Charlie Hancock Charlie Hancock (CA), pianist and accordionist, is equally adept playing for English country, Scottish country, contras, and display dancing. He has played for BACDS dances, camps, and balls for 18 years, with occasional gigs further afield, including Pinewoods and the Portland (OR) English ball. He is a member of Bay Area folk ensemble Euphonia, and has recorded with Sylvia Herold, Holly Tannen, and Cathie Whitesides. Infusing jazz, swing, and Irish music, he plays with brilliance, drive, and clarity. |
Shira Kammen Multi-instrumentalist and occasional vocalist Shira Kammen has spent well over half her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. A member for many years of the early music groups Ensemble Alcatraz, Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, the Balkan group Kitka, the King's Noyse, the Newberry and Folger Consorts, the Oregon, California and San Francisco Shakespeare Festivals, and is the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to providing music on river rafting trips. The strangest place Shira has played is in the elephant pit of the Jerusalem Zoo. |
Rebecca King Rebecca King teaches music to hundreds of children in the Sonoma Valley Schools. By night, she plays piano at English Country dances, and in the contradance bands Flashpoint and Luceo. Her recordings include Swinging On The Gate for the Bay Area Country Dance Society, and Farnicle Huggy, a collection of 18th cen. English Country dances. |
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Michelle Levy Michelle Levy has been performing on and exploring the possibilities of bowed string instruments for 25 years. She comes from a family of artists; her grandfather, Eliezer, is a multi-instrumentalist who regularly played for folk dances in Tel-Aviv in the 1940's. Currently based in the San Francisco Bay area, California, she is Artistic Director of Redwood Guild of Early Music and is an Artist-In-Residence with Youth In Arts. She has performed internationally with an eclectic variety of ensembles and vocalists, including The Boston Camerata and vocalists Owain Phyfe, Abby Green, Maia Archote, and Moh Alileche. She's been a featured performer at the Vancouver Early Music Festival (2013) with Sequentia & The Elaine Adair Ensemble as well as at the Connecticut Early Music Festival (2010) with Istanpitta Early Music Ensemble, and her new Contra-dance band, TriTonic, recently featured at the New England Folk Festival 2013 (NEFFA). She's also a founding member of contra & English Country Dance band The Whoots and the 'Medieval garageband', Angelhead, featured in Early Music America's Battle of the Early Bands this May 2014 at the Berkeley Early Music Festival. She enjoys playing fiddle for contra and English country dance camps in the woods as well as performing with Shira Kammen's Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to creating music on whitewater rafting trips. www.MichelleVielle.com |
Thomas Lindemuth has been singing since before he could talk. He studied music at UC Berkeley in the early 80's. At the turn of the 2000's, he sang with and conducted Incantessence, an a cappella octet, arranging for the group and producing two albums of vocal music with them. For the past eight years he has sung tenor and played a variety of instruments with California Revels, and since 2013 he is a regular fixture of English dance bands in Berkeley and Palo Alto. In recent years he has explored and enjoyed composition, and is currently producing a CD of English Country Dance-inspired original works co-written and performed with Anne Bingham Goess. Tom believes that music is a fundamental mode of expression for humans -- what is music, if not encoded emotion, after all? -- and seeks to encourage people to find their voice and develop it, whether the literal singing voice or the metaphorical voice of the songwriter. |
Jim Oakden plays for dancing-lots of kinds of dancing- on a ridiculous array of instruments from accordion to zurna, and has appeared at numerous dance camps throughout the country. Oddly enough, he's also one of the founding members of Sacramento's wacky Ophir Prison Marching Band-which is still going strong after several decades. |
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Lyle Ramshaw enjoys Scottish country dancing (SCD) and plays backup piano for SCD in Red Thistle Music and in Fiddlesticks & Ivory, with Susan Worland on fiddle in both cases. He strives for dance music with spirit, in the Scottish idiom. He and Susan have played at many events of the San Francisco Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dancing Society (RSCDS) since Susan moved to the Bay Area, including the Valentine's Ball, the Jean Patrick Memorial Dance, and the Kim McGarrity Memorial Ball at Asilomar. They've also played for events in southern California and the northeast, just recently in Maine. Check out their recordings at RedThistle Music And keep in mind that, while English country dancing and contra also have their strengths, only Scottish has strathspeys! |
Susan Worland Susan Worland is a Bay Area violinist and fiddler, expert in many styles of music. As a classical violinist, she plays in the Santa Cruz Symphony and teaches at Starland Music, in Alameda. She is renowned for her expertise in Scottish dance music, and has played for dances and workshops on both coasts and in Canada. Susan serves as Music Director for Red Thistle Dancers and Red Thistle Music. Susan's website is here. | ||
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Nick Cuccia Nick Cuccia returns as our sound technician. Highly regarded by dancers, musicians, and callers for his high-quality sound work, Nick has handled the board for too many dances, balls, camps, and special events for BACDS, the North Bay Country Dance Society, and the Sacramento Country Dance Society to count during the past decade. |
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