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Maxwell Apra
Mandolin
Maxwell is a New Orleans-based, internationally recognized multi-instrumentalist performer and music teacher. Specializing in mandolin and banjo, Maxwell began his training in California and then spent several years busking professionally in New Orleans’ city streets and night clubs, integrating himself into a rich and diverse array of musical styles including jug band, ragtime, jazz and little-known catalogue of traditional Italian mandolin music.…
Dave Biller
Faculty
Dave Biller has toured and recorded with Wayne Hancock, Dale Watson, and Deke Dickerson and is mostly known as a professional pedal steel player, but his record, Hot Guitars of Biller & Wakefield, captured the ears of music lovers everywhere.
Grant Gordy
Guitar
For many guitarists, landing a gig with bluegrass mandolinist David Grisman’s groundbreaking bluegrass/jazz quintet would be the culmination of a career in music. But for Grant Gordy, it was more of a beginning, an apprenticeship in combining bluegrass and jazz that served as a launchpad for his own music. How far he has traveled since then can be heard on Peripheral Visions, his stunning new quartet recording and welcome successor to his eponymous 2010 debut.…
David Grisman
Special Guest Instructor
In the course of a career that has spanned more than six decades, David Grisman has had an immeasurable impact on American acoustic music. A trail-blazing instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and creator of a living musical genre, David has influenced contemporary string players from Bluegrass to Pop and Jazz. We are delighted that he will be joining us on Saturday May 17th to present a workshop on arranging, and to participate in a moderated conversation about his music and his vital work as a conservator of string traditions.…
Zoe Guigueno
Upright Bass
Zoe Guigueno (GIG-an-oh) is a bassist and songwriter headquartered in New York City. While jazz trained, she can also often be found playing klezmer, Americana, or indie-rock. She has performed with Steve Martin, busked in a pink gorilla costume, and played upright bass while whitewater rafting. Her most recent solo album, We Were Radar Stations, came out on Fiddlehead Records in October 2022.
Jen Hodge
Bass
Jen Hodge is a Grammy-nominated bass player, currently living in New York City and originally hailing from British Columbia, Canada. A versatile and passionate musician, Jen is in high demand for her rock-solid bass playing, her consummate professionalism, and for the warm, infectious spirit she brings to the bandstand. Jen is a fixture of NYC’s hot jazz community, frequently featuring in the house band for the long-running Mona’s Tuesday Night Hot Jazz jam session hosted by multi-instrumentalist Dennis Lichtman, and performing with such artists as Bria Skonberg, The Hot Sardines, Jon-Erik Kellso & The EarRegulars, Cynthia Sayer, and Danny Jonokuchi & The Revisionists.…
Tyler Jackson
Tenor Banjo
Tyler Jackson is a world renown tenor banjoist and upright bassist. Under the tutelage of Buddy Griffin, Tyler quickly learned the ukulele, tenor banjo, and electric bass. Tyler went on to study the double bass at the University of North Texas under Lynn Seaton and began to fine-tune his skills as a professional bassist.
Dennis Lichtman
Mandolin
Dennis Lichtman is a multi-instrumentalist (clarinet, mandolin, fiddle, and more) who has been living, performing, composing, and teaching in New York City since 2002. He is a Selmer Paris Artist as an endorser of their Signature Clarinet. His music was recently used in director David Simon’s The Plot Against America (HBO) and he has appeared this year as a clarinetist on Succession (HBO) and The Blacklist (NBC).…
Mikiya Matsuda
Steel Guitar
Mikiya Matsuda is a steel guitarist and sometimes string bassist living in San Francisco, CA. He is the leader of the Alcatraz Islanders, a swing-era Hawaiian group, and a regular sideman with various traditional jazz and western swing dance bands in the Bay Area.
Dale Morris, Jr.
Violin
Dale Morris, Jr. began playing violin at age three. By the time he was ten years old, he began his professional career performing with the Bar-D Wranglers at the Bar-D Chuck Wagon Supper and Western Show in Durango Colorado. He performed there for the next three summers alongside his father, Dale Morris, Sr.…
Matt Munisteri
Artistic Director, Red Hot Strings
Guitarist, singer, songwriter, and Brooklyn native Matt Munisteri grew up with early interest in American folk music that led him from finger-style Country and Ragtime guitar, through Blues, to Tin Pan Alley and Jazz. His own compositions, and lauded guitar playing, accurately reflect this life-long immersion in the history of American Popular Song; linking rural and urban, long-gone with contemporary.
Evan Price
Violin
Evan Price is a versatile violinist and composer best known for his work with the paradigm-shifting chamber ensemble, The Turtle Island Quartet, and with The Hot Club of San Francisco, the most venerable gypsy jazz band in North America. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he grew up studying classical violin while mixing with folk and jazz musicians of all stripes, learning to fiddle and improvise in various styles as well as teaching himself to play numerous folk instruments.…
Molly Reeves
Guitar
Raconteur of song Molly Reeves is a performer and adorer of early 20th-century American music. Molly is known globally for her enigmatic approach to rhythm guitar and her ability to invoke the idiomatic tone and language of 1920s and 30s acoustic guitar players. A crooner by nature, her dynamic and warm vocal stylings echo popular singers and storytellers of yesteryear.…
Eva Scow
Faculty
Eva Scow is an American mandolinist and violinist from Fresno, California. She began studying music at a young age, starting on the piano and violin at age 4, and later adding the mandolin at age 8. Growing up she played in Classical orchestras and bands, exploring different kinds of music from Bluegrass to Brazilian Jazz.
Whit Smith
Guitar
Whit Smith is a guitarist, singer, songwriter and founding member of the highly acclaimed Western swing trio, The Hot Club of Cowtown. He is known by guitarists for his driving rhythmic style, and for his ability to move through chord progressions employing endlessly creative variety harmonies. After nearly 30 years of vigorous touring, performing and recording, Whit has arrived at a style that pays clear homage to a variety of influential guitarists from the 1930’s and 40’s, while serving as the perfect vehicle for his own bracingly original ideas.…
Don Stiernberg
Faculty
Don Stiernberg has been a professional musician for nearly 50 years. Along the way he has been involved in performing, writing, recording, producing, and teaching but is best known for his mandolin playing. His path was set very early on as he grew up north of Chicago. Emulating his older brother, he experimented with playing various stringed instruments, finally landing on the mandolin.
Don Vappie
Banjo
Don Vappie, musician / composer / educator, is the 2021 Steve Martin Banjo Prize Winner and was inducted into the Banjo Hall of Fame in 2022. In addition, he has received awards for his contributions to the preservation of New Orleans Creole Culture through music and film. He has produced 7 of his own albums, co-produced and starred in a PBS documentary, performed as a featured artist with orchestras on movie and television soundtracks, and at concerts and festivals around the world.…
Craig Ventresco
Guitar
Craig Ventresco is a San Francisco-based guitarist and revivalist of early 20th Century jazz, pop, and folk material. He grew up in Maine, but established himself as a guitarist specializing in older styles of American popular music by playing on the street every day for tips in San Francisco, beginning in the late 1980’s.…
Jeremy Wakefield
Steel Guitar
Jeremy Wakefield is a steel guitarist and composer living and working in Portland, Oregon. He first discovered the sound of the steel guitar coming out of a thing called a radio, on the kitchen table of his grandparents’ South Dakota home. Jeremy has recorded and performed live with a multitude of Western Swing, Country and Lounge artists , but is probably most known for his background compositions in the SpongeBob SquarePants series. He also enjoys writing descriptions of himself in the third person.