Folk musician focused on early American music, old English songs, maritime music. Also an instrument maker of woodwinds that apply to these traditions – fifes, whistles, flutes.
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Orit Shimoni
A prolific and highly acclaimed singer-songwriter, Orit spent eleven years living on the road full-time, touring internationally. She has released eleven albums which have received rave reviews and international radio play. A multi-genre passionate singer, whose dedication to the craft and ability to connect to diverse audiences have won many hearts over. Orit’s Jewish and Israeli background informs much of her work, in particular a passion for humanitarianism and peace advocacy. You can also hear her harmonies on several recordings by other artists.
Ann Zimmerman
Ann Zimmerman sings her native prairie into universal language and works magic from songs of life on the windy plains. Her confident Kansas style, compelling stage presence and award-winning songs have taken her across the continent singing a hundred gigs a year. Ann sings for and with children, families and adults. She tells stories and paints pictures with her guitar, her piano or just her voice. She regularly leads songwriting workshops for elementary and middle school students. On occasion, she performs spoken word pieces, plays autoharp and gathers a band. At presenters’ requests, her shows may focus on particular topics – food, gardens, weather, nature, rural life, human conflict, etc. – or historical periods or events – American Revolutionary War, pioneer life, historic Kansas.
Ann is a winner at the Wildflower! Festival, Great American Song and the Just Plain Folks national song contests. She appears annually at The Land Institute’s Prairie Festival and, beginning in recent years, the Walnut Valley Festival. With four independent recordings, Ann is also a lawyer and mediator, she runs a horse boarding stable with her husband near Salina, Kansas, and she is an elected board member of Salina Public Schools.
Leigh Cline
I am a guitarist who works in Folk, Celtic & Greek/Turkish genres having been part of the 1960s -70s folk scene both as a player and as a presenter (Mariposa Folk Festival among others) as well as performing and recording in Greece & Turkey since the 1970s. I presently work with my fiddler daughter Alana Cline and we perform Cape Breton, Scottish and Irish traditional tunes from the 1700s onwards as well as modern traditional style material. We also specialize in performances and workshops comparing different Celtic fiddle musical traditions.
Dan Schatz
Traditional and contemporary folksinger, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer
Chris Vallillo
Roots based singer songwriter/folk musician.
Chuck Mitchell
Chuck is a hubert humphrey democrat sensitive new age guy. He started singing in Detroit folk clubs and saloons back in the 1960’s. In Toronto, on his first out of town gig, he met a bony blonde Canadian songwriter named Joni Anderson. They married, and as a duo Chuck and Joni Mitchell played the coffeehouse circuit and gin rummy until she was 48,760 points and 50 home made songs ahead, and then they divorced.
In 2018, Chuck’s fellow FARM (Folk Alliance Regional Midwest) folk gave him the Lantern Bearer Award for “significant contribution to folk music in the Midwest”. He couldn’t have been more grateful, telling his fellow farmers that after fifty-some years glowing next to a floodlight, it was really nice to be recognized.
In his one man show, Mitchell plays 6 and 12 string guitar and sings cabaret songs, animal songs, story songs, and Mitchell songs. He weaves poetry by Sandburg-Frost-Brecht-Hopkins and others into his shows. He has appeared on the Merv Griffin show (once) and A Prairie Home Companion’ (thrice).
His acting credits include ‘The World of Carl Sandburg’ (in the USA and the UK), Harold Hill in ‘The Music Man’, Woody in ‘Woody Guthrie’s American Song’, and Stephen Foster in ‘Mr. Foster & Mr. Twain’. Ask Siri and Alexa and the other streamers to play Chuck’s music. On YouTube, enter “Chuck Mitchell Sings”.
Hey, you say, is Chuck a Renaissance Man? Well, he’s old enough.
Erin Mae Lewis
Mountain Dulcimer Aficionado and Folk Music Educator
Erin Mae is a mountain dulcimer virtuosa who has taken an obscure American folk instrument, and with it has developed a high level of technical proficiency and musical expression. Erin has been playing traditional mountain dulcimer for over twenty years and chromatic mountain dulcimer for over ten years. In that time, she has developed a unique and progressive style. Carrying the rhythm section with her signature percussive chop and flat-picking fiddle tunes with impressive dexterity; audiences nationwide show amazement as they watch her fingers dance over her dulcimer strings.
Erin Mae is also a respected teacher who has taught at hundreds of dulcimer festivals and conferences around the world. She has pioneered online mountain dulcimer instruction and helped numerous festivals pivot to online events during the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, Erin Mae teaches kids folk music workshops at schools and libraries, and organizes kids camps at bluegrass and folk festivals.
Andrew Irwin
I am a nationally touring storyteller/singer/songwriter.
And a whistler. I rank in the top dozen in The Global Whistling Championships. (Now, can you guess my placement?)
Bennet Zurofsky
Fred Gosbee
Tall, skinny, play 12-string guitar and 14-string guitar, fiddle, Irish flute (not all at once) Sing historic, humorous, and humorous historic songs. I work with Julia Lane, singer, folklorist and harper extraordinaire. We tour Cape Breton to Cape Canaveral; West Virginia to Kosovo. In 2021 we published a songbook of historical sea songs collected in Maine prior to 1943.
Carolann Solebello
CAROLANN SOLEBELLO is a performing songwriter born and bred in New York City. Best known to folk audiences as a founding member of Americana trio Red Molly, she now tours both solo and with modern folk quartet No Fuss and Feathers. Carolann’s smooth, compelling voice and warm acoustic guitar style surely nod to rural folk traditions, yet her decidedly urban sense of rhythm and sophisticated vocal phrasing bend those traditional forms into more contemporary shapes. She is a proud member of the Jack Hardy Songwriters’ Exchange and has won numerous songwriting awards. Carolann released her fifth solo album, Shiver, in February 2018.