We'll post the faculty for 2012 very shortly.
Here's a look at last year's instructors:
Courtney Granger
Cajun Repertoire and Honky Tonk
Courtney Granger is the next generation of the Balfa Family and his inspired fiddling and singing are testament to the power of that bloodline. He recorded his debut CD for Rounder Records at the age of 15. Now in his late twenties, he has matured into one of the most passionate singers and fiddlers in Louisiana. Courtney sheds new light on the ancient traditions left to him by his family and stakes his own claim as a vibrant young master musician. He sings with soulful abandon, fiddles with a seemingly impossible combination of ancient wisdom and youthful vigor, and possesses an endless repertoire of both Cajun and classic country tunes. Courtney plays in the Balfa Toujours and with The Pine Leaf Boys.
Jenny Lester
Bluegrass and Harmony
Jenny Lester returns to Voice Works! Jenny is blessed with a voice with sweetness, clarity and power and is a dynamic bluegrass performer and recording artist who has established herself as an important singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Jenny's talent is superbly displayed on her shining debut CD, “Friends Like You,” of critical and popular acclaim. Her original songs, carefully crafted in the bluegrass convention, display a contemporary freshness and vitality that breathes new life into the fabled "high lonesome" sound. A love for nature weaves through many of her songs like "The River, Mother Nature and Me" which is being published in the Girl Guides of Canada 100 year celebration song book.
Jenny is a veteran stage performer, beginning on the fiddle at age eight with her family's Driftwood Canyon Family Band out of Smithers, B.C. Now into 27 years touring the world with different configurations of bands, working on a broad spectrum of professional recordings, movies, educational DVD's and having a degree in commercial music from South Plains College in Texas, Jenny brings a professional, compassionate and positive energy to her lessons and workshops. Most recently touring with the Yukon based bluegrass band, Hungry Hill, time at home off the road is spent writing songs in her log cabin in the mountains of Northern BC and training horses.
Meschiya Lake
Vintage New Orleans Jazz, Swing
Dan Baum of the New Yorker writes, "Meschiya Lake rocks back on her heels, lifts her chest, and opens her throat like an air raid siren to croon in a thrilling pre-microphone style that...can make you feel by turns as though you were shivering around a campfire in a railroad (yard) or drinking in a Budapest nightclub in 1938."
Meschiya Lake began her singing career at the age of nine, garnering $500 upon winning an adults only singing contest in a South Dakota Steakhouse. In 2000 as a young woman, she met and began traveling with the Know Nothing Family Zirkus Zideshow and End of the World Circus - a troupe blending traditional circus arts with modern sideshow varieties. It was while touring with this troupe that she fell in love with and felt immediately embraced by the culturally rich and one of a kind city of New Orleans, her home base for the last decade and counting.
Meschiya sings with The Little Big Horns Jazz Band and with The Magnolia Beacon. Both bands often use the streets of New Orleans as their stage. Lake is one of the more popular local musicians in an increasingly visible group of bands that has emerged from an underground scene self-identified as travelers; young musicians and performers who hitchhike and hop trains across the country, paying their way with circus shows or street busking. Meschiya spends about six months of the year performing on the road, with strong fan bases in Berlin and New York.
Casey MacGill will be accompanying Meschiya Lake at Voice Works. He plays boogie-woogie, swing, and stride piano. Casey MacGill leads the Blue 4 Trio who play music of many decades and no decade in particular, all happening at the same time, woven into a seamless, beautiful whole. At the core of this group's sound are the band's sometimes sweet, sometimes rough-hewn three-part harmony vocals and a piano-ukulele-bass-and-drums rhythm section that swings in a variety of textures.
Casey has been singing and arranging vocal harmonies for almost 30 years, in a career that stretches from Los Angeles to Spokane, WA to Broadway and finally to Seattle. "I've played a lot of music with a lot of people," he says "and one thing I've learned is to tailor my arrangements to the individual musicians. Its gives each musical situation a unique sound." You’ll find Casey alternately cruising along and sweating feverishly, switching intuitively between the ukulele and the piano and the cornet, singing and scatting, sometimes all within the same song.
Laurel Bliss and Cliff Perry
Country Duets
Cliff and Laurel began as a singing duo in the late 80’s and are now recognized veterans in the bluegrass and old-time music communities. Respected by their peers and beloved by their fans, Cliff and Laurel always deliver a wonderful collection of old-time country duets. Laurel’s early exposure to the Carter Family, Doc Watson, the Louvin Brothers, and Jimmy Martin inspired a lifelong dedication to unearthing and learning vocal chestnuts. Her heartfelt vocals have made her a stand-out in acoustic and bluegrass music. She and Cliff both played and sang in the much loved band, Southfork.
When listening to Cliff and Laurel, you can tell they are greatly influenced by the Carter Family, however, they’ve also internalized and taken their own approach to the material. Old-time country music encompasses a myriad of styles and Perry and Bliss opt for a composed, straightforward approach that, like the Carters’ music, suggests an earlier era.
Alice Gerrard
Traditional Southern Singing Styles
Alice Gerrard is a vocalist, educator and an advocate of traditional music. Her nuanced southern vocal style and songwriting first gained her notoriety through her pioneering work with Hazel Dickens. The four albums Alice and Hazel recorded between 1965 and 1975, plus their many performances provided inspiration for other women who were drawn to the high lonesome sound of bluegrass. Alice plays old time fiddle, banjo and rhythm guitar. Her fiddle style is influenced by Luther Davis, Tommy Jarrell, Roscoe Parish and other traditional fiddlers who taught her.
Alice spent many years living in Galax, Virginia, learning regional music from the local old-time luminaries. Several recordings with her Galax friends, stints with the Strange Creek Singers, the Harmony Sisters, the group Tom, Brad & Alice, and a duet album with Mike Seeger, further define her legacy and provide a source of repertoire for others to learn. From 1987 until 2003, Alice edited and published the Old-Time Herald before stepping down to pursue her current musical interests as performer, songwriter, and recording artist. Alice is currently working on a new album.
Pharis Romero is an outstanding singer, songwriter, rhythm guitar player, and teacher, and a respected figure in West Coast acoustic music circles. She has performed and instructed at many of the major North American festivals and venues, from Wintergrass to the Winnipeg and Calgary Folk Festivals. But more than anything, she loves playing with other people.
Growing up deep in the Cariboo interior of British Columbia, in her hometown of Horsefly, she found both classical and old country mentors. She grew up singing Italian arias, German operettas, and French folk art songs, while at the same time performing with her family’s country band, The Patenaude Family. She went on to found the critically acclaimed and seriously cool roots outfit Outlaw Social.
Pharis is a prolific songwriter, influenced by early traditional music, but looking to British Columbia and Canada incidents, accidents and issues. Songs about daily living – work, divorce, drug addiction, love and death – flow from her upbringing in a small resource-based community. She currently plays with old time trio The Haints, and directs vocal and band workshops and the Old Time Vocal Choir in her home of Cobble Hill, BC. Pharis has a passion for teaching vocal skill and tradition that is widely enjoyed at these workshops.
Mary Sherhart
Eastern European Singing
Mary Sherhart is one of America's leading artists in Balkan singing and one of the few non-native artists to be recognized and loved by ethnic audiences. A recipient of the 2006 Artist Trust / Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship, she’s also the first president of the Sevdah North America, a nonprofit educational organization formed to promote and preserve the traditional urban music of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mary has toured with legendary artist Omer Pobric and singers from the “Sevdah Institute Omer Pobric” to major diaspora communities throughout the United States. She’s had the honor of opening the 2005 Festival of Sevdalinke at the Bascarsija Nights Festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is often invited to perform in Diaspora communities working with local musicians from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mary's career encompasses performances, recordings and teaching. She recorded two CDs with Balkan Cabaret, and has collaborated with many distinguished musicians over the years including: Bosnian legend Omer Pobric, world renowned guitarist Miroslav Tadic, Amy Denio, pianist Milen Kirov, Croatian composer Tomislav Uhlik, Kultur Shock, Ruze Dalmatinke, Radost, Vela Luka Croatian Ensemble, and more.
Mary also teaches Balkan singing and culture in a variety of settings including as an Artist in the Schools with Northwest Folklife, in workshops with ethnic communities, choirs and general public, and at festivals throughout the country. Along with singing, Mary's workshops include a strong message of finding one's passion in life and the well of joy that music offers.
Daniel Steinberg's fascination with traditional music was nourished at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, where he went from gate-crasher to featured faculty (and back to gate-crasher) over the course of thirty years. During that time, he developed his unique approach to piano accompaniment for fiddle music, co-founded the popular contradance band, Hillbillies from Mars, and has appeared in concert with many luminaries of the traditional music scene, including Joe Cormier, Jerry Holland, Lisa Ornstein, Rodney Miller, and Pete Sutherland. A trip to Zimbabwe in 1990 fueled his interest in African music and he played synthesizer with Bay Area afro-pop bands Bole Bantu and Wazobia over the next several years. More recently, Daniel has been performing the music of Venezuela and Brazil on flute with Tierra Vieja, and with El Tren, a quartet that plays Cuban charanga and danzón.
Inspired by a gospel choir class he attended in 1995, Daniel began to teach Instant Chorus workshops at dance and music festivals. The response to these workshops was extraordinary, and in 1999 he founded an ongoing community choir, the World Harmony Chorus, with two branches in the San Francisco Bay Area. Drawing on vocal repertoire from all over the world, he works with singers of all levels of ability and experience to create music that is exhilarating both to sing and to hear, and his supportive teaching style and infectious enthusiasm make everyone feel welcome and comfortable.
Lisa Mann
Blues Singing
Portland, OR based Lisa Mann is the 2009 recipient of the Cascade Blues Association's Muddy Waters Award for Vocalist of the Year, and was recently elevated to the CBA Hall of Fame with her third win in a row for Bass Player of the Year. In 2010, she was selected to represent the Cascade Blues Assn. at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN in Feb 2011.
Her influences run the gamut, from low down blues sisters Etta James and Koko Taylor, to singer-songwriters like Bonnie Raitt and Sheryl Crow, to R&B belters like the late Little Milton. She writes the majority of her recorded material, and her songs paint pictures of a gritty history of personal experience in life, love and the not-always-pretty music business.
Lisa has shared the stage with many Northwest greats such as Paul DeLay, Duffy Bishop, Ellen Whyte and Sonny "Smokin'" Hess. She has often lent her bass grooves and musical direction to Sonny Hess' NW Women's Rhythm and Blues Revue, a very popular showcase at festivals such as Waterfront Blues and their annual charity Christmas show.
Reeb Willms
Country and Old Time Repertoire
Reeb grew up in Douglas County near the wheat farming town of Waterville, WA. Her parents still inhabit the farm that has been in the family for four generations. Reeb grew up hearing old country music played and sung by her father and uncles, The Willms Brothers, and is still influenced by them today. The brothers sing and pick regularly at family gatherings. At age twenty she started playing the guitar and quickly realized her love for music by learning to play and sing in traditional old time & country styles.
Reeb moved to Bellingham, WA in 2004 to finish college, and currently plays in a local old time band, The Shadies, as well as a country band, The Country Messengers. She works for Uprising Seeds, a small open-pollinated seed company, where she contributes in the office, as well as in the field during the growing season.
Her musical passion has always been singing and her repertoire includes a selection of traditional and country songs. Reeb is also experimenting with songwriting. Some of her influences include Kitty Wells, Hank Williams, The Carter Family, The Louvin Brothers, Hazel Dickens, Laurel Bliss, Foghorn Stringband, her dad, and many more...
The Country Messengers recorded a short demo in 2010 and Reeb now has plans to make other recordings to showcase her varied musical pursuits.
