Keeth Apgar
Faculty
With a 1000 songs written in his 35 prolific years of songwriting, Northwest singer-songwriter Keeth Monta Apgar has created an enormous pile of music. Keeth strums ukuleles, acoustic guitars and fronts Indie-Folk band The Harmonica Pocket. Rich in image, harmony and rhyme, his lyrical songs tell stories about plants, love, forgiveness and the outdoors.…
Big Jon Atkinson
Early Electric Guitar
Big Jon Atkinson speaks the language fluently and with such a well-articulated deep emotion that when you hear this young man play and sing the blues it is an experience you will never forget.
Quenton Baker
Morning Intensive Faculty
Quenton Baker is a poet, educator, and Cave Canem fellow. Their current focus is black interiority and the afterlife of slavery. Their work has appeared in The Offing, Jubilat, Vinyl, The Rumpus and elsewhere. They are a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and the recipient of the 2018 Arts Innovator Award from Artist Trust. They were a 2019 Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence and a 2021 NEA Fellow. They are the author of we pilot the blood (The 3rd Thing, 2021) and ballast (Haymarket Books, 2023).
Dan Balmer
Faculty
From coffee house gigs at fifteen to chart-topping success with the Tom Grant Band in the 90s, world tours with two-time Grammy Award winner Diane Schuur and contemporary jam-bands, Dan Balmer brings fire and heart every time he plays the guitar. His playing spans nearly one hundred CDs including twelve as a leader from which his original works have appeared internationally in television, film and radio.…
Bruce Sunpie Barnes
Accordion
Bruce Sunpie Barnes is a veteran New Orleans musician, former Park Ranger with the National Park Service for 30 years, actor, photographer, book author, former high school biology teacher, former college football All-American, and former NFL player (Kansas City Chiefs). Sunpie Barnes’ many careers have taken him far and wide. He has traveled to over 50 countries playing his own style of what he calls Afro-Louisiana music incorporating Blues, Zydeco, Gospel, Caribbean and African influenced rhythms and melodies.…
Kristen Barron Kinney
Faculty
Kirsten Barron Kinney graduated cum laude from the University of California, Irvine in where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Choreography and in Dance Performance. While attending UCI, she was a member of Donald McKayle’s modern company Etude Ensemble, Fresno Ballet under the direction of Donald Bradburn, and has returned to UCI as a guest choreographer for Bare Bones Dance Theatre in 2007, and as a guest performer for the Donald McKayle’s Tribute in 2009.…
Patrick Bartley, Jr.
Faculty
Saxophone
Grammy-nominated saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Patrick Bartley, Jr. is a musician with experience in a wide range of situations, most notably for appearing on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and being featured in the Emmy-nominated HBO special Wynton Marsalis: A YoungArts Masterclass, which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.…
Erica Bauermeister
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Erica Bauermeister is the NYT bestselling author of five novels, including No Two Persons, The Scent Keeper, and The School of Essential Ingredients. She has also written a memoir, entitled House Lesson: Renovating a Life, and is the co-author of two readers’ guides — 500 Great Books by Women and Let’s Hear it for the Girls.…
Ignacio Berroa
Faculty
Drums
Ignacio Berroa has been recognized as one of the greatest drummers of our time. A leading innovator in the blending of Afro-Cuban and American jazz styles, his artful drumming has supported a wide spectrum of the very top names in jazz, including Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Wynton Marsalis, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Haden, and Gonzalo Rubalcaba.…
Vivienne Bessette
Vivienne Bessette (b. 1982) is a queer artist of mixed settler and Michif heritage (Red River Treaty 1). They are based on the stolen and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlí̓lwətaʔɬ Nations. Bessette incorporates drawing, painting, woodworking, sculpting, dying, writing, fermenting and building relationships with plants into their practice. They work in and out of the studio, the garden and the kitchen, developing sustainable and alternative modes of food production and utilizing unconventional materials.…