Val Mindel is a longtime musician, teacher and workshop leader, known for helping singers achieve the sound they want and have fun doing it. She teaches a wide range of harmony styles from the buzzy sound of American old-time and early country harmony to the weaving harmonies of songs from across the ocean. In the process she addresses such indefinables as tone, ornamentation and lead singing. In addition to being a regular on staff at the Augusta Heritage Center, she has taught at numerous music camps elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad, including SongRoots, Targhee Music Camp, Ashokan Music and Dance Camps, Centrum’s Voice Works, Pinewoods and Sore Fingers. She is a founding member of the California-based Any Old Time string band, and has two CDs with daughter and old-time country musician Emily Miller. Val is also the author of So You Want to Sing Folk Music, and she is in the process of cowriting with Dr. Kathy Bullock a chapter on traditional singing for the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Voice Pedagogy. She lives in Elkins, West Virginia.