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, 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. He also developed a love of chamber music and with it a taste for composing and arranging, greatly inspired by the early recordings of Turtle Island. He joined that group at age 24 and toured and recorded with them for 10 years, winning 2 Grammy awards. Shortly after his relocation to the Bay Area, he found himself also playing with the Hot Club of San Francisco, a musical association that has now endured for more than 25 years. In 2016, he composed and performed his first large-scale work, Concerto for Jazz Violin and Orchestra, and recorded his debut solo album, Dialogues. Both reveal an artist with not only the ability to traverse far-ranging genres with authority, but the maturity to assimilate them into a uniquely American voice. His current projects include leading his own jazz trio, continuing to perform with the HCSF, directing the International Space Orchestra, performing with the San Francisco Ballet and Opera Orchestras, and composing and arranging for ensembles large and small. In 2021, he launched the Transcription Of the Month Club, a subscription-based quest to build a library of transcribed jazz performances, edited for string players. He serves on the faculty of the California Jazz Conservatory and the University of California, Berkeley.
Andrew Finn Magill | www.andrewfinnmagill.com
Fiddle Week Coordinator Andrew Finn Magill grew up attending the Swannanoa Gathering where he became proficient in bluegrass, old-time, Irish, and swing. He has toured the world playing these genres with such artists as John Doyle and Rising Appalachia. He is a sought-after traditional Irish musician, with BBC Musician of the Year Martin Hayes calling Finn “a leading fiddler in a new generation of musicians.” Finn has received acclaim from some of the foremost jazz violinists on the planet as well, including Snarky Puppy’s Zach Brock, who says Magill displays “effortless virtuosity” and Berklee College’s Matt Glaser who calls him “an extraordinary violin virtuoso.” Finn tours the country with his original music project fusing Irish, Brazilian, and Jazz styles in a jazz quartet, and is represented by the prestigious Marsalis Mansion Artists agency.
After 40 years in the biz, Joe Craven wears a lot of hats; instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, actor, storyteller, visual artist, noisemaker, fashion insultant, former museologist and creativity educator. He enjoys ‘playing forward’ folk tradition and process by mashing ideas and sound tools from a variety of unexpected places, creating new music altogether. As a multi-instrumentalist, Joe has made music with Jerry Garcia, David Lindley, Alison Brown, Howard Levy, Vassar Clements, Rob Ickes and many other innovative artists. As an award-winning educator, he has taught with jazz vocalist Inga Swearengen, bassist Victor Wooten, children’s music innovator Paul Reisler and jazz percussionist Jason Marsalis; been a featured artist/educator in the PBS television Music Gone Public series, and created music and sound effects for commercials, soundtracks, computer games and contributions to several Grammy-nominated projects. Joe is the Executive Director of Vocáli Voice Camp, RiverTunes Roots Music Camp and JAMboree in California and he’s presented at over 500 schools, universities, music camps and the American String Teachers Association. Joe is a keynote clinician at Wintergrass in Seattle and a coast-to-coast Master of Ceremonies, having emcee-ed at a wide variety of music festivals, including DelFest, Grand Targhee and Telluride Bluegrass. A recipient of a Folk Alliance Far-West Performer of the Year Award and the Swannanoa Gathering’s Master Music Maker Award, Joe has taught consecutively for over a decade during our Fiddle Week and also teaches creative process during Contemporary Folk Week. From Carnegie Hall to street corner busking around the world and back – Joe’s at home and loving every minute. “Everything Joe touches turns to music” – David Grisman
Natalya Weinstein is an accomplished violinist/fiddler and teacher in a variety of styles including old-time, bluegrass and klezmer. She performs with her husband, John Cloyd Miller in Zoe & Cloyd, an internationally-touring bluegrass/folk band. Natalya was classically trained in her home state of Massachusetts before moving to Asheville in 2004. Her father is a master jazz pianist, and her grandfather, David Weinstein, originally from Russia, was a professional klezmer musician. Performing at many prestigious festivals and events all across the country, Natalya is also a champion fiddler, winning old-time and bluegrass contests in both the north and south. She is also an instructor in the Traditional Music program at Warren Wilson College where she founded the school’s first klezmer ensemble. Natalya holds an MA in Appalachian Studies from Appalachian State University, where her thesis was on the diverse roots of bluegrass fiddling.
Emma McDowell has been teaching music to people of all ages and skill levels for over twenty years. She grew up playing music in western NC and the surrounding areas with her family band, and continued playing through her youth under her teacher and mentor, the legendary Arvil Freeman. She has performed with the Claire Lynch Band and the Jim Hurst Trio, and was invited to perform her original material at the 2008 and 2014 IBMA Songwriter Showcases. She now resides in a stretch of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania and performs most often in the eastern PA, northern VA and Baltimore areas.
Libby Weitnauer is a fiddle player, violinist, songwriter, and educator currently based in Nashville, but raised in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. She has earned degrees in classical violin performance from both DePaul University and New York University and has studied traditional music with Matt Brown, Rayna Gellert, and Grammy Award winner Dom Flemons among many others. While at NYU, Weitnauer served on adjunct faculty teaching undergraduate students, and immersed herself in the musical community of New York City. It was during this time that she met banjo/fiddler Jake Blount with whom she formed the acclaimed duo, Tui. Tui’s debut album Pretty Little Mister was named “Best North American Album of 2019” by World Music Central. Libby has more recently been touring with the Broadway revival of Oklahoma!, country singer Kelsey Waldon, and her own indie folk project, Dallas Ugly. In addition to performing, she has presented research at the Smithsonian Museum of American History and the Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center on her body of work surrounding Blount County ballads, and received a 2021 Tennessee Arts Commission grant for her recent solo project, Sixteen Kings’ Daughters.
Grammy Nominee Sara Caswell is recognized as one of today’s foremost jazz violinists through her lyricism and technical facility. Voted into DownBeat magazine’s “Critics and Readers Polls” every year since 2013, Sara’s artistry and unique sound led internationally-renowned jazz educator David Baker to write, “Sara Caswell is a brilliant, world-class violinist… one of the very best of the present generation of emerging young jazz stars.” Sara has released three highly-acclaimed albums under her own name, the most recent of which is The Way to You (2023, Anzic Records). She has been a member of groups led by Esperanza Spalding (Chamber Music Society), Linda Oh (Aventurine), and David Krakauer (The Big Picture), and has performed and/or recorded with artists and ensembles including the WDR Big Band, Brad Mehldau, Brian Blade, John Patitucci, Donny McCaslin, Darcy James Argue, Fred Hersch, Henry Threadgill, Dave Stryker, Helen Sung, Miho Hazama, Christian Sands, Regina Carter, Kishi Bashi, and Bruce Springsteen. She is also a member of Joseph Brent’s 9 Horses trio, Chuck Owen’s The Jazz Surge, and the Caswell Sisters Quintet (a group she co-leads with her sister, vocalist Rachel Caswell). Sara has performed at Carnegie Hall, Village Vanguard, Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, SFJazz, Disney Hall, Barbican, and Blue Note (NYC and Tokyo), and at jazz festivals including Newport, Montreal, Montreux, North Sea, Banlieues Bleues, and Saratoga Springs among others. Currently on faculty at the Berklee College of Music, Manhattan School of Music, The New School, and New York University, Sara’s formidable teaching experience also includes the Mark O’Connor String Camps, the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshops, the Indiana University String Academy, and a private studio. She gives jazz string improvisation workshops and masterclasses nationwide and is involved with Jazz Education Network and American String Teachers Association. Raised in a musical family, Sara began playing violin at age 5 and studied with two legendary giants: Josef Gingold (classical) and David Baker (jazz). She made her orchestral debut at 15, earned degrees from Indiana University and Manhattan School of Music, and amassed over 100 awards in the jazz and classical competition worlds. Jazz educator, author, and critic Dr. Herb Wong said: “A gifted starbright talent of the first magnitude, Sara is a top tier member of the young generation of major voices.”
Katie is one of the country’s most renowned and decorated Texas-style and swing fiddlers, as well as an accomplished songwriter, singer, and a sought-after educator. Katie is a 4-time National Swing Fiddle Champion and 2-time National Divisional Champion, to mention a few of her accolades. For 6 years Katie toured and recorded with the renowned trio, The Western Flyers, winners of 2018 Ameripolitan Awards’ “Best Western Swing Group”, and the Western Music Association and the Academy of Western Artists “Western Swing Album of the Year” award for Wild Blue Yonder. As an educator, Katie is the founder, owner, and primary instructor at the online fiddle academy, FiddleSchool.com. Since Fiddle School opened in 2018, her thorough online curriculum has given fiddlers around the world the opportunity to learn, improve, and progress in Texas-style fiddling, western swing, and early jazz. Offering over 1,000 sequential instructional videos and countless webinars on fiddling and improvisation, Katie is also an innovator, creating a modern curriculum for a traditional American art form.
Kevin Kehrberg is an award-winning bassist who focuses on performing jazz and traditional music styles. He has toured nationally and internationally and is currently the bassist for Organic Records recording artist Zoe & Cloyd. He also performs widely as a sideman and session artist. His recent collaborative recording for Bluegrass at the Crossroads won IBMA’s 2021 Instrumental Recording of the Year. Kevin has taught at many workshops and clinics in addition to being a professor of music at Warren Wilson College, where he maintains an active bass instruction studio and teaches various courses in music and culture.
Liz Knowles’ fascination with music has always been rooted in how one can arrive, land, and leave a note. Her early foundations on the violin were in classical music and her discovery of Irish music connected the dots between memories of her grandfather’s singing, a lifelong exploration of the modal melodies in Medieval and Early music, and the “In-Between”, a conceptual theme that illuminates the juxtaposition of challenge and vitality in life’s liminal places. Liz has established herself as a dynamic performer and recording artist as soloist on the soundtrack for Michael Collins, fiddler with Riverdance, Broadway’s The Pirate Queen and The Green Bird, soloist with the New York Pops, the National Symphony and other orchestras and as featured artist for the Ireland 100 Festival at the Kennedy Center. She was music director and producer for several large scale stage shows and recording projects that toured Europe, Asia and South America. Her compositions and arrangements of tunes and songs have been recorded by John Whelan, Flook, Chicago’s Metropolis Symphony Orchestra, Liz Carroll, Beolach, Bachue, J.P. Cormier, Michael Black, John Doyle, and Ensemble Galilei. Liz is known as an active and engaging teacher at camps around the world as well as conducting her own online masterclasses, courses, and lessons and currently holds a teaching position at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Liz has composed and produced music for two exhibits featuring Irish art at the Art Institute in Chicago and most recently at Notre Dame’s Snite Museum. She is a member of The String Sisters, The Martin Hayes Quartet, and Open the Door for Three and has just released a podcast with fiddler Liz Carroll called The Lizzes.
Born in Toronto, Ruby’s early years were spent near Pittsburgh before moving to the west coast in the late 1990’s. On the forefront of the Django Reinhardt renaissance, he co-founded the seminal group, Hot Club Sandwich, and later joined Seattle’s Pearl Django. With appearances at the burgeoning west coast Django festivals, Ruby accompanied such jazz guitar greats as Howard Alden, Patrick Saussois, Frank Vignola, Gonzalo Bergara and John Jorgensen. By 2010, Ruby stepped out on his own and released Look Both Ways, an album of all original compositions which Dan Hicks (of the Hot Licks) declared “is a soundtrack in search of a movie.” The album reached #1 on the Roots Music Review radio chart. In 2015, Ruby’s attention turned to the roots of jazz in the Pacific Northwest with Syncopated Classic – a project which unearthed, restored and recorded the lost compositions of 1920’s Seattle jazz pioneer Frank D. Waldron. The record was awarded “Northwest Jazz Recording of the Year.” His most recent album, Corner Café, cowritten with accordionist Steve Rice, evokes mid-century Parisian swing bands. Ruby is the Coordinator for the Swannanoa Gathering’s Guitar Week, and has taught extensively including Django in June, DjangoFest NW, and the Seattle Jazz Night School. He authored the Pearl Django Play-Along Book Vol.1 (2005), Frank D. Waldron: Seattle’s Syncopated Classic (2018), the Oscar Alemán Play-Along Songbook Vol. 1 (2019) and is a contributing author for Acoustic Guitar magazine. Ruby recently moved to Los Angeles & set up a studio in Venice Beach where he continues to live a creative life composing, recording and teaching online guitar lessons.