Albert Alfonso has been making an playing bodhrans for nearly thirty years. He has taught bodhran at Irish Arts Week in the Catskills, Augusta Heritage, the O'Flaherty Irish Music Retreat and held workshops throughout the US and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and P.E.I. Canada. He performs regularly at numerous festivals throughout the US including the North Texas Irish Festival, the Milwaukee Irish Fest, the Walnut Valley Festival, and the Kerrville Folk Festival. Albert also manufactures high quality professional bodhrans which he will make available on loan for students in his classes. His drums are played by numerous professional musicians throughout the world.
"Bays is the genuine article." - The Rough Guide to Irish Music
Randal Bays is an internationally recognized master of the Irish fiddle style. He has toured and recorded with many of the finest Irish musicians, including James Keane and Daithi Sproule (in the band FINGAL), James Kelly, John Williams, Martin Hayes, Tony McManus, Aine Meenaghan, Roger Landes. His most recent recording, “Dig With It” (2009) features the brilliant Canadian guitarist Dave Marshall, with whom Randal now tours in North American and Canada.
Bays has performed all over the U.S., Europe and Canada, including appearances at major festivals such as the Gaelic Roots Festival in Boston, the San Francisco Celtic Music and Arts Festival, the Festival Des Musiques-Vivantes in France, the Willie Clancy Summer School and Festival in Ireland, Catskills Irish Arts Week in New York, the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, North Carolina, Augusta Heritage Week in Elkins, West Virginia, the Friday Harbor Irish Music Camp, the Alaska Irish Music Festival, California's Sebastopol Festival and many more.
Randal Bays is a dedicated and thoughtful teacher of Irish fiddling, often in demand for workshops and music camps, and is a co-founder of the Friday Harbor Irish Music Camp. He’s also composed original scores for several award-winning films and documentaries.
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.
Ken has played traditional Irish music for 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.
Peggy has played traditional music for most of her life. In her earlier years, she played Old Timey American music and in the 80s, she became more focused on Irish music, both as a singer and fiddler. Along with her husband Ken, she is a co-founder of the Southwest Celtic Music Association and North Texas Irish Festival. She has been a member of the New Dallas String Band, Tinker’s Dam, Waifs & Strays, Loose Change and is currently a member of Jigsaw, Lone Star Ceili Band and the Trinity Hall Session Players. Peggy teaches Irish fiddle in the Dallas area.
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.
Julia Graylion is a well known teacher of traditional fiddle and and classical violin in the DFW area. She has been playing violin since childhood and attended the University of Michigan and Oberlin Conservatory before moving to Texas where she immersed herself in the traditional music scene. Julia is co-leader of a group of fine young fiddlers called the Wee Wild Fiddlers who perform at at the Texas Scottish Festival and North Texas Irish Festival. She believes that this music is just too good not to pass on to the younger generations! Julia also teaches orchestra in a local public school program.
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.
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.
Chris Smith is Chair of Musicology and director of the Vernacular Music Center at Texas Tech University. He has taught at Indiana University, U. Mass. Boston, and University College Cork in addition to TTU, and has been featured in Irish Music Magazine. His Celtic Backup for All Instrumentalists (book/CD; Mel Bay Publications) is a standard text for those wishing to understand the theory and practice of improvised accompaniment in Celtic musics; in addition, he is the author of many other essays and book chapters on topics in jazz, classical, and world musics. Chris leads roving field-trips for TTU students in the West of Ireland every spring, and his Vernacular Music Center grants an annual scholarship in traditional music. In addition, he records and tours internationally with Altramar medieval music ensemble, leads the Irish traditional band Johnny Faa and the Juke Band (pre-WWII blues and jazz), directs the Texas Tech University Celtic Ensemble, and has appeared on National Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, and the Fox Network nationwide. His 2005 CD of Irish traditional music, Coyotebanjo (http://cdbaby.com/coyotebanjo), with Randal Bays and Roger Landes), was the winner of Global Rhythm magazine’s May 2006 Song Contest. He was the traditional-music consultant for noted composer Dan Welcher’s orchestral Minstrels of the Kells, bouzouki soloist at its world premiere and toured the American Southwest and Mainland China with the piece, produces the Internet radio program The Celtic Shores (www.kohm.org), and is a founding staff member of ZoukFest. As an instrumentalist, he concertizes on Irish bouzouki, tenor banjo, button accordion, mandolin, slide guitar, saz, lute, gittern, Turkish lavta, and percussion.
Peggy has been involved in education for 30 years and has been an elementary music school teacher for the past nine years. She has presented educational programs for children along with her husband Jim all over the US at festivals, schools, museums and fine arts camps. She has been performing music professionally for more than 30 years performing with classical groups such as the Milwaukee Bach Choir and Orchestra, as well as traditional folk groups such as Sungarten and Threadneedle Street. She has taught music privately, in the classroom and in less conventional settings such as arts and folk music camps. Traditional Irish music, dance and culture have been big influences on her career, and it has been her goal for a long time to combine her performing experience and her education credentials to awaken interest in Celtic culture by children.