Home   Schedule  Registration    Workshop Descriptions  Staff Bios Location October 14-15, 2011

FEATURED ARTISTS

Don Pedi was born into a musical family in Chelsea Massachusetts. In the early sixties, he got involved with the Boston area folk music scene. At a coffeehouse performance by Mimi and Richard Farina one night, he fell in love with the sound of Richard’s dulcimer. By 1968, he was playing one, himself.

Influenced by a variety of traditional musicians, Don started playing traditional Southern dance music on the dulcimer – at fiddle-tune speed – something that simply wasn’t being done in those days. In 1974, he entered his first dulcimer contest, at Fiddler’s Grove, in Union Grove, NC, and he won. By 1980, he had won that contest so consistently that they officially declared him “Master Dulcimer Player” and removed him from competition. Two years later, he retired from contests with over 30 first-place trophies and ribbons.

Among many things in Don’s resumé, he has appeared in two feature movies (“The Journey of August King” and “Songcatcher”) and numerous television shows, and has represented North Carolina at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC. He is a recipient of the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Award for “significant contributions” in Mountain Music and, separately, he co-taught a college course on Appalachian music and dance with Lunsford’s daughter. In addition, he has hosted a traditional music radio show – “Close to Home” – on NPR affiliate WCQS, Asheville, NC, since 1985. He lives in a part of western North Carolina where some of the neighbors still plow their fields with horses and mules.

He’s a great musician and raconteur, and a national treasure. www.donpedi.com

And for a special treat, check out the dulcimer art page on Don’s website: www.donpedi.com/Dulcimer_page.htm



Butch Ross used to be a regionally touring singer/songwriter/guitarist, but then someone gave him a mountain dulcimer for his birthday. "I thought it'd be cool to have one around the house, but I found myself playing it more and more. It had made music fun for me in a way that I hadn't felt since I first picked up the guitar." And the dulcimer world hasn’t been the same ever since.

Butch is actually three distinct people coexisting occupying the same body.

First, there’s Butch Ross, the folkie, steeped in all the “usual” traditional and contemporary idioms. So much so, in fact, that he has a graduate degree in folk studies. As he often says, “I like singing folk songs.” A part of what you’ll hear from him is the kinds of songs and tunes that are so comfortingly familiar from coffeehouses, clubs, and living-room gatherings. Even some of his original compositions sound like they could have come from the back woods.

Then, there’s Butch Ross, the trailblazer, bringing the mountain dulcimer to new repertoires and bringing new techniques to the dulcimer. Sometimes, you’ll find him playing a backward-strung dulcimer, holding it up like a guitar. Or doing two-hand “tapping.” Or playing truly brilliant arrangements of rock & roll classics. He makes it sound like “Eleanor Rigby” and “Stairway to Heaven” were written for the dulcimer. Sometimes you’ll swear he’s playing two or three instruments at once – and in some cases, thanks to the magic of modern electronics, it’s true.

On top of that, there’s Butch Ross, the entertainer. Witty and intelligent on stage, with engaging patter between songs. He’s just plain fun to see and hear. In addition to a ton of dulcimer festivals Butch has performed at major folk festivals such as Falcon Ridge and the Philadelphia Folk Festival, and in several European countries.

Originally from Pennsylvania, Butch now lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. www.butchross.com



HOUSE OF WATERS

Two years ago, Max ZT and Moto Fukushima came to Nutmeg as workshop leaders. After they played their pieces in our workshop leaders concert, we were selling their CDs as fast as we could make change. This year, Nutmeg is delighted to feature their full trio, also including percussionist Luke Notary.

Max ZT fell in love with the hammered dulcimer at an early age, originally playing the “usual” repertoire of Irish music and such. While he was in college, he discovered the music of western Africa, making his first of three trips to Senegal in 2004 to learn from the griots of the Cissoko family. (A griot is a member of a hereditary caste in certain societies, who orally convey history and commentary from one generation to the next through stories and songs.) The following year, while still a college student, he won the National Hammered Dulcimer Championship. More recently, Max spent a year in Mumbai, India, studying under Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, the man who introduced the santoor to Indian classical music. Inspired by Max’s prodigious speed, an NPR interviewer once called him “the Jimi Hendrix of the Hammered Dulcimer.” His music is a unique fusion of diverse genres, awesome technique, and years of experimentation. Max and House of Waters have shared the stage with some of the most influential international and national music leaders of the past century. Including Pandit Ravi Shankar, Jimmy Cliff, and the Japanese drumming group, Kodo. Originally from Illinois, Max now lives in Brooklyn, NY. www.maxzt.com Moto Fukushima was born in Kobe, Japan, into a musical family. He has been playing music for as long as he can remember, and graduated summa cum laude from Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he also received an “Outstanding Performer Award.” His primary instrument is bass, but he also plays mountain dulcimer (thanks to Max), and shamisen, a 3-stringed, plucked instrument from Japan that bears some resemblance to a fretless banjo. Moto’s music combines the realms of jazz improvisation, Western classical music, Japanese traditional music, and African and South American genres. He has worked with many renowned jazz musicians over the past decade, including Grammy-Award winner pianist Gil Goldstein, and Grammy nominees guitarist Mike Stern and vibist Dave Samuels. Coming from this unique background, Moto approaches the mountain dulcimer in a way unlike anybody else. www.motobass.com Luke Notary began playing the drums at an early age with his father, and is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music. He later studied with such drumming masters as Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri of India and Nubian-born Hamza El Din. As a composer, Luke has created and performed the live musical scores for “The Late Henry Moss” (written by Sam Shepard and directed by Joseph Chaiken) and “The Long Christmas Ride Home” (by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel). He has also composed many original works for New York and Los Angeles based dance companies, and regularly works with Alvin Ailey Dance Company and David Parsons Dance Company. In addition, in 2009, he began touring with Cirque de Soleil’s “Varekai,” bringing several new percussion instruments that previously had not been featured in the score. Luke has taught workshops for actors, dancers, and musicians in Germany, France, Los Angeles, and New York, and has been a teaching artist at Frank Sinatra Performing Arts school and with City Center at New York public schools. www.lukenotary.com

HAMMERED DULCIMER WORKSHOP LEADERS

MOUNTAIN DULCIMER WORKSHOP LEADERS