Rodney Sutton

For over 50 years, Rodney Sutton has arguably taught more folks the basics of clogging and flatfooting than any other dancer! He is particularly known as a traditional step-dancer, adept at both flatfooting and clogging, and also as a dance caller. He continues to teach locally, online, and nationally at workshops and festivals. Rodney prides himself on being able to teach anyone who can walk how to do clogging and flatfoot dance steps that will turn them into percussive dancers and allow them to be a foot drummer to any kind of music!

Eddie Bond 

Eddie Bond is a native of Grayson County, Virginia, nestled in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As a youngster he was exposed to many local musicians in the area including his grandparents. A multi-instrumentalist, Eddie describes himself as “mostly a fiddler.” He has been the fiddler for the world-renowned New Ballards Branch Bogtrotters since 2001. In 2018 he was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the NEA, our nation’s highest honor for a folk artist. Eddie also passes on the tradition, teaching the next generation at the local high school in Grayson County

Haselden Ciaccio

Haselden “Hasee” [HAY-zee] Ciaccio (she/they) is a bassist, maker, educator, and dreamer residing in Durham, NC. She has toured and/or recorded with artists such as Laurie Lewis, Alice Gerrard, Sister Sadie, Jake Blount, and Molly Tuttle. Hazee has taught at several camps including Ashokan’s Southern Week, Augusta Heritage Center’s Old Time & Blues Week, Grand Targhee Acoustic Music Camp, and the California Bluegrass Association’s Summer Music Camp. While off tour, she enjoys admiring native plants along the Laurel Fork River, cooking local seasonal victuals, or sitting on the porch at their home in the Carolina Piedmont.

Tatiana Hargreaves 

Tatiana Hargreaves is at the forefront of an up and coming generation of old time, bluegrass, and new acoustic musicians. From placing first at the Clifftop Appalachian Fiddle Contest to her bluegrass fiddling on Laurie Lewis’s Grammy-nominated album The Hazel And Alice Sessions, Hargreaves displays a musical fluency that flows between old-time and bluegrass with ease. She has toured with such musicians as Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch, Laurie Lewis, Alice Gerrard, and Jake Blount. She currently performs with banjo player Allison de Groot and teaches fiddle and improvisation at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Beth Hartness

 Raised on a tobacco farm in Caswell County, NC, Beth Williams Hartness began learning guitar at age twelve. A self-taught musician, Beth developed her own unique fingerpicking style of old-time guitar backup. She was a founding member of the Charlotte Folk Society—serving as vice president—and has been a member of numerous award-winning string bands. Her guitar backup, workshops, and facilitated jams are in-demand at both online and in-person events. Beth is featured on various recordings including several with Adam Hurt, Ray Alden’s The Young Fogies II, and Jim Childress’s Fly Away.

John Hollandsworth 

John Hollandsworth of Christiansburg, VA, has performed and led autoharp workshops at festivals and schools across the U.S. and in the UK. In 1991, he was the first winner of the prestigious Mountain Laurel Autoharp Championship, and he was inducted into the Autoharp Hall of Fame in 2010. He has been named the “Best All-Around Performer” of the Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention three times. His custom-made Blue Ridge Autoharps are highly sought-after by discriminating players worldwide

Adam Hurt

Deemed a “banjo virtuoso” by The Washington Post, Adam Hurt encountered the instrument at age eleven in his native Minnesota and has gone on to create his own elegantly innovative clawhammer banjo style that fuses several traditional old-time idioms. A respected performer and teacher of traditional music, Adam has played at the Kennedy Center and conducted workshops at many venues around the country and abroad. Since moving south in 2002, Adam has placed in or won most of the major old-time banjo competitions and has claimed several state banjo and fiddle championships. His music can be heard on multiple recordings.

Elizabeth LaPrelle 

Elizabeth LaPrelle is a scholar and singer of Appalachian ballads from Rural Retreat, VA. She built her style and repertoire from family, friends, and research into archival recordings. Elizabeth started making recordings with her family as a teen, and received her undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary with a major in Southern Appalachian Traditional Performance. In the experimental folk duo Anna & Elizabeth, she toured internationally and helped re-popularize the “crankie” performance art form. She’s also a banjo player and a visual and interdisciplinary artist. She lives with her husband Brian Dolphin and their young son.

Emolyn Liden 

Emolyn Liden is an artist, educator, musician, and dancer. She grew up in Brasstown, NC, and loved dancing at the John C. Campbell Folk School. She has danced with the Cane Creek Cloggers, the Green Grass Cloggers, the Twisty Cuffs (a Cape Breton step-dancing team), and has earned ribbons of every color at old-time music conventions. She teaches art, music, and dance in public schools, around the country, and currently at Warren Wilson College. Emolyn also regularly performs old-time fiddle and banjo. Through her business, The Roving Knitter, Emolyn teaches people to knit and spin, and sells her handmade work.

Ron Pen

Ron is a performer and scholar of the music of the Appalachian region. A founding member of the Appalachian Association of Sacred Harp Singers, with whom he performed on NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion, Ron is now Professor and Director Emeritus of the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky. Ron began fiddling fifty years ago in Rockbridge County, VA, and has since participated in various workshops and festivals across the region. He has also performed music across the globe with the Red State Ramblers and recently shared shape-note singing with Sufi chant in Lancashire, England.

Thomas Maupin, Daniel Rothwell, & Friends

Thomas Maupin is a self-taught buckdancer and winner of the senior flatfooting competition at Clifftop and the Silver Stars contest at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. He was featured in the documentary Let Your Feet Do the Talkin’ and inducted into the American Clogging Hall of Fame in 2013. He has received a Tennessee Folklife Heritage Award and the NEA National Heritage Fellowship. His grandson Daniel Rothwell is a banjo player, singer, and storyteller. Together they have appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, Museum of Appalachia’s Fall Homecoming, Uncle Dave Macon Days, the Berkeley Old-Time Music Convention, and the National Folk Festival.

Adam Tanner

For the last 25 years, Adam Tanner has been teaching and performing traditional American music, including old-time, bluegrass, countryblues and Western swing. A multi-instrumentalist and singer, Adam has taught mandolin, fiddle, and guitar at Blue Ridge Old-Time Week, Monroe Mandolin Camp, Augusta Heritage Old-Time Week, East Tennessee State Roots Music Program, and Acoustic Blues Workshop. Adam has also played the stages of Merlefest, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest, Song of the Mountain, Woodsongs Radio, and most recently at the Ryman Auditorium.

Lloyd Wright

 Lloyd Wright’s musical experience began in 1994, when he and his family discovered the mountain dulcimer. He quickly entered the old-time scene and learned mandolin, guitar, banjo, and fiddle. He won the National Dulcimer Contest in 2000 and performs and teaches at multiple festivals year round. He helped his parents start the Palestine Old-Time Music and Dulcimer Festival and runs the Old Mill Music Festival with his wife April. Among other accomplishments, Lloyd tours with cowboy singer Pipp Gillette and has been involved with several documentary soundtracks. He now enjoys performing with April and their son Elijah.