Celtic Week Staff -2024

Founder and director of the Irish Music Institute, Seán Gavin is one of the most highly regarded Irish musicians of his generation. He’s the author of the popular new instructional book, The Tin Whistle Method, published by Hal Leonard, and in 2016 he became the first musician born outside Ireland to win the prestigious Seán Ó Riada Gold Medal. Seán tours regularly with his critically acclaimed new concert series, “From Shore to Shore,” as well as with the groups Téada and Irish Christmas in America. In addition to performing, Seán was Musical Director for the PBS program I Am Ireland, and for the long running Atlantic Steps. He’s one of the most highly sought-after instructors of Irish music, having lectured on the subject at institutions around the world including the University of Chicago, St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, and Na Píobairí Uilleann in Dublin. Seán was encouraged in music by his father Mick, a fiddler from Co. Clare, and his brother Michael – a multi-instrumentalist. At age 12, he started work on the uilleann pipes with the late Al Purcell, former pupil of piper Leo Rowsome. Seán moved to Chicago at age 20 where he spent a decade playing and studying with the windy city’s finest musicians, particularly Sligo flute legend Kevin Henry. Since then he has toured extensively around the globe, with multiple radio, TV, and festival appearances. After three years in Minnesota, where he was active in the nonprofit Center for Irish Music, Seán is back in his native Detroit where he continues to play, teach, and promote traditional Irish music.

Born in Birmingham, England, Kevin Crawford’s early life was one long journey into Irish music and Co. Clare, where he eventually moved while in his 20’s. He was a founding member of Moving Cloud, the Clare-based band who recorded such critically-acclaimed albums as Moving Cloud and Foxglove, and he has also recorded with Grianin, Raise the Rafters, Joe Derrane, Natalie Merchant, Susan McKeown and Sean Tyrrell. Kevin appears on the 1992 recording, The Maiden Voyage, recorded live at Peppers Bar, Feakle, Co. Clare, and appears on the 1994 recording, The Sanctuary Sessions, recorded live in Cruise’s Bar, Ennis, Co. Clare. He now tours the world with Ireland’s cutting-edge traditional band, Lúnasa, called by some the “Bothy Band of the 21st Century,” with nine ground-breaking albums to their credit. A recent project is the Teetotallers, a supergroup trio that also features Martin Hayes and John Doyle. A virtuoso flute player, Kevin has also recorded several solo albums including The ‘D’ Flute Album, In Good Company, On Common Ground, Carrying the Tune, a duo recording with Lúnasa’s piper, Cillian Vallely, and a trio project with Dylan Foley & Patrick Doocey, The Drunken Gaugers.

John Doyle is one of Ireland’s most talented and innovative musicians. Originally from Dublin, and now a longtime resident of Asheville, John is an accomplished singer and songwriter, multi-Grammy nominee, and an extraordinary master of the Irish guitar whose hard-driving style has influenced generations of players. A founding member of the acclaimed group Solas, his powerful guitar playing provided the signature rhythmic backbone for the band, and his sensitive and emotional fingerstyle playing and creative vocal harmonies can be heard on four of Solas’ recordings as well as dozens of other recordings. John regularly performs solo, and has also toured the world with such artists as Joan Baez, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Linda Thompson, Jerry Douglas, The Alt, Usher’s Island, Liz Carroll, Eileen Ivers, Tim O’Brien, Michael McGoldrick & John McCusker, Alison Brown, Mick Moloney, Kate Rusby and a host of other world-class performers. John has been featured on over 100 recordings of traditional and contemporary Irish, folk and Americana music, and is a great lover of traditional song, and an encouraging and enthusiastic teacher. We’re pleased to welcome one of our Master Music Makers back for his seventeenth Gathering.

Nuala Kennedy’s thematic recording, Shorelines, her fifth solo release, is receiving accolades from press and audiences around the world. “Tales of fortitude and resilience, endurance and grit fuel this exceptional concept album.” says the Irish Times. It explores themes of female empowerment in a maritime setting, through traditional song and new composition. Dundalk-born Kennedy is known for her creative reworking of traditional songs and for a unique flute style. She is a musical adventurer who is respected world-wide as a singer and superlative live performer. Kennedy’s roots are first and foremost in Irish music, but she is “something of a genre bender” (Living Tradition magazine). She holds a Masters degree in Music and trained as a classical pianist with Prof. John O’ Connor. She has toured and recorded with Indie-Poet Will Oldham/Bonnie Prince Billy, with Norman Blake, Euros Childs, and with cutting-edge Canadian composer, the late Oliver Schroer. She worked on composer Brian Reitzell’s improvised score for the hit television series, American Gods and with piper Eric Rigler (Braveheart, Titanic) on the national U.S. Public Broadcasting show, Celtic Journeys. Kennedy was a featured artist on Janis Ian’s 2022 Grammy-nominated release End of The Line.

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.

Born in Bedford, England, to Irish parents from Galway and Longford, Kathleen began playing Irish music at age twelve, along with her siblings, Bernadette, Michael & Pauline. She took lessons from Co. Clare musician, Brendan Mulkere, a well- regarded teacher in and around London. Her father Michael is a fiddle, accordion, and tin whistle player from Errislannan, Co. Galway, and the Conneely home was always filled with music from records and live sessions with many visiting musicians. Over the years, Kathleen has lived in London, Dublin, Chicago, Rhode Island & Boston, where there was always a lively traditional Irish music scene, which has helped to sustain her passion for the music. She has taught for Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann both in Dublin and Boston, at the Boston College Irish Studies program; Gaelic Roots, the Catskills Irish Arts Week, the Swannanoa Gathering and at various trad festivals throughout the U.S. In 2012, she released her first solo CD, The Coming of Spring, and in 2022 released a new CD, All Jokes Aside, collaborating with fellow musicians and friends Sean Clohessy and John Coyne in Boston.

Jenna Moynihan is regarded as one of the best of the new generation of freestyle fiddlers. Versatile and inventive, her fiddling style draws strongly from the Scottish tradition, but is also influenced by American, Irish, and Swedish styles. Jenna has performed and taught around the world, including performances at Celtic Connections, Celtic Colours, Scots Fiddle Festival, A Christmas Celtic Sojourn and Festival Interceltique, and has toured with The Milk Carton Kids, Old Blind Dogs and Laura Cortese & The Dance Cards. She has performed as a soloist with The Boston Pops, and appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and CBS Sunday Morning. Jenna is a graduate of Berklee College of Music, where she received the Fletcher Bright Award & The American Roots Music Scholarship, both given annually to one outstanding string-player. In addition to her solo work, she currently performs with the Seamus Egan Project, Hanneke Cassel, and in a duo with Màiri Chaimbeul. Jenna also teaches at various camps and courses throughout the year, and is an Assistant Professor of Strings at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA.

 Born in Manchester, England, into a very musical family to parents from Co. Galway and Co. Cavan, Colin started playing the fiddle and tin whistle from an early age and won numerous titles at the Fleadh Cheoil. Since then, he has made a name for himself performing and recording with an array of great musicians in Europe and the US and has been a touring member of the band Lúnasa since 2010. In 2005, Colin was awarded a Master’s degree in music from Limerick University. Living in Florida since 2005, when not touring and teaching, Colin plays with Dave Curley in the ‘Raglan Road Irish Pub’ in Disney Springs. Colin’s solo debut, On The Move was named one of 2010’s 10 Best Albums by The Irish Echo, and his second album, Make A Note, released in 2015, was awarded Instrumental Album of the year by Live Ireland. At this year’s Celtic Week, Colin will be releasing a book and CD of some of his own compositions.

Josh Dukes is an All-Ireland champion accompanist and a highly sought after music teacher in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area. A multi-instrumentalist whose talents embrace the guitar, bouzouki, bodhran, flute, and tin whistle, Josh has established a reputation for providing sensitive, tasteful support for traditional Irish music. As a young high school student, Josh studied the oboe, tenor/alto saxophone, drum set and baritone horn. Outside of the classroom, he learned the art of ancient rudimental drumming under the tutelage of Dominick Cuccia, a widely respected instructor/performer in the fife & drum community. In 1997, Josh enlisted in the Army, earned the rank of Master Sergeant and served as one of three Drum Majors for the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, “The Official Escort to the President,” the only military unit of its kind. Since retiring from the Army, Josh continues to perform Irish music, having shared the stage with such renowned musicians as John Doyle, Paddy Keenan, Billy and Sean McComiskey, Brendan Mulvihill, Skip Healy, Dylan Foley, Zan McLeod, and Myron Bretholz, and he can be seen performing regularly with The Old Bay Ceili Band.

Called “One of the brightest fiddlers around today” by WGBH radio’s A Celtic Sojourn host Brian O’Donovan, multistyle violinist Mari Black has delighted audiences around the world with her energetic playing, sparkling stage presence, and dazzlingly virtuosic fiddling. Mari made her entrance onto the international stage when she became the Glenfiddich Fiddle Champion of Scotland, a two-time U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion, and a two-time Canadian Maritime Fiddle champion, all within a three-year period. She’s performed at Celtic festivals, Highland Games, celebrated folk venues, world music concert series, and acclaimed classical concert venues including Carnegie Hall. She’s performed in Brazil, Scotland, Canada, China, Korea, Zimbabwe, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy and France, and works as a teacher, performance coach, dancer, competition judge and musical ambassador dedicated to connecting people through music. Mari has taught workshops at the Acadia Trad School, the Jink & Diddle School of Scottish Fiddling, the Mark O’Connor fiddle camp, the Tanglewood Festival, the Yale School of Music, and more. Her compositions have won several awards, including a Gold Medal from the MASC International Songwriting Competition.

Gráinne Hambly comes from Co. Mayo in the west of Ireland. She started to play Irish music on the tinwhistle at an early age, before moving on to the concertina and later the harp. She lived in Belfast for six years, where she completed a Master’s Degree in Musicology at Queen’s University. Her main research topic concerned folk music collections and the harp in 18th-century Ireland. In 1994, she was awarded first prize in the senior All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil competitions for harp and concertina. As well as being an established performer touring extensively throughout Europe and North America, she is also a qualified teacher of traditional Irish music and is in great demand at summer schools and festivals both in Ireland and abroad. Gráinne was awarded the T.T.C.T. (a certificate for teaching traditional Irish music at advanced level, credited by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and the Irish Department of Education), and has also received her Graduate Diploma in Education (Music) from the University of Limerick. She has released three widely-acclaimed solo harp CDs and a collaborative CD with Billy Jackson, as well as appearing on a number of other recordings.

A former member of Cherish the Ladies, Cathie Ryan has devoted her life to singing Irish songs. Her 45-year career is distinguished by an unerring taste in song, critically acclaimed songwriting, and a history of excellence in recording and performance. She has released numerous CDs and tours internationally with her band headlining at performing arts centers, festivals, and with symphony orchestras. Born in Detroit to Irish parents from Kerry and Tipperary, she grew up in a home steeped in song and storytelling and continues to research the myths and the old songs. Cathie has taught workshops on Irish traditional singing and myth & folklore throughout North America and Europe, including several years at the Gathering.

At age seven, Cillian Vallely began learning the whistle and pipes from his parents, Brian and Eithne at the Armagh Pipers Club, a group that has fostered the revival of traditional music in the north of Ireland for over four decades. Since leaving college, he has played professionally and toured all over North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. He appears on over seventy albums including guest spots with Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Merchant and Alan Simon’s Excalibur project with Fairport Convention and the Moody Blues. He has also performed and toured with Riverdance, Tim O’Brien, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Whirligig, Declan O’Rourke and the Celtic Jazz Collective. Since 1999, he has been a member of Lúnasa, one of the world’s premier Irish bands, with whom he has recorded ten albums and played at many major festivals and venues including WOMAD, Glastonbury, Edmonton Folk Festival, Carnegie Hall and The Hollywood Bowl. In November 2023, he released a new duet CD with fiddler David Doocey.

Will MacMorran is a multi-talented musician, audio engineer, and educator based in Johnson City, TN. Will has had the honor of touring with The Chieftains as their guitar player for the past few years and has spent 15 years touring nationally and internationally with well-known artists in the Celtic, pop, and country genres. Will started piping at a young age and quickly added the guitar, whistles, accordion, and bouzouki, among other instruments, to his skillset. In addition to touring, Will currently teaches in East Tennessee State University’s Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music Studies Program and is the Department Head of Entertainment Technology at Northeast State Community College.

Billy Jackson was a founding member of the influential folk group Ossian in 1976, a band whose outstanding recordings remain a benchmark for Scottish music, and a member of the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame. Acclaimed for his musicality on the Celtic harp, he is also a renowned composer whose work is inspired by the history and landscape of Scotland. In 1999, his song, “Land of Light” was selected as the winner of The Glasgow Herald’s year-long “Song For Scotland” competition, coinciding with the restoration of the Scottish Parliament, to select a “new anthem for a new era in Scotland.” As a solo performer, he has toured extensively throughout Europe and North America, and has taught harp at many international festivals. Billy is also a trained music therapist, and in 2004, he received our Master Music Maker Award for lifetime achievement. Billy has performed with, and composed for, a variety of orchestras including The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Asheville Symphony and Cape Cod Symphony. Billy headed the music therapy program at Mission Hospital in Asheville for 10 years, and he now works part-time in music therapy in Sligo, Ireland.

Shane Farrell is an All-Ireland champion multi-instrumentalist hailing from Manchester, UK. With an illustrious career spanning over 35 years, Shane’s mastery of the mandolin has captivated audiences worldwide. Currently calling Orlando home, Shane has been the resident musician at ‘Raglan Road’, enchanting audiences at Walt Disney World and Universal Studios since 2012. His musical journey has seen him share the stage with renowned artists like The Irish Rovers, Brock McGuire Band, and Derek Warfield, amassing over 8000 live performances across the globe. Beyond his captivating stage presence, Shane is a dedicated educator, teaching mandolin, fiddle, and tenor banjo to numerous students through his engaging YouTube Channel. His commitment to preserving and sharing the rich tradition of Irish music makes him not only a performer but also a cherished mentor in the world of folk and traditional music. Shane has also been a past teacher at the prestigious O’Flaherty’s Irish Music retreat.

Dave Curley is one of Ireland’s leading multi-instrumentalists, vocalists and a champion step dancer. Hailing from Co. Galway on the west coast of Ireland, Curley has worked with the award-winning traditional group, Slide, for the past ten years and also spent five successful years with award-winning American Roots band, Runa. More recently, Curley has joined forces with musically diverse multi-instrumentalist Andrew Finn Magill, Lúnasa, and is also a creative member of Crannua, featuring Moya Brennan, John Doyle, Ashley Davis, Mick McCauley and Eamonn & Cormac DeBarra. Curley has a BA in Irish Music and Dance from the University of Limerick, four years teaching experience at The Music Academy, State College PA, and has taught at O’Flaherty’s Retreat in Texas, the Milwaukee Irish Fest School of Music, and has presented many music workshops at colleges, festivals and music schools around the US with Slide, Runa and Sligo fiddler, Manus McGuire.

Allan Carr is one of Scotland’s finest traditional singers, whose repertoire of songs, ballads and stories reflects the culturally-rich region of his native North East of Scotland. Born and raised in Aberdeen, Allan grew up in a musical family of singers, fiddlers, pipers and accordion players. Allan’s “resonant vocals have a depth found only in the rarest of singers” (Boston Globe) and he sings in an easy, relaxed style with fine accompaniment on guitar and mandocello. He began singing traditional songs in his teens, learning from such source singers as Jeannie Robertson, Lizzie Higgins, Jimmy McBeath and Stanley Robertson, and winning traditional singing competitions at the Traditional Music Association of Scotland festivals. He has toured extensively in the USA and Europe, initially with Jane Rothfield and Martin Hadden ( of Silly Wizard fame) and later solo and in several configurations with his wife Jane. His singing and playing are featured on recordings on Temple, Green Linnet, Shanachie and Lismor labels, along with many others, including a 2013 solo album Songs of Northeast Scotland. He and Jane have also just recorded a duo album, to be released in the spring of 2024. Allan is an experienced teacher, having taught ballads at John C. Campbell folk school, and many workshops and music camps in the UK and USA.

London-born flute and whistle player John Skelton is probably best known to American audiences from his work with The House Band, with whom he recorded eight albums on the Green Linnet label. He has also released a solo album, One At a Time, and Double Barrelled, a highly regarded album of flute duets with Kieran O’Hare, as well as a series of tune collection books, imaginatively titled A Few Tunes, A Few More Tunes, Yet More Tunes and Some Breton Tunes. John has performed at most of the major folk festivals in North America, Europe and Australia. He is an experienced teacher, and has taught at summer schools in the United States, Europe and Africa, and twenty previous years at the Gathering. In addition to his background in Irish music, John is also well-schooled in the music of Brittany. He visits there regularly, and is a highly-regarded player of the Breton bombarde, a double-reed folk shawm. NPR’s Thistle & Shamrock described him as “the finest bombarde player outside of Brittany.” He also plays the ‘Piston’ (Low Bombarde), the ‘Veuze’ (the bagpipe of eastern Brittany) and the ‘Gaita Gallega’ (Galician pipes). In 2014, John and Kieran O’Hare recorded the CD, Two Tone, a follow-up to Double-Barrelled. John serves as the Celtic Week Host.

Originally from Dublin, Eamon has lived in New York City for the last twenty years. He has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe, performing and recording with many of Irish music’s great players. In addition to his performance schedule, Eamon has taught at numerous music programs including the Augusta Heritage Center, the Catskills Irish Arts Week, the Alaska Irish Music Camp and many years at the Gathering. In 2004, he and Patrick Ourceau released a live recording, Live at Mona’s, documenting their many years hosting a session on New York’s Lower East Side, and in 2012, Eamon released a recording of traditional songs, The Murphy Beds, with Jefferson Hamer, described by the Huffington Post as “ten beautiful, crystalline songs.” He also teamed up with old friends John Doyle and Nuala Kennedy to form The Alt, and Their self-titled debut album was released in November 2014.

Anna Colliton’s distinctively buoyant and imaginative playing has made her one of the leading exponents of the bodhrán, the traditional Irish frame drum. Anna has appeared with Eileen Ivers, Cherish the Ladies, Comas, and the Paul McKenna Band among others, worked as a dedicated sub for the Broadway hit musical, Come From Away, and completed a three-year residency at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. She has performed and taught at dozens of festivals across the country, including Catskills Irish Arts Week, The Swannanoa Gathering Celtic Week, Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, The O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat, The St. Louis Tionol, CCE MAD Week, The Gulf Coast Cruinniú, Tune Junkie Weekend, and Augusta Celtic Week. As a teacher dedicated to advancing the tradition of bodhrán playing, Anna inspires students of all levels to incorporate both ‘the old’ and ‘the new’ into their playing, emphasizing the importance of personal style in traditional music. Anna is also the author of Hide and Seek, an ears-first approach to interpreting rhythm and variation in Irish traditional melody for the bodhrán, and a funny little bodhrán book for intermediate and advanced players.

Ranked among the “100 Greatest Acoustic Guitarists” by DigitalDreamDoor.com, Robin Bullock has been hailed as “one of the best folk instrumentalists in the business” by Sing Out! magazine, “breathtaking” by Guitar Player magazine and a “Celtic guitar god” by Baltimore City Paper. His honors include Editor’s Pick and Player’s Choice Awards from Acoustic Guitar magazine, the Association for Independent Music’s prestigious INDIE Award (with the world-music trio Helicon), multiple Washington Area Music Association WAMMIE Awards and the Gathering’s Master Music Maker Award. Robin performs solo, with guitarist/banjoist Steve Baughman, and with four-time National Scottish Harp Champion Sue Richards; he’s also played several hundred concerts as a sideman with Grammy award-winning folk legend Tom Paxton, including four “Together At Last” tours with Tom’s fellow Grammy-winner Janis Ian. An experienced and articulate teacher, Robin has led workshops all over North America and been a staff instructor at every Swannanoa Gathering since 1996. Now a resident of nearby Black Mountain, Robin hosts the monthly Carolina Celtic concert series at White Horse Black Mountain and teaches guitar, mandolin and cittern from his home studio via Zoom and Skype. This year Robin celebrates three decades as a solo recording artist with the compilation CD, Wolf Tracks: A Retrospective 1993-2022.

Originally from Fairbanks, Alaska, Caitlin Warbelow is a violinist and fiddler based in Manhattan. For seven years, she was the violinist/fiddler for the Tony-award winning Broadway musical, Come From Away, and performed previously with Riverdance’s Heartbeat of Home as well as Sting’s Broadway musical, The Last Ship. She has toured with Cherish the Ladies, The Alt, Mick Moloney and the Green Fields of America, Michael Londra & Celtic Fire, Trinity Dance Company, and the Cathie Ryan Band, among many others. Caitlin is the co-founder of Tune Supply, a pandemic-era online traditional music platform. Caitlin performs, records, and teaches extensively in a variety of traditional and popular Irish and American genres, and occasionally returns to her roots as a classical violinist. Caitlin holds honors from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, the National Suzuki Conference, the New England Fiddle Championship, and the Fleadh Cheoil, and she is on the faculty at Manhattan’s Irish Arts Center, the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, and the Far North Fiddle Festival. Caitlin holds a Masters degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University and two Bachelors degrees from Boston University, in Violin Performance and Anthropology.

Danielle is a dancer, fiddler, and enthochoreologist (dance anthropologist). She grew up steeped in Irish music and dance, and has family connections to Métis and Quebecois dance and fiddle traditions. Danielle is an Irish step-dancer, and a sean-nós (old-style) dancer. She specializes in the old, regional Irish dance master traditions and styles, and their relationship to European and North American dance practices.

With her comprehensive knowledge of the historical and cultural paradigms of cross-cultural dance traditions and her fiddle practice, Danielle brings a unique depth to the work she does. In the world of Irish dance, Danielle has a toe in both competitive and old-style/sean-nós dance. She has studied dance in Cork, Kerry, and Belfast, and has direct links to the old dancing master lineages of Cork and Kerry. Danielle is an expert in the dance master traditions in Ireland, Europe, and North America/Turtle Island and has presented papers and performances on topics ranging from the role of dance in forming and signaling cultural identity throughout history, to dance and traditional art practices in pre-and post-colonial cultures, to issues around community, race, and accessibility in dance and tradition.

The Coordinator of Celtic Week is an award-winning songwriter and instrumentalist and the founding Director of the Swannanoa Gathering Folk Arts Workshops at Warren Wilson College. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and also acts as Coordinator for our Contemporary Folk and Mando & Banjo Weeks. He directed the Celtic Series of Mainstage Concerts at Asheville’s Diana Wortham Theatre for more than twenty years, and was awarded the first Fellowship in Songwriting and Composition from the North Carolina Arts Council. He performs solo on guitar, mandolin and vocals, and with his wife Beth (flute) and son Andrew Finn (fiddle) as the Celtic trio, The Magills. With numerous album and performance credits, including performances with Emmy Lou Harris and Tom Paxton, Jim’s original songs have been covered by such artists as Mike Cross, The Smith Sisters, Cucanandy and the Shaw Brothers, and have been featured numerous times on NPR’s Thistle & Shamrock. In the world of graphic arts, his cover designs for the Gathering’s catalogs have won sixteen design awards; he’s twice been a finalist for Photoshop World’s Guru Awards, and he has served as a consultant on website design for several luthiers.

Children’s Program coordinator Melissa Hyman is involved with kids and music in all the many facets of her working life. She has taught music to elementary students at Asheville charter schools and coordinated children’s programming at regional music conferences. She is a touring and recording artist, cellist, bassist, singer and songwriter who works with many beloved Asheville bands including The Moon and You, Tina & Her Pony and Hannah Kaminer & the Wistfuls. She teaches rock band at French Broad River Academy middle school, in addition to private music students of all ages. She is also the Music Teacher for the Asheville chapter of Arts for Life (artsforlifenc.org), a non-profit providing art and music programming for patients in NC’s major children’s hospitals and outpatient clinics. In 2016 Melissa founded Arts For Life’s Heartbeat Sessions program (heartbeatsessions.org), in joyful collaboration with Echo Mountain Recording Studios and many talented members of the Asheville music community. Melissa looks forward to many more unforgettable summers in Swannanoa, leading a ragtag crew of amazing kids and counselors on adventures through space and time. She feels right at home in this world of messy games, silly songs, amazing crafts and fast friendships.