2009 Nutmeg Dulcimer Festival
Workshop Leaders

•         Cookie Segelstein received her Masters degree in Viola from The Yale School of Music in 1984. She is the co-founder of Veretski Pass, a member of Budowitz, principal violist in Orchestra New England, and assistant principal in The New Haven Symphony Orchestra. Cookie teaches klezmer fiddling at Living Traditions' KlezKamp, Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven, and many other venues. She has performed with Theodore Bikel, The Klezical Tradition, The Klezmatics, Kapelye, Margot Leverett and The Klezmer Conservatory Band, and more ... and has taught klezmer fiddling workshops at several major universities.  Her music has been heard on HBO’s “Sex and the City,” and she appears on numerous klezmer and classical recordings.  She is also active as a Holocaust educator and curriculum advisor, and has been a frequent lecturer at the Women’s Correctional Facility in Niantic, CT. Cookie lives in Madison, CT.  www.Budowitz.com

•         MinTze Wu is both a world-class violinist and a celebrated traditional fiddler.   She grew up in Taiwan, began her violin study at the age of nine, and moved to the US to attend Juilliard Pre-College, before receiving her Bachelor and Masters of Music at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She started fiddling in 2002, and has dazzled crowds in classical and folk concerts, and Irish sessions, from Colorado to Poland. A former member of the Azmari Quartet, she served as faculty at Northern Kentucky University. She is currently sharing duties as co-director of Gros Morne Summer Music in Newfoundland, Canada.  She and Jem released their first album together in 2007.

•         Stephen Seifert's teaching and playing has made him a favorite with dulcimer players all over the country since 1991. In that time, he's been a featured performer at hundreds of dulcimer festivals and other music events including Kentucky Music Week in Bardstown, KY, Mountain Dulcimer Week in Cullowhee, NC, the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, WV, the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, AR, Stringalong near Milwaukee, WI, the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, KS and The Tono American Music Festival, in Tono, Japan.
Stephen has been a dulcimer soloist with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, now know as Orchestra Nashville, since 1996 and is featured on their Warner Classical recording of Connie Ellisor and David Schnaufer's Blackberry Winter, a concerto for mountain dulcimer and string orchestra. The piece continues to be in regular rotation on many classical stations around the U.S. (The recording album is titled "Conversations in Silence" and can be sampled and purchased on iTunes.) Stephen most recently performed this piece with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra.
Stephen was Adjunct Instructor of Mountain Dulcimer with David Schnaufer at Vanderbilt's Blair School of Music from 1997 to 2001. He also taught, performed, and recorded with Mr. Schnaufer as a duo throughout the country. Stephen has authored ten books, four CDs, and 16 instructional videos.
We are delighted that Stephen was able to change his schedule at the last minute and fly up to Nutmeg.

MOUNTAIN DULCIMER BIOS

•         Rich Carty has been playing the mountain dulcimer for 30 years and is one of the founding members of the Greater Pinelands Dulcimer Society.  He has taught mountain dulcimer since 1986, and is currently co-owner of Pinelands Folk Music Center, located is south Jersey.   www.pinelandsfolkmusic.com

•         Ron Ewing has been playing mountain dulcimer since 1970, and has built over 1,700 during that time. He is especially known for his innovative designs, including the baritone, dulcimette, dulcimer capo, the 1½ fret; and his lively renditions of Irish, Appalachian, and Euro dance tunes. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.  www.ronewingdulcimers.com

•         Moto Fukushima has been playing music as long as he can remember.  Raised in Japan, he is now a New York-based professional 6-string electric bass player.  Moto has performed with many top jazz musicians in the US, Japan, and elsewhere ... and he applies his vast knowledge of jazz and world music to the mountain dulcimer.  www.motobass.com

 

•        Liz Hanahan taught mountain dulcimer at Folkcraft in Winsted, CT, after retiring from her real-life job as a teacher.  She shares her love of dulcimers by performing at area group living facilities.

 

 

•         Lori Keddell has been playing dulcimer for more than 23 years, and has taught classes and workshops for children and adults in NY, VT, PA, CT and MA. She has coordinated the annual Mountain Dulcimer Music Fest in Albany, NY for the past 21 years, and has published 4 books of dulcimer music.

 

 

 

•         Sandy Lafleur of Amherst, NH has been playing Appalachian dulcimer since 1994.  She teaches privately at her home, at the Rivier College RISE program, and at festivals throughout the Northeast.  Her involvement in fife & drum corps, contra dance, Scottish & English Country Dance, Sacred Harp singing, and playing with the Strathspey & Reel Society of NH Scottish orchestra has provided her with a boundless supply of tunes and musical styles.  www.wanderingdulcimer.com

 

•         Steve Miklos as been building mountain dulcimers and other instruments for over ten years, and has in the past few years concentrated on bringing advanced acoustics and visual surprise to the crafting of Mountain Dulcimers. Steve is also responsible for all the mistakes on the Nutmeg web site.   www.carrotcreek.com

•         Don Moore saw his first dulcimer 35 years ago at a craft fair.  Fifteen years later, he stumbled upon the Folkcraft store and the gentleman he'd seen at the craft fair, David Marks!  Don heads the Dulcimer Folk Association (DF#A) which brings together dulcimer players and other musicians in northern Connecticut every month.  In his "spare" time, he runs a sawmill that has sawn the wood for over half of his instruments, and has been in his family for six generations.  http://www.dulcimerfolkct.org/

 

 

 

•         Laurel Schwartz has been a music teacher for over 20 years, and currently teaches at the Middle School of Plainville, CT.   She teaches dulcimer, drums, and recorder to her students in groups of 15 - 36.  She believes, "There is a true joy and sense of accomplishment in playing a tune well." 

 

 

•         Lucy Joan Sollogub has been sharing her singing, dulcimer playing, and teaching for over 30 years. Lucy teaches dulcimer, whistle, recorder, guitar, and Celtic harp at two Boston-area music schools, conducts a Jewish children’s chorus, directs a creative arts summer program, and performs with the mountain and hammered dulcimer duo “Ladies’ Triumph." Lucy has published two music books; “Shiron L’Shalom” and “A Dulcimer Portfolio.”

 

 

•         Dwain Wilder, founder of Bear Meadow Folk Instruments, has been building dulcimers since 1991, and he regularly receives commissions from Europe, Great Britain, and the Far East. Dwain also teaches dulcimer building classes at the Northeast Dulcimer Symposium, as well as at his studio in Rochester, NY. He also writes poetry, and inscribes a short verse inside each dulcimer he builds ... making him one of the world's highest paid poets, on a per-word basis.  www.bearmeadow.com

 

 

 

•         Nina Zanetti is the 2008 National Mountain Dulcimer Champion.  She comes to dulcimer from a diverse musical background, including choral music, violin, viola, piano, and shape note singing.  She has taught at festivals around the Northeast and at WCU Mountain Dulcimer Week ("Cullowhee").  She has produced two solo tablature books, and has also co-authored (with Beth Lassi) two books of duet arrangements.  Nina has also produced a CD of solos and duets, "The Sum of the Parts," with Bill Collins.  www.ninazanetti.com

•         Mike Kachuba is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who began playing the hammered dulcimer in 1976.  Mike performs frequently solo, as well as with the Ash Creek String Band and with noted New Haven musician Jeff McQuillan.  He has also performed with mountain dulcimer master, Rob Brereton.  Currently, Mike uses the hammered dulcimer in his work as artist in residence at the CT Children's Medical Center and in other healing settings.   www.yaconn.org/artists/M-mike-kach.html

 

 

 

•         Jody Marshall, one of the East Coast's premier hammered dulcimer players and teachers, is well known for her lively, expressive style and creative flair. The Washington Post has described Jody's music as "deftly balancing the artful and the playful...lovely, lively, and shimmering." Jody has taught at numerous festivals, including The Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina, Spring Fling Rendezvous in  Oregon, and the Northeast Dulcimer Symposium in New York.  She has several CDs.   www.JodyMarshall.com

 

 

 

•         Tim Van Egmond built his first hammered dulcimer in 1973, and has been playing ever since.  He performs widely as a folksinger, storyteller, and dulcimist.  In the legendary contra dance band Swallowtail he's performed nationwide, including the National Museum of American History and "A Prairie Home Companion."  In the duo Yankee Notions, he's played hundreds of concerts and educational programs throughout New England.   www.timvanegmond.com.

 

 

 

•         Jon Weinberg plays hammered dulcimer for contra dances, weddings, concerts, and coffee houses throughout New England.  He has performed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the New England Conservatory of Music.  Jon also teaches hammered dulcimer lessons to area students and is a regular workshop leader at dulcimer festivals in the Northeast US.

 

 

•         Max ZT has been hooked on the hammered dulcimer ever since he heard one at a Chicago-area folk festival at age six.  After playing American and Celtic music for a dozen years, he went to Senegal, Africa, three times to study with master kora and djembe players.  In 2005, he won the National Hammered Dulcimer Championship.  NPR has called him “the Jimi Hendrix of the hammered dulcimer.”  He lives in Brooklyn, works with scores of national and international artists, and has 4 CDs.  www.maxzt.com

Sam Edelston believes that dulcimers (of both types) are among the world’s coolest musical instruments, and that they deserve to be as widely known as, say, guitars and harmonicas (even though he’s teaching guitar here this year).  He is chair of this festival.