MEGAN MACARTHUR
Megan MacArthur (Marlboro, VT) has lived her entire life on MacArthur Road in Marlboro, Vermont. She grew up listening to the traditional folksongs sung and played by her mother, Margaret MacArthur. This rich background, along with her rural lifestyle, influences Megan's music as she continues the traditions of singing ballads and songs of country life.
Megan’s voice has been called “a clear fluid instrument” in SingOut magazine. Whether singing alone or with family and friends, she creates a sound that effortlessly carries the listener deep into the history and culture of traditional Vermont life.
ELLEN GAWLER
Ellen Gawler (Belgrade, ME) is a celebrated fiddler conversant in many styles including New England, Irish, French Canadian, Maritime, New England, and Shetland. With roots in Marlboro, Vermont, Ellen was inspired by her friends and neighbors, including the folk singing MacArthur Family.
Ellen spent her teens immersed in the lively fiddling and dance revival in Southern Vermont, New Hampshire and Western Mass. At age 18, she followed her fiddling passion to Ireland, and soon after to Maine where she picked up a love for Maine French and Maritime fiddling from the old timers. As a founding member of Maine Fiddle Camp, co-founder of the Pineland Suzuki School, and teacher at 317 Community Music School, Ellen has dedicated herself to supporting the traditional dance and music revival in the state of Maine.
For 15 years, Ellen and her childhood friend, Megan MacArthur, together with Elisabeth Wolfe, formed the folk trio, Trillium, who were well loved for their intertwining harmonies. Currently, she performs with the fun-loving Gawler Family, as well as playing for dances, and teaching at camps and workshops.
LISA MCCORMICK
Lisa McCormick (Brattleboro, VT) began playing guitar at the age of ten, and by the age of sixteen was performing in clubs. She put her music career on hold while she studied at college and then worked at the University of Vermont as an English teacher. She later won the grand prize in the 1997 USA Songwriting Contest, received three preliminary Grammy nominations in 1998, and was awarded with 'Artist of the Year' and 'Album of the Year' by Maine Public Radio.
Lisa teaches guitar and ukulele online, but locally, she is best known as the Ukulele Lady. Lisa has inspired dozens of Brattleboro-area students, from absolute beginners to advanced. She strongly believes in experiential learning, ensuring that even the novice student comes away from the very first lesson with the ability to play at least one song.
When not performing or teaching, Lisa can be found cooking, snuggling with her big black Maine coon cat, digging around in her cottage garden, or riding around town on her silver Piaggio motor scooter. She also enjoys going to see other people perform music, especially local musicians. “I prefer to keep it close to home,” she says.
BECKY TRACY
Becky Tracy (Brattleboro, VT) has been called the “queen of contra dance fiddling”. She was a founding member of the band Nightingale (with Keith Murphy and Jeremiah McLane) and for the last thirty years has been the fiddler with the iconic contra dance band, Wild Asparagus. More recently, Becky has joined forces with Rachel Bell in Eloise & Co., a French inspired band that plays for contra dancing, BalFolk dancing, and concerts.
Becky is a sought-after fiddle teacher, recognized for her clear, compassionate teaching. She and husband, Keith Murphy, collaborate on musical performances, projects, and also do a fair amount of teaching together, holding weekly Celtic session classes for the last 17 years at the Brattleboro Music Center.
Becky has recorded with all her bands and on other projects. Her recording, Evergreen, has stood the test of time, and is recognized as an album of haunting beauty, intimacy and exuberance. Most recently, she and Keith released their first dedicated duo album, “Golden”.
ANNA PATTON
Anna Patton (Brattleboro, VT) is a clarinetist, singer, composer, and educator driven by musical curiosity. She plays with the internationally touring contra dance band Elixir, the swing band "Zara Bode’s Little Big Band,” and with various other combos that play for social dancing, including several collaborations with pianist Karen Axelrod.
Anna loves to teach ensemble classes, improvisation, and ear training. She directs the Soubrette Jazz Choir which performs her creative close-harmony arrangements of historical and contemporary American music. She also enjoys drinking good espresso and playing ping pong.
KAREN AXELROD
Karen Axelrod’s (Brattleboro, VT) piano playing combines expressiveness, energy, lyricism and power. She is equally at home with styles ranging from
traditional folk melodies to passionate tangos to old world French musette waltzes to English Country dance tunes and much more. She left behind classical music over 40 years ago, and has happily settled into her musical home....somewhere between folk, classical and improvisation. Her playing is soulful yet touched with humor and whimsy.
When she is not playing concerts, Karen is one of the busiest and most sought after traditional dance musicians. Her elegant and rich piano playing and her colorful, gorgeous accordion playing are enlivened by her off-beat humor. Karen plays with a number of bands for traditional dance events as well as concerts. Her bands include Alchemy, Peregrine Road and 3rd String Trio.
Based in Brattleboro, VT, Karen tours extensively throughout the United States, Canada and abroad. But, wait, there's more! She cooks! Karen assisted in the kitchen at the very first RiverJam Romp in 2022.
MARK ROBERTS
Mark Roberts (Amherst, MA) discovered traditional music as a teenager in the 1970s, hanging around at coffeehouses, festivals, and contradances. As an adult, Mark is primarily known as a flute and banjo player, but is equally at home playing guitar, bouzouki, and percussion. His laid-back, inclusive style of teaching and leading is well known and respected by many.
Mark has been part of a number of groundbreaking bands in Traditional Music including: The Red Clay Ramblers, Touchstone, The Sevens, The Clayfoot Strutters, and Childsplay. His flute and pennywhistle playing feature prominently in the film, Secret of Roan Inish. He has taught numerous instruments at many music camps; Pinewoods, Maine Fiddle Camp, Augusta Heritage, and Swannanoa Gathering, to name a few.
DAVID MILLSTONE
David Millstone (Lebanon, NH) has been leading dances for more than 45 years, calling contras, squares, English country dances, family dances, and dances in odd formations everywhere from Alaska and Hawaii to nine countries in Europe. He's a dance historian who has produced documentaries about Bob McQuillen, Dudley Laufman and Ralph Sweet; he has given talks online and at dance camps around the country on different aspects of country dance history. He served for six years as President of Country Dance and Song Society.
GARRETT SAWYER
Co-founder of the Gaslight Tinkers, Garrett Sawyer (Montague, MA) cut his teeth playing in some of the most well-known bands in Trinidad, including the soca calypso band, Atlantik. Back in New England as a sound engineer, producer, and owner of the world class Northfire Recording Studio, Garrett became connected with musicians in the traditional music scene. He engineered albums for such notables as Bare Necessities, Elixir, Anna Patton, and many others.
While you might find Garrett playing bass for a contra dance, he’s that rare musician that has performed in settings ranging from a Trinidadian soca band in an abandoned fort in the heart of Grenada, a Senegalese hip-hop group in a National Geography concert at Grand Central Station, a klezmer group at the opening of the Boston Greenway, and an Eastern European heavy metal/reggae band in a dark club in Springfield, MA.
Garrett writes and performs with a depth of understanding born from both academic analysis (as a Berklee graduate) and real-world experience. Since 2012, Garrett has played concerts, festivals, and contra dance weekends across the US with the genre-bending world fusion band, The Gaslight Tinkers.
I-SHEA
I-SHEA (Irene Shaikly) (Springfield, MA) bears a myriad of influences, including Caribbean music, inner-city hip hop, and New England traditional music. I-Shea deftly leads workshops in percussion/drumming and dance that include all skill levels, as well as singing workshops that incorporate songs from the Dominican Republic and more modern traditions such as early hip hop. She brings joy and exuberance to the experience of learning, makes it accessible and participatory, and catalyzes multi-generational collaboration.
She has taken her work to Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Senegal West Africa, and Jamaica continuing on her journey as a global citizen of the arts and the world. Building connections and community through performance art, education, and organizing, her mission is to spread the movement of universal love and truth, to continue to inspire and motivate individuals to seek their highest authentic selves through storytelling, music, movement/dance, theater, and poetry.