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.…
Keeth Monta Apgar
“An acoustic treat.” – Seattle’s Child Magazine
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.…
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).
Christine Balfa
Christine Balfa is a native Louisiana French speaker, a committed and caring teacher, and a deeply- rooted Cajun musician with a passion for culture and education. As the daughter of Cajun cultural ambassador and National Heritage Fellow Dewey Balfa, she grew up in the center of the renaissance of Cajun and Creole culture. After his passing, she formed the musical group Balfa Toujours and created the non-profit Louisiana Folk Roots, of which she was the founding executive director.…
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.…