Libby Weitnauer

Libby Weitnauer is a fiddler, violinist, songwriter, and educator based in Nashville, TN, but raised in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. She has earned degrees in classical performance from DePaul University and New York University and studied traditional music with a slew of esteemed tradition-bearers. Libby has played on the stage of The Grand Ole Opry, toured with the Broadway revival of Oklahoma!, and received recognition for her fiddling across such outlets as NPR and Rolling Stone. She is also co-founder of the indie rock band Dallas Ugly and the stringband Steamboat.

Don Stiernberg

Don Stiernberg has been involved in performing, writing, recording, producing, and teaching, but is best known for his mandolin playing. Early on, Don played various stringed instruments, but he got serious about the mandolin when he heard an ad on a local radio station, "Study mandolin with the great Jethro Burns!" Within a few years, he was playing professionally, first in a bluegrass band and eventually standing right next to his hero in the Jethro Burns Quartet. Don is regarded as a leading exponent of jazz mandolin style and a respected teacher. His most recent record is THE SWINGIN'EST!

Sara Caswell

GRAMMY® Nominee Sara Caswell is recognized as one of today's foremost jazz violinists through her lyricism and technical facility. She has released three solo albums, the most recent of which is The Way to You (2023, Anzic Records) and has performed and/or recorded with such artists as the WDR Big Band, esperanza spalding, Brad Mehldau, Brian Blade, John Patitucci, and Regina Carter at venues including Carnegie Hall, Village Vanguard, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Blue Note (NYC and Tokyo). She is on faculty at the Berklee College of Music, Manhattan School of Music, The New School, and New York University.

David Benedict

David Benedict is one of the leading figures and content creators in the mandolin world today. His mandolin rap sheet includes a unique degree in Mandolin Performance and years of touring experience with 10-time IBMA Bass Player of the Year Missy Raines and 2020 IBMA New Artist of the Year Mile Twelve. In recent years, David’s main focus has been his mandolin YouTube channel, with seven million views and counting. He now lives in Travelers Rest, SC, where he makes videos full-time and performs regularly with his wife Tabitha Agnew Benedict in their transatlantic folk project, The Foreign Landers.

Evan Price

Evan Price is a violinist and composer best known for his 10 years with the Turtle Island Quartet and his 26 years with The Hot Club of San Francisco. At home in classical music, jazz, and various fiddling genres, his own music reflects that broad expertise. In 2016, he premiered his own jazz violin concerto with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and 2024 saw the premier of his concerto for two mandolins, A Game Of Cat and Mike, featuring Caterina Lichtenberg and Mike Marshall. He is the recipient of 2 GRAMMY® awards for his work with Turtle Island.

Bill Evans

Steve Martin Banjo Prize recipient and American Banjo Museum Hall of Fame member Bill Evans has been involved with bluegrass music and the banjo for over fifty years as a player, teacher, composer, writer, and historian. Bill is celebrated worldwide for his traditional and progressive bluegrass banjo styles and his innovative original compositions. He also enjoys a reputation as both an outstanding instructor and an expert player of 19th and early 20th century minstrel and classic banjo styles. Bill has recorded four critically acclaimed solo albums, and he also hosts five online instructional courses for Peghead Nation.

Matt Flinner

Matt Flinner has made a career out of playing acoustic music in new ways. Starting out as a banjo prodigy playing bluegrass festivals before he entered his teens, Flinner later took up the mandolin, won the National Banjo Contest at Winfield in 1990, and took the mandolin award there the following year. Since then, he's been recognized as a premier mandolinist as well as one of the finest new acoustic/roots music composers today. His two solo CDs (on Compass), The View from Here and Latitude, are now widely considered classics in the new acoustic/modern bluegrass style.

Joe K. Walsh

Mando & Banjo Week coordinator Joe K. Walsh has been hailed by David Grisman as a “wonderful mandolin player,” and by Darol Anger as “one of the best mandolinists I’ve ever played with.” Based in Portland, ME, Joe is known for his exceptional tone and taste, and for collaborations and recordings with acoustic music luminaries including Darol Anger, Brittany Haas, Grant Gordy, Mike Block, Danny Barnes, Scott Nygaard, the Gibson Brothers, and Joy Kills Sorrow. Joe’s main touring project is the adventurous string band Mr Sun. He’s an associate professor at the Berklee College of Music, teaches at music camps all over, and teaches online through Peghead Nation.