Brittany Haas Fiddle
Brittany grew up attending fiddle camps, and developed her innovative style through inspiration and insight found in collaborating with her fellow players and teachers such as Bruce Molsky and Darol Anger, the latter whose band she joined at age 14. Currently she can be found on the present or past faculty list of many fiddle & string camps across the country including Mike Block String Camps, Mark O’Connor String Camps, Alasdair Fraiser’s Valley of the Moon, Mount Shasta and Rocky Mountain String Camp, among others.
As Darol Anger says “Brittany opens the window, gets out of the way, and the music flows through in a tide of joy”, because of that graceful musicianship her family of collaborators only grows more impressive. They include: Crooked Still; Steve Martin, Tony Trischka, & Bela Fleck; Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings; 4tet; Cahalen Morrison & Eli West; Alasdair Fraiser & Natalie Haas; Russ Barenberg, Abagail Washburn & The Village; The Waybacks; Yonder Mountain String Band; Jordan Tice & Paul Kowert; Kai Welch; Dan Trueman; The Tuttles with A. J. Lee; Joe Walsh & Owen Marshall; and as it says on her website, “ETC.”!
Joe Walsh Mandolin
Joe teaches mandolin at Berklee College of Music, where he graduated (’07) as the first mandolin principal ever from Berklee. He is also part of the new American Roots Program at Berklee. Ask him about string camps he’s taught at, and he runs out of fingers and toes, but they include Mike Block String Camp, Mark O’Connor String Camp, & The Maine Fiddle Camp among many others in the US, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Joe has toured, recorded and played with the absolute best in bluegrass, roots & acoustic based music, showcasing his omnivorous appetite for style. His experience includes, but is not limited to: The IBMA award winning The Gibson Brothers, Joy Kills Sorrow, Jonathan Edwards, Scott Nygaard, Matt Glaser, Emmylou Harris, Bela Fleck, John Scofield, Ricky Scaggs, Alison Brown, Darol Anger, The New England Bluegrass Band, The Stowaways, Brittany Haas & Owen Marshall, and last year’s Ossipee headliner, Marty Stuart!
Lauren Rioux Fiddle
Lauren is the owner of Gypsy Girl String Studio, where students learn a wide variety of styles, in addition to workshops, jams, and musical outings. She is the youngest professional to have been elected president of the Maine chapter of the American String Teacher’s Association. She has also taught at camps and clinics around the country such as the Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp, and has her own teaching website jamwithlauren.com
Lauren grew up studying violin, and expanded into fiddle and roots music when she joined her first band at age 16. Since then she has performed regularly with Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings, Crow Molly, and shared the stage with Bruce Molksy, Tim O’Brien, Mike Marshall, Brittany and Natalie Haas and others at festivals such as Wintergrass, Delfest, Rockygrass, and Celtic Connections. Her debut album “All the Brighter” is now available.
Mike Block Cello
Hailed by Yo Yo Ma as the “ideal musician of the 21st Century”, Mike Block is a pioneering multi-style cellist, composer, and educator living in Boston, acclaimed by the NY Times for his “vital rich-hued solo playing”. While still studying at the Juilliard School, Mike joined Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and shortly thereafter also joined Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio. After becoming one of the first wave of cellists to adopt a strap in order to stand and move while playing, Mike was the first standing cellist to perform at Carnegie Hall, using a cello strap of his own design, called the Block Strap, a performance which the NY Times called “Breathless … Half dance, half dare.” The Mike Block String Camp began in 2010, and takes place each summer in Vero Beach, Florida, empowering string players to learn a variety of styles from a world-class faculty. Mike is also the founding director of the Global Musician Workshop, bringing together faculty and participants from diverse musical traditions around the world, and he leads the Multi-Style Cello School at ArtistWorks.com. Mike is an active recording artist of original material, folk music, cross-cultural collaborations, and he has an ongoing project to record all of the Bach cello suites in acoustically glorious bathrooms of famous concert halls, via BachintheBathroom.com. In 2012, Mike was appointed Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music.
Darol Anger Fiddle
Fiddler, composer, producer and educator, Darol Anger is at home in a number of musical genres, some of which he helped to invent.
Exceptional among modern fiddlers for his versatility and depth, Anger has helped drive the evolution of the contemporary string band through his involvement with numerous pathbreaking ensembles such as his Republic Of Strings, the Turtle Island String Quartet, the David Grisman Quintet, Montreux, his Duo with Mike Marshall, and others.
He has performed and taught all over the world with musicians such as Dr. Billy Taylor, Bela Fleck, Bill Evans, Edgar Meyer, Bill Frisell, David Grisman, Tony Rice, Tim O’Brien, The Anonymous 4, Marin Alsop and the Cabrillo Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, Mark O’Connor, and Stephane Grappelli.
Today Darol can be heard on NPR’s “Car Talk” theme every week, along with Earl Scruggs, David Grisman and Tony Rice. He was also the violinist on the phenomenally popular Sim City computer games.
In addition to performing all over the world, he has recorded and produced scores of important recordings since 1977, is a MacDowell and UCross Fellow, and has received numerous composers’ residencies and grants. He has been a featured soloist on dozens of recordings and motion picture soundtracks.
He is an Associate Professor at the Berklee School of music. He recently began an ambitious online Fiddle School at ArtistWorks.com. His website is www.darolanger.com
Steve Roy Bass
Steve currently teaches Bass, mandolin, guitar and fiddle, as an instructor at the 317 Main Community Music Center in Southern Maine. He has also taught at camps across the country including Steve Kaufman’s Flatpik & Acoustic Kamp.
Steve is as versitile as they come, playing in a band called Grassputian as a bluegrass guy, and a band called Jazzputian as a jazz guy simultaneously, while also enjoying folk, rock, funk, classical, country, old time, rockabilly, heavy metal etc. etc. etc! He is a multi-instrumentalist and has toured with Laurie Lewis, Hit and Run Bluegrass with Rebecca Fraiser, Chris Stewart and the Backcountry, among others. He is also well known in the Portland scene, playing with bands such as The Stowaways, and Erica Brown and the Bluegrass Connection.
Greg Lizt banjo
Greg Liszt performs with The Deadly Gentlemen, has performed with Bruce Springsteen’s live Seeger Sessions Band, and has toured the world as a member of the chamber-grass group, Crooked Still (along with fiddle instructor Brittany Haas). He has also taught at Berklee School of Music with the 21st Century String Band (along with faculty members Darol Anger and Joe Walsh) and at the Mike Block String Camp (with faculty members Mike Block and Brittany Haas). He is fluid in several banjo styles, but is also the inventor of an innovative four-finger banjo picking style. Additionally, Greg has a college degree from Yale and a Ph. D. in biology from MIT, and he currently lives in Boston.
Mark Mazengarb guitar
Mark Mazengarb (from New Zealand) began his formal musical training in Wellington NZ where he completed his Bachelor of Music Degree through the Conservatorium of Music, majoring in classical guitar (performance). In his final year, Mark undertook an exchange to the University of North Carolina where he discovered the world of Bluegrass and the music of guitar greats Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and Jerry Reed. Since then he has become hooked on finger-style guitar playing, and has also become a highly accomplished jazz, folk and bluegrass musician.
Since graduating from University in 2006, Mark has visited the USA several times where he has learned from a variety of esteemed guitarists including Tommy Emmanuel. At the Auckland Folk
Festival in 2008, he was the recipient of the Frank-Winter memorial Award, given to aspiring young musicians with clear musical goals. In 2010 Mark was invited with Loren Barrigar to perform as a guest artist at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society’s annual convention in Nashville, Tennessee. Mark has toured extensively throughout New Zealand, the USA, and Europe.
Avril Smith guitar
Avril Smith is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. She started playing guitar at a young age and is widely recognized as a highly accomplished electric and acoustic guitarist and mandolin player.
Avril was a founding member of the grammy winning bluegrass band, Della Mae. She now plays in several bands including the alt-country band The Great Unknowns, the Americana string band Big Chimney, and a roots rock band called The U-Liners, featuring the amazing Joe Uehlein.
Avril’s mastery of a wide range of styles makes her a sought-after on-stage and studio performer. Her musical palette draws from country, jazz, bluegrass, rock-n-roll, and old time music. Her innovative take on the fiddle tune, Lincoln’s Retreat, was featured in Flatpicking Guitar Magazine. She has also reviewed guitars for Acoustic Guitar Magazine
Jordan Tice Guitar
Hailing from Annapolis Maryland, Jordan Tice is an innovative flatpicker and prolific composer of acoustic music. The son of two bluegrass musicians, he grew up playing with various bluegrass bands and singer/songwriters around Maryland until 2005 when he enrolled at Towson University to study music composition on full scholarship. He released his debut recording of original music at the age of 17 on Patuxent Records and has since released 2 more recordings of his music to rave reviews. He has worked with the likes of Mark Schatz and friends, Frank Wakefield, Darol Anger, and Tony Trischka. He has been featured on the cover of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine and played the music of Steve Martin commissioned for New York City’s esteemed “Shakespeare in the Park” series in Central Park in summer 2012. Jordan currently plays in the trio Haas Kowert Tice with fiddler Brittany Haas and bassist Paul Kowert. Their new record, “You Got This” is currently garnering some positive press. He also performs with the fiddle/percussive dance group 4tet, in a duo with Hammered Dulcimer Player Simon Chrisman and as a sideman with many different artists around the US.
Ellie Buckland Vocals, Songwriting
Ellie Buckland is a songwriter, singer, and fiddler, but not always in that order. As a 4th generation performing musician, Ellie has been singing melodies since before she could talk. So it seems only natural that she would eventually fall in love with writing songs. Growing up in Maine in a musical family, her passion for songwriting and performing grew out of an influence of traditional fiddle, country & bluegrass music. Now residing in Boston, MA, she has immersed herself in the thriving folk/roots music community as she brings light and joy to stages such as Club Passim, Lizard Lounge & The Sinclair. She’s had the honor of performing with Matt Glaser, Bruce Molsky, Rose Cousins, Laura Cortese & Dietrich Strause. Her most exciting and recent musical endeavor is Lula Wiles, her band with fellow Mainers, Isa Burke and Mali Obomsawin. What started as jamming at parties and around campfires has become a project of electric musical chemistry from their shared affinity for grooving and the craft of both songwriting and performing.
Isa Burke Vocals, Songwriting
Isa Burke is a fiddler, singer, guitarist, and songwriter raised in Maine and based in Boston’s thriving roots music scene. As the daughter of folk musicians Susie Burke and David Surette, Isa has spent her life grounded in songs. In 2016 she graduates from Berklee College of Music, where she received the Fletcher Bright Scholarship Award, given each year to an outstanding fiddle player. These days, she performs primarily as co-frontwoman of the acoustic trio Lula Wiles, but has also been seen onstage with artists such as Darol Anger, Rose Cousins, Laura Cortese, Caitlin Canty, and Della Mae. Isa’s fiddle playing draws upon Appalachian old-time, bluegrass, Celtic, and country influences to forge a deep-rooted style that’s undeniably powerful and new. She is also increasingly in demand as a vocalist and guitarist. Proficient in a variety of styles that combine tradition with a distinctly modern sensibility, Isa’s devotion to good songs above all else is what drives her musicianship. Isa has taught workshops in old-time and bluegrass music, fiddle, singing, and songwriting at Maine Fiddle Camp, Miles of Music House Camp, and the Passim School of Music, and has performed at festivals and venues such as Club Passim, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Freshgrass Festival, Ossipee Valley Music Festival, and the Sinclair.
Dan Bui Mandolin
Dan Bui is a graduate of the Berklee School of Music in Boston where he received wide acclaim for his tasteful and dexterous picking style. He is a member of the band Twisted Pine, nominees for the 2015 Momentum Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association, and winners of the Fresh Grass band contest. He also trained as a string camp assistant instructor under Joe Walsh (see above) in 2016, and we are very happy to have him back as an official instructor for 2017.