano, then joined the school band in middle school and then the jazz band in high school and college. Since college, Kendall has focused mostly on playing for various kinds of folk dancing across the US (and twice in Denmark.) In addition to playing music, Kendall has led dance band and piano workshops at various folk dance weeks. Currently he plays with Evil Genius (contra dance band,) Lonestar Stout (Celtic/American folk music group,) and the Katy Ceilidh Band (Scottish country & ceilidh dance band,) in addition to playing for English country dances and at Irish sessions around Houston. He also plays occasionally with other groups for contra or English dance events around Texas and the U.S.
Dale Russ started playing the fiddle in 1973 when first moving to Washington State from his native Connecticut. He is self-taught, which contributes to his abilities and reknown as an excellent fiddle instructor.
Dale taught for twelve years at the Lark in the Morning Summer Camp in Mendocino. He has taught and performed at many workshops and music camps, including the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington, and The Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, North Carolina. He has also played for ceilis, set dances and dance competitions for many years.
In 1990 he was invited to perform at the first Boston College Irish Music Festival "My Love is in America" featuring 16 of the finest Irish fiddle players living in the States. The concert was recorded and released by Green Linnet Records and won an award from the Smithsonian Institute as "Traditional Recording of the Year".
He performed for 15 years with the traditional Irish band "The Suffering Gaels", appearing at the Milwaukee Irish Festival in 1993 and '94. In April of '96 he spent two weeks touring Japan with the then-newly-formed trio "Jody's Heaven", and has since returned to Japan yearly. Following the demise of the Suffering Gaels, he played with Finn Mac Ginty and Tom Creegan in the trio “Crumac” until Finn drifted back to Ireland to reside, continuing with Mike Saunders on guitar. Dale teams up yearly with box-player Johnny B. Connolly and singer-guitarist Aidan Brennan for a month-long booking at John D. McGurk’s Pub in St. Louis, Missouri. Most recently he toured the Midwest with Paddy O’Brien in the trio “Chulrua”. He is featured in the Spring 1997 issue of Fiddler magazine.
Dale has an instructional videotape in the Lark in the Morning video series, a solo fiddle CD with Mike Saunders accompanying on guitar, two recordings with the "Suffering Gaels", a fiddle and uilleann pipe duet CD with Todd Denman, a duet album with Suffering Gaels’ guitarist Finn MacGinty, two CDs with "Jody's Heaven" and two CDs with the trio “Setanta”.
Eric Ryan-Johnson plays classical violin and Irish traditional fiddle. He teaches the Suzuki Violin Method and Irish fiddle, and has taught at workshops, schools and festivals. For two weeks each summer, he teaches his very popular Irish fiddle camp. Many of his fiddle students play for local dances, and have participated in workshops and masterclasses with Winifred Horan (Solas), Daire Bracken (Slide), and Sean Regan (Gráda). Beginning at age four, Eric began studying Suzuki violin in Madison, Wisconsin, and as a child received workshop instruction with Shinichi Suzuki. Eric earned his Bachelor of Music-Composition degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has studied pedagogy with many distinguished teachers and is an active member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA). Eric has recorded with the Minneapolis-St. Paul band, Field Day, is on the CD "Hunger No More - A Gift of Irish Music and Song," and has performed with them on Minnesota Public Radio. He also has a solo CD, "The Wonderful Day." He currently performs solo as well as with Philip Duffy, a button-accordionist from Co. Cavan, Ireland. You can hear some of his music at www.myspace.com/irishtulsa. Along with his wife Kara and son Séamus, Eric currently live in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Craig Scotland has been performing on the bodhran for many years. Raised in Dunfermline, Scotland, Craig took up the bodhran after he moved to Ireland and spent six years playing traditional music with some of the best young trad musicians in Ireland. Many of his fellow Gogarty's alumni can be found playing in celtic powerhouse bands including Danu, The Fureys, and the Eileen Ivers Band. He moved to Texas several years ago and was one of the founding members of Gallus and plays currently with Shift. Craig is also a talented professional photographer.