Local 1000 AFM

The Traveling Musicians Union

Fiddle

Saskia Tomkins

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Saskia Tomkins is a master musician on Violin/Fiddle, Viola, Cello and Nyckelharpa, who moved to Canada from England in 2007. She is classically trained with a folk background and a B.A.hons. in Music (Jazz). Saskia won All Britain Champion Irish Fiddler and in October 2022, was given an award for her services to Irish music in Canada by Comhaltus Canada.

Over the years, Saskia has worked with many musicians, including:  Jimmy Bowskill, The Chieftains, Kim Doolittle, Tim Edey, Tim Garland, “Jabbour”, Robb Johnson, Sonja Kristina (Curved Air), Ron Korb, James McKenty, David Newland, Donald Quan, “Sin E”  Ted Staunton , “Sultans of String”, “Uriah Heep”, Lotus Wight (Sam Allison), Ken Whiteley, “Al-pha-X” and Astrid Young, her husband Steáfán Hannigan and son Oisín Hannigan, and a plethora of other amazing musicians, actors and dancers!

Her theatre work includes: Originating the “Celtic-ifying” of the Broadway hit “Come From Away” in it’s first 2 years of development; touring with The English Shakespeare Company and Michael Bogdanov; 8 seasons with 4th Line Theatre, Ontario;  and working with dancers at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London UK;

Saskia’s current personal projects include and Irish instrumental duo: Steáfán & Saskia with husband Steáfán Hannigan, the instrumental jazz/roots duo: 2ish, with Brandon Scott Besharah; the Celtic crossover group: Cáirdeas and the jazz trio: Marsala and the Imports. She frequently plays Nyckelharpa with Sultans of String and fiddle/ viola in the Maple Leaf Jug Band. Saskia is principal 2nd violin for Quinte Symphony Orchestra, and also teaches at Upbeat! an El Systema organisation in Peterborough, Ontario.

She loves to do session work, collaborate with others, be on the road, and share her skills at workshops. Currently working on the P2 thing to be able to tour in the USA.

 

Sharon Abreu

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Sharon Abreu (“Ah-BRAY’oo”)

Sharon Abreu is a singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, teacher, and student of life. She was singing harmony with her family around the dinner table by the age of 3. Sharon grew up with many musical influences, from classical and opera to Broadway to folk, pop and rock, and she enjoys mixing those up in her concerts. She performs as a solo artist and also as half of the acoustic Irthlingz Duo with her partner Michael Hurwicz. She has performed at venues as diverse as the Northwest Folklife Festival, the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and the United Nations.

Sharon was studying classical singing in New York City when she attended a pumpkin festival in the West Village and ended up joining the sponsoring organization, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. Through her work with Clearwater, she started using her voice and songs for environmental education and ended up singing in concert with legendary folksinger Pete Seeger.

Sharon has sung lead roles in operas including The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute.  She’s been a soloist in performances of major choral works including Bach’s Magnificat and B Minor Mass and Mozart’s Requiem and Vespers. Sharon starred in a sold-out run of the musical The Taffetas at the Orcas Center and in summer stock at the Ferry Terminal in Bellingham, Washington. Sharon has provided music for major international Earth summits at the United Nations in New York and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa. And she was honored to sing for Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai in Berkeley, California in 2006.

In 2007, she prepared New York City high school students to perform her climate change musical revue Penguins on Thin Ice for the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development, receiving a standing ovation from a full auditorium of international delegates.

In 2016, Sharon performed her one-woman musical show The Climate Monologues in the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival, the United Solo Theatre Festival in New York, and for The MarshStream Theatre Festival online in 2021. She received the “Spirit of Nature, Ecology & Society” Environmental Justice Award for her performance of The Climate Monologues, at the Culture of Climate Change Colloquium at the City University of New York in 2011. Sharon composed and recorded the songs for Zero Waste Washington’s public school education program.

Sharon teaches voice, violin and piano, and she has been the vocal coach for musicals including Billy Elliot and Mamma Mia. For 2-1/2 years, she was a Musician-in-Residence with the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, bringing music and singing to local preschools. She is featured in Professor Mark Pedelty’s books, Ecomusicology (2012) and A Song to Save the Salish Sea: Environmentalist Musicians in the Pacific Northwest (2016).

Sharon has been a member of the Local 1000 North American Traveling Musicians Union, American Federation of Musicians, AFL-CIO since 1997.

Alana Cline

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Alana is a Toronto-based fiddler specializing in combining Irish, Cape Breton and Scottish styles to create her own sound. She performs both solo and in a duo with her father, Leigh Cline.

Alana & Leigh Cline specialize in telling the history and stories behind tunes and musical styles, and many of their tunes are from the 1700s and 1800s. They also specialize in performances and workshops comparing different Celtic fiddle musical traditions. They include occasional Balkan tunes in their sets.

Having performed in Canada and the US, a small selection of performances include the Great American Irish Festival, Celtic Island Music Festival, Trenton Scottish Irish Festival, Irish Real Life Festival, Chris Langan Weekend, City of Toronto’s Canada Day Celebrations, The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, Music Niagara, Toronto Public Library, Burlington Public Library, folk clubs, and at private corporate events for Tourism Ireland, Corus Entertainment, Enterprise Ireland, Maple Leaf Foods, and Discover Halifax. Alana & Leigh have a self-titled CD.

Alana first started playing at the age of 8 under the tutelage of Cape Breton fiddler Sandy MacIntyre. She studied privately with All-Ireland Fiddle Champion Maeve Donnelly over a period of two years, and also studied the North-East Scottish fiddle style with Paul Anderson, whose teaching lineage goes back directly to Niel Gow and the Golden Age of Scottish fiddle music. 

Alana has augmented her playing style with private lessons from Irish fiddlers Kevin Burke, Liz Carroll, Tony DeMarco and Patrick Ourceau. In 2008 Alana became the first Canadian to be accepted to the auditioned Meitheal School of Irish Traditional Music in Limerick, Ireland with Paul O’Shaughnessy of Altan as one of her instructors. She has also studied fiddle at the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts in St. Ann’s, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Vi Wickam

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From bluegrass and jazz to rock & roll and old-time fiddle, Vi the Fiddler exudes energy, passion, humor, and musical mastery in every performance.

Vi Wickam is an accomplished solo performer and also fronts his own band, cleverly named Vi Wickam and The Band. In addition, he’s a member of Fritto Misto, and Fiddle Whamdiddle. The latter’s albums Old School Old Time and Not My Monkey were honored by inclusion on the Grammy Ballot in 2014 and 2016 respectively.

In 2018, Vi had 2 albums chart in the top 5 of Folk DJ Radio. His album Armadillo on a Hot Tin Roof hit #4 in April and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas hit #5 in December. He’s a 4-time Colorado State Fiddling Champion, a finalist at the Grand Masters’ Fiddler Championship, and Runner Up in the National Fiddle Contest.

In addition to performing, Vi is a highly regarded music instructor. He’s a founder of the online music school myTalentForge.com, and is much in demand as a teacher at music workshops and camps around the US.

Fred Gosbee

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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.

John McCutcheon

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For fifty years John McCutcheon has been a stalwart of the American folk music scene, a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, storyteller, author, activist, union man.  He was introduced to folk music as an 11-year-old watching the March on Washington on television.  The wedding of art and activism captured him then and he’s spent the many years since exploring that union. 

 

Besides being considered one of the world masters of the hammer dulcimer, John also plays guitar, banjo, fiddle, autoharp, piano, Jew’s harp, mountain dulcimer, and a host of other instruments he’s wise enough not to play in public.  His songwriting has been internationally praised, his classic “Christmas in the Trenches” was mentioned as one of the One Hundred Essential Folksongs by Folk Alley.

 

He has toured internationally for decades with a unique blend of storytelling and music.  “Folk music’s rustic renaissance man” is how the Washington Post described him.  “Calling John McCutcheon a folksinger is like saying Deion Sanders is just a football player,” heralded the Dallas Morning News.  But perhaps the most insightful description comes from John’s mentor and friend, Pete Seeger, “John McCutcheon is not only one of the best musicians in the USA, but also a great singer, songwriter, and song leader. And not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction.”

 

A lifelong unionist, he is one of the co-founders of Local 1000 and served as president 1997-2012.  He currently serves as the chair of the Fair Trade Music committee and also is on the executive board of the Atlanta Musicians Union (AFM 148-462).

 

He is the recipient of the Joe Hill Award from the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Utah Phillips Lifetime Service to Labor Award from Local 1000.

Ken Giles

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Ken Giles teaches violin/viola at D.C. Youth Orchestra Program and in private lessons.  He also sings with the D.C. Labor Chorus.  Longtime peace and civil rights activist, Ken was a member of the topical song group “Bright Morning Star” and played for peace demonstrations, environmental activists, and human rights groups.  Ken teaches his students all kinds of music, including classical, folk, blues, labor songs, and civil rights songs.

Ben Deschamps

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Multi-instrumentalist Ben Deschamps plays regularly with Celtic artist Heather Dale, and also tours internationally as a side musician for other folk and blues acts. Ben’s long recording career includes producing and/or engineering over 40 albums, and running live sound for performances. Ben Deschamps and Heather Dale have played 1500+ shows across 3 continents. Together they run the musician-friendly OnlineConcertThing.com music platform. Ben has been a proud Local 1000 member since 2011.

David Borough

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David Borough appears with the band, Radio Rail.  Radio Rail has performed at The Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering, The Songs for the Transcontinental Railroad Concerts, The California State Railroad Museum, The Cold Springs Tavern, and The Old Town Sacramento Gold Rush Days Festival. As well as venues from Cisco’s Creekside in San Luis Obispo, to The Urban Village Farmers Markets in the San Francisco Bay Area…

A fiddle player with the Celtic Rock band, O’Craven, David has appeared at The Northern California Pirate Festival, The Pirates of the Pacific Festival in Brookings Oregon, and the Northern California Renaissance Faire…

David is Singer/Songwriter honored by the South Bay Songwriter’s Association, and the Napa Folk Festival.

David also hosts “The Rising of the Moon” Celtic themed radio program, which airs at 6:00 am Pacific time, on the fourth, and fifth Mondays.   

Recordings:

“I’ve Gone Home/Down on Santa Clara Street”,  45 rpm vinyl. (1981)

“Liberacion de Amor”  Cassette. (1982)

“Viva Nicaragua Libre/Rollin’ Solidarity Down”. 45 rpm vinyl  (1983)”

“BurnsBorough”. Cassette   (1988)

“Radio Rail”. Compact disc.   (1997)

“The O’Daveys Irish Band, Raw”.   Compact disc.   (2008)