Biographical Info

George has performed and recorded with the popular “Fennig’s All-Star String Band”, featuring Bill Spence on hammered dulcimer, since 1975. He has performed and recorded with the “Whippersnappers” (Wilson, Peter Davis and Frank Orsini) since 1976. He plays at contradances, festivals and dance camps on both coasts and in between with Selma Kaplan, Groovemama, the Beaudoin Legacy, Bruce and Sue Rosen and more. Additionally he performs with the trio Peter, Paul & George (with Peter Davis and Paul Rosenberg), presenting hundreds of dance and music programs in “Homespun Community Dancing” in elementary, middle school and high schools.

George has three recordings featuring his fiddling — North Melodies from 1995— The Royal Circus: A Menagerie of Northern Fiddle Tunes from 2000— and his latest (2009), A Collection of Northern Tunes. All are upbeat collections of traditional, contemporary, and original fiddle instrumentals featuring himself and most of the players listed above.

George will be accompanied at the festival by Selma Kaplan, one of the standard bearers of traditional contra-dance piano for over 30 years. She’s a pianist, composer and arranger, and plays the ultimate sensitive and inventive accompaniment with rock solid rhythm and swing Specializing in the traditional music of Scotland, Cape Breton, New England and Quebec, her solid, inventive backup is in demand at dances and festivals up and down the east coast. Audiences, dancers, callers, and other players recognize her musical sensitivity and the joy she takes in adding just the right touch, whether accompanying a driving fiddle tune, a gorgeous slow air, or a silly song.

She’s been on staff at Pinewoods, Ralph Page Legacy Weekend, Star Island, Fiddle & Dance, Buffalo Gap, Old Songs, the Dance Flurry, has played at major festivals throughout the US and Canada, and, with the concert band Rude Girls, has toured in the US, Canada, Denmark, and Bermuda.