2025 STAFF (PAGE 1)

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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. 

Jerry Bryant (Amherst, MA) is a singer and independent folk scholar focused on curating great songs from the past 500 years of American, Irish and British folk traditions. His repertoire includes hundreds of traditional and contemporary folk songs, with a special emphasis on the musical artifacts of maritime culture.  Singing unaccompanied, or playing the concertina, guitar, or tenor banjo, he presents old and new songs that open a window on the human experience.  Another musical field of exploration for Jerry is early 20th-century American popular song, typified as the product of Tin Pan Alley. Working largely from the original sheet music, Jerry revives not just the familiar choruses but also the long-forgotten verses, accompanying his singing with ukuleles of all sizes. 

A devoted teacher, Jerry was on staff for 14 years at Meadowlark Music Camp, and is a regular faculty member at Fiddle Hell (teaching singing, guitar, uke, and rhythm bones). Right before this year’s River Jam Romp he will teach at TradMad Camp. Jerry has also served as a mentor in the Southern New England Apprenticeship Program, sharing his expertise about traditional sea chanteys.

Adina Gordon finds an outlet for her loves of travel, music, dance and silliness by calling and dancing throughout the U.S. and Canada, facilitating joy and minor chaos wherever she goes. Combining a voice that makes you WANT to do what she says with a commitment to using that power for good and not evil, Adina calls dances both old and new that cause spontaneous eruptions of joy on the dance floor. She counts it as a job well done whenever anyone says, “I wasn't sure about squares, but they're fun when you call them!”

A native of Newfoundland, Keith Murphy's (Brattleboro, VT) traditional song repertoire is based in Eastern Canada and Quebec as well as his current home, Vermont. He has a direct and intimate style of traditional singing in English and French that infuses old ballads and songs with a powerful immediacy, while his rhythmic and percussive finger style of guitar playing brings new shape and color to his songs. For many years, his piano, mandolin, DADGAD guitar, and foot percussion were part of the driving force of various high profile and influential dance bands. 

Keith was a founding member of Nightingale, a trio which broke new ground in its sophisticated approach to traditional music. He was a mainstay of the Boston fiddle extravaganza, Childsplay, and was the music director for the annual WGBH St Patrick’s concerts in the Boston area for many years. He also worked extensively with traditional song icon, Tony Barrand. Keith was a featured performer in the Boston Revels shows in 2016. and 2022.  He is a faculty member of the Brattleboro Music Center (BMC) and the artistic director of the BMC’s Northern Roots Traditional Music Festival in Brattleboro, Vermont, which he founded in 2008.

Keith continues to tour with National Scottish Fiddle Champion Hanneke Cassel and is part of a duo with Yann Falquet that features songs of Newfoundland and Quebec. He has also recently formed The Band of Amber with Ty Gibbons, Anand Nayak, and Richie Barshay as a followup to his recording, Bright As Amber. Keith’s most enduring musical collaborator is his wife and fiddler, Becky Tracy, with whom he often performs. 

Keith is an accomplished composer and arranger in the realm of traditional music and has also composed for theater and film. His original book of tunes, Black Isle Music, contains most of his 150 or so original tunes, many of which are staples of the contra dance scene. He is a featured performer on a couple of dozen recordings including his four solo recordings and a guest musician on numerous others. His versions of traditional songs have inspired recordings by other groups including Solas, Uncle Earl, and Great Big Sea. Several of his compositions were prominently featured in the  Ken Burns’ documentary on the Roosevelts.

Fiddler, mandolinist and tunesmith Oliver Scanlon began his early training on classical viola with a stint with the Vermont Youth Orchestra. 

Scanlon was introduced to his mentor Pete Sutherland and the parallel universe of fiddle music at the age of nine. In 2008, Oliver and a few talented middle school friends formed the group which became The Irregulars, and in 2013 he co-founded Pete’s Posse and became the youngest member of Sutherland’s long running dance band The Clayfoot Strutters.  

He released his solo album “The Pond Jam” in 2014, as his senior project before graduating high school, and joined the Young Tradition Vermont Touring Group where he progressed all the way to an artist leader of the group in 2019. 

Oliver now teaches fiddle and mandolin in Syracuse, NY, performs at concerts and contradances with a variety of musicians including his contradance quartet, Stove Dragon, and provides live sound reinforcement in New York and New England.

Known for their dynamic, moving, and accessible singing workshops, the Amidons (Brattleboro, VT)  have led choral singing workshops at major traditional music festivals, CDSS summer camps, and week-long choral singing weeks in the U.S. and the U.K. Their choral arrangements are being sung by hundreds of choirs throughout the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.