2018 Instructors
Brooklyn house camp 2017 TeACHING STAFF
|| INSTRUCTORS ||
KRISTIN ANDREASSEN & LAURA CORTESE - Co-DIRECTORs
Anna ROBERTS-GEVALT | ELIZABETH LAPRELLE | SAMIR LANGUS | Joe Walsh | Eli West | Mariel Vandersteel | Amino belyamani & MORE TBA
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|| THEME ||
AFRICA & APPALACHIA: CREATIVITY & TRADITION
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|| CAMP STAFF ||
AMY HELFAND - PRODUCTION MANAGER | SHEENA OZAKI - ADMISSIONS DIRECTOR
THANKS TO OUR HOSTS & COOKS AT JALOpY THEATRE!
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|| INSTRUCTORS ||
KRISTIN ANDREASSEN | SONGWRITING, PERCUSSIVE DANCE, GUITAR
Kristin Andreassen is a singer, a songwriter and a percussive dancer who combines those skills in musical performances that are both “inventive” (The New Yorker) and “haunting” (NPR’s Folk Alley). Before releasing her 2015 album Gondolier, she toured as a member of some the most respected acoustic groups of the 2000s: the stringband Uncle Earl, the "folk noir” singing trio Sometymes Why, and the Appalachian clogging troupe Footworks. Kristin's songs range from the playfulness of her #1 children’s hit "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes” to emotive soundscapes as heard on Showtime’s The Affair and in this shadow art video collaboration with 2016 Miles of Music instructor Anna Roberts-Gevalt. An experienced teacher and square dance caller, Kristin is a true believer in the transformative power of music camps for all ages. She’s been on staff at a dozen such camps including Ashokan Fiddle & Dance, the Augusta Heritage Center, Voiceworks, Southern Girls’ Rock Camp in Memphis, Rockygrass Academy and the inaugural Wheatland Music Camp. Kristin studied creative writing, history and community development at Montreal’s McGill University, and she is nearly as surprised as her parents that she seems to have found a career where she employs all three of those skills in balance. www.kristinandreassen.com
LAURA CORTESE | FIDDLE, ARRANGING
Laura Cortese has built a distinguished career as an Americana fiddler, songwriter and vocalist. She is now one of the most in-demand musical collaborators on the folk circuit. She grew up in San Francisco, CA and moved to Boston, MA to study at Berklee College of Music, immersing herself in the city's vibrant indie music scene and enjoying a busy touring-and-studio career which included appearances with Band of Horses at Carnegie Hall and Pete Seeger at Newport Folk Festival. She tours internationally with her band, the Dance Cards. The group is bold and elegant, schooled in the lyrical rituals of folk music and backed by grooves that alternatively inspire Cajun two-stepping and rock ’n’ roll hip swagger. The band was selected from a pool of 400 bands to tour with the US State Department's American Music Abroad program. In 2014 & 2016, the band toured India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Bangladesh, Estonia, Ukraine, Greece and Montenegro to perform and teach as artist ambassadors. Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards have also appeared at venues and festivals throughout the US, UK, Sweden & Canada pairing sophisticated string arrangements (two fiddles, cello & bass) and rich vocal harmonies with poignant and powerful singing. www.thisislauracortese.com
ANNA ROBERTS-GEVALT | FIDDLE, SINGING, VISUAL ARTS
ANNA ROBERTS-GEVALT is a Brooklyn-based multi-disciplinary artist. She began her traditional music studies at Wesleyan University and then in Appalachia with master musicians Paul David Smith, Lee Sexton, John Harrod, Bruce Greene and Earl Thomas. Her work investigates connections between historic and traditional music and landscape, and new art languages of communication, inspired by Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, and Pauline Oliveros. She collaborates primarily with Elizabeth LaPrelle, with whom she is currently producing a third record, a series of dance films, and a multi-media performance based in ballads collected in New England in the 1940s. The two have performed at the Newport and Cambridge Folk Festivals, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, and the Atlanta Museum of Modern Art, and been artists-in-residence the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center For Creative Arts. www.annaandelizabeth.com
ELIZABETH LAPRELLE | BANJO, SINGING, VISUAL ARTS
ELIZABETH LAPRELLE, 29, has pursued her interest in mountain ballads for over a decade. Since the release of her debut album at age 16, she’s been hailed as one of the most dedicated students of the traditional unaccompanied style of her generation. The student of master singer Ginny Hawker and National Heritage Fellow Sheila Kay Adams, Elizabeth was the first recipient of the Henry Reed Award from the Library of Congress at age 16, and won the 2012 Mike Seeger Award at Folk Alliance International. She has released three solo ballad albums, and was called “the best young Appalachian ballad singer to emerge in recent memory” by UK’s fRoots Magazine. She lives on a farm in Rural Retreat, Virginia. www.annaandelizabeth.com
SAMIR LANGUS | INTRO TO GNAWA MUSIC & CULTURE, SENTIR, PERCUSSION
SamiR LanGus was born and raised in the city of Agadir, Morocco. Music has always been a part of the constant variety of street sounds of his city, from merchants to entertainers and calls to prayer. Langus began learning *Gnawa, a traditional, spiritual trance music, when he was 8 years old from the Gnawa masters of Morocco. Since moving to New York City, LanGus has played all across the city in venues such as Barbes, Lincoln Center, Brookyn Bowl, and the Music Hall of Williamsburg. He plays the sentir, a three-stringed bass instrument that is an ancestor of the American banjo. No prior knowledge of the sentir or Gnawa musicis required for these workshops which will serve as an introduction to this rich music and culture. www.innovgnawa.com
*The term "Gnawa" refers to a North African ethnic minority that traces its origins to West African slaves and soldiers. Gnawa communities in the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) trace their origins to Sudan, not meaning the present-day nation of Sudan, but rather, sub-Saharan Africa in general. Like the term "African-American," Gnawa refers to a general group of people whose ancestors came from diverse regions of Africa but took on a collective identity in exile. Historical documents make mention of a black African presence and musical tradition in North Africa as early as the eleventh century. Today, Gnawas continue their tradition and celebrate their song and dance with ceremonies and musical rituals that move their listeners to its hypnotic, ancient rhythms. Read this piece in the New Yorker for a primer on the style. (Link to: https://www.google.com/amp/www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/claude-mckay-gnawa-music/amp?client=safari)
MARIEL VANDERSTEEL | FIDDLE
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, MARIEL VANDERSTEEL is a musician, music educator, and graphic designer currently living in Boston, Massachusetts. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Mariel has established herself as a folk musician of multiple styles. After living in Norway while studying the hardingfele, she recorded her first solo album, Hickory, which combines her love of Old-Time and Scandinavian fiddle styles. Mariel has been a two-time musical ambassador under the U.S. State Department sponsored program, American Music Abroad, traveling to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Montenegro, Greece and Estonia, the UK and North America with Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards. Mariel has performed and taught nationally and internationally with Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards, Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers, The Three Irish Tenors, Emma Beaton, Annalivia, Putnam Smith and has been a guest lecturer and performer on the hardingfele at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Musical Instrument Collection. In 2014, she participated in the Savannah Music Festival’s first Acoustic Music Seminar working with artists Zakir Hussein, Edgar Meyer, Mike Marshall, Tony Trischka, and Chris Thile. Mariel is currently pursuing a masters degree in Arts Administration at Boston University and continues to teach privately and at the Club Passim School of Music. www.marielvandersteel.com
JOE K. WALSH | MANDOLIN
Hailed by CBC-Newfoundland as “one of the best mandolinists of his generation” and by Vintage Guitar Magazine as “brilliant”, Portland, Maine-based mandolin player Joe K. Walsh is known for his exceptional tone and taste, and his collaborations with acoustic music luminaries including legendary fiddler Darol Anger, flatpick guitar hero Scott Nygaard, folk star Jonathan Edwards, and pop/grass darlings Joy Kills Sorrow have taken him all over the global and musical map. He’s played with everyone from John Scofield to Bela Fleck to Emmylou Harris, and performed everywhere from festivals to laundromats to Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. After a number of award-winning years as mandolinist with bluegrass stars the Gibson Brothers, Joe currently splits his time between an inventive string band called Mr Sun (featuring Darol Anger, Grant Gordy and Ethan Jodziewicz) a duo with Grant Gordy, and his own band. An avid educator, Joe is a mandolin instructor at the Berklee College of Music. He teaches regularly at music camps throughout North America and beyond, and teaches online through Peghead Nation.
ELI WEST | GUITAR, SONGWRITING, SINGING
Eli West is a Seattle-based multi-instrumentalist. With an interest in angular phrasing and non-traditional improvisation within the historic precedents of bluegrass and old-time music, his guitar playing has been called both unique and strong. He has released a solo record in 2016 including duets with Bill Frisell, Dori Freeman and John Reischman, and three records as half of the new/old-time duo Cahalen Morrison & Eli West. He also collaborates regularly with Ben Winship, Joe Walsh, Norwegian fiddler Olav Mjelva, among others. elidoes.bandcamp.com
AMINO BELYAMANI
Born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco, Amino Belyamani has been based in New York since 2009 as a full-time musician. Amino’s music reflects the diversity of his influences - complex african rhythms, arabic melodies, western classical music, jazz and electro-acoustic music. One can witness this richness in the various ensembles Amino leads and co-leads in New York - the critically acclaimed Dawn of Midi, the microtonal and hypnotic SSAHHA, the traditional ewe ensemble from Ghana - Bedstuy Ewe, and the traditional gnawa music ensemble - Innov Gnawa. Amino has performed with world renowned artists such as Albert "Tootie" heath, Charlie Haden, Alfred Ladzekpo, Houman Pourmehdi, Hamid el Kasri, Hassan Hakmoun, Dimi Mint Abba, and many others.