Joel Simpson has been a self-employed musician since 2001. Growing up in a musical family, Joel started playing guitar as well as singing/songwriting at a young age. His passion for music led him to earn a music business degree from Elmhurst University, and found Randomosity Records in Downers Grove, Illinois. He splits his time between private instruction, music production, and music performance. Joel is proficient on voice and many string instruments. His production work focuses on folk and jazz. Joel has recorded with Lee Murdock, Ashley & Simpson, The Chancey Brothers and many more.
Mandolin
Erin McKeown
Erin McKeown is a musician, writer, and producer known internationally for her prolific disregard of stylistic boundaries. Her brash and clever electric guitar playing is something to see. Her singing voice is truly unique —clear, cool, and collected. Over the last 20 years, she has performed around the world, released 11 full length albums, and written for film, television, and theater, all the while refining her distinctive and challenging mix of American musical forms.
Her first musical, Miss You Like Hell, written with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater in 2018. It was nominated for 5 Drama Desk Awards, including Best Lyrics, Best Music and Best Orchestrations, and The Wall Street Journal named it Best Musical of 2018.
Leading her own band, she has performed at Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, and the Newport Folk Festivals. A familiar presence on NPR and the BBC, McKeown’s songs have also appeared in numerous commercials and television shows.
While a student at Brown University, Erin was a resident artist at Providence, RI’s revolutionary community arts organization AS220. A 2011-2012 fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center For Internet & Society, she is also the recipient of a 2016 writing fellowship from The Studios of Key West and a 2018 residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. McKeown is currently a 2020-21 Professor of the Practice at Brown University.
Her latest album KISS OFF KISS is out now.
Joseph Morneault
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.
Bennet Zurofsky
Chris Koldewey
Mainly focusing on Folk Music; he sings, plays guitar, concertina, banjo, fiddle, mandolin. Music of the sea, the land, work, and play, Chris loves to sing, and play with people from all around, in the first “do-it-yourself” music: folk!
Traditional – Singer of songs with a strong historic base. Composed long ago, by those whose names may be long since forgotten, but whose ideas are still relevant today.
Contemporary – Singer of songs that, although written today speak with a voice of timelessness.
Of The People – Singer of songs that “folks” can make their own, and carry on.
BIll Garrett
Bill Garrett is a musician, producer and occasional songwriter. Involved in folk music for decades, he has performed internationally, recorded several albums both solo, and with partner Sue Lothrop and has produced some 65 albums for other artists. Until its sale in 2021 He was a partner in Borealis Records. He has sat on the boards of Folk Alliance International, the Canadian Folk Music Awards and Folk Music Canada. He is a proud recipient of Folk Music Ontario’s Estelle Klein Award with whom he had the privilege of working on the Mariposa Folk Festival. Prior to Borealis he worked for several years as a music and program producer at CBC Radio. He currently stays busy in the studio producing other artists including James Keelaghan, Mamas Broke, Shelley Posen and The Durham County Poets. When not producing others he performs and records with his wife Sue Lothrop.
Ben Deschamps
Michael Fitzpatrick
Traditional Irish Musician and Balladeer
Beth Cahill
Beth Cahill is a musical raconteuse with quirky tales to tell. She has found her own, true voice – it can be intimate, explosive, soothing or even forlorn. Her style rises from the broad roots of a cultural tree that spreads its leafy branches high above her Illinois Celtic-ness. It leans casually up against an Americana-esque array of blues, jazz and other traditional influences to come to gracefully rest alongside the river that flows past her Québec home. While she calls Wakefield, Quebec home she tours extensively across North America, both solo and with The Malvinas. She is currently the Secretary Treasurer of Local 1000.
Tom Chapin
“One of the great personalities in contemporary folk music.” – New York Times
In a career that spans five decades, 26 albums and three Grammy awards, Tom Chapin has covered an incredible amount of creative ground. In addition to his work as a recording artist, concert performer, storyteller and activist, he’s acted on Broadway and worked extensively in television, radio and film.
Chapin maintains two long and productive parallel careers, both as a respected contemporary folk artist and as a pioneer in the field of children’s music. During the height of the Covid shutdowns, Tom and his daughters The Chapin Sisters streamed 200 live concerts under the moniker “Mornings with Papa Tom.” All are archived on YouTube.
Simon and Schuster has released three children’s books based upon his songs: This Pretty Planet, Library Song (The Library Book), and The Backwards Birthday Party. A new CD is almost complete, working title “Listen Close” to be released in Spring 2022.
In addition to his musical and media endeavors, Chapin has long been an advocate for environmental causes, issues of hunger and social justice, and a supporter of music and the arts in public schools.
Aaron Fowler
Aaron has been performing since he was 16. Working alongside several musicians throughout his career he has built a breadth of musical experiences from house concerts to festivals and concert halls. His passion for the music and the power it can have with groups of people is part of why he keeps bringing the music to audiences across the country. Aaron brings a polished fingerstyle and rhythm guitar playing to a warm tenor voice. His songwriting tells the stories of common folks bringing uncommon stories to life. Whether one of the more than 100 songs from rural communities across this country or songs of passion and purpose, Aaron delivers a performance that will move you. As an educator, Aaron began his teaching career in 1984 after he graduated from Friends University in Wichita, KS. Aaron intended to teach a couple of years at the elementary level then move to middle school and then high school and then land a career at the college. Well, part of that became a reality. Aaron taught 2 years at the elementary level and 2 years at the middle school level. The problem is that he stayed another 7 years, teaching middle school for 11 years! Some love middle school kids and Aaron is one of them. It was in 1995 when Aaron decided to pursue songwriting and touring more intentional. Now 32 years later he still loves working in the classroom drawing music and stories out of students. Aaron’s work includes work with the itty-bitty one, birth through 6-year-olds through Wolf Trap Early Learning Through the Arts. As a National Trainer, he loves getting these very young ones finding the music and rhythm inside themselves. Aaron is a Certified National Teaching Artist with Young Audiences in New York and a Wolf Trap Master Teaching Artist with Wolf Trap Early Learning through the Arts in Vienna Virginia. His current home in Wichita, Kansas keeps him connected with Arts Partners Wichita working with students K-12. The work of integrating the arts into science, math and language arts is a wonderful way to inspire kids to use the creative space in their heads to think about the world they live in. In early 2020 Aaron began thinking about how to leave some of the stories he was telling students about Bella and Choco, the two classroom therapy dogs that work with Aaron in the classroom. He came up with the concept of a children’s book about the two adventurous dogs that visited the classroom with him as Therapy dogs. The first book, Being YOU-Neek, was written during the 2020 Pandemic. It became the first book in the series The Adventures of Bella and Choco. This book helps children learn about character traits and a variety of academic lessons. The second book is entitled, The Boat, and is about how all us belong on this great plant we call Mother Earth. The 3rd book will come out in the spring of 2022 and is an Alphabet book highlighting local businesses in Wichita Kansas where Aaron and illustrator Peter Mader live.
Steve Eulberg
“Smile-inducing, toe-tapping, thought-provoking folkgrass” is how reviewers describe award-winning instrumentalist and songwriter Steve Eulberg’s music. He weaves together age-old songs and tunes with new melodies and contemporary lyrics accompanied by dulcimers and more.
Transformational Music was the focus of his work as an inner-city pastor and co-convener of the Religion and Labor Council in Kansas City, as well as undergirding his anti-racism work in two different judicatories of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Kansas/Missouri and Wyoming/Utah/Colorado/New Mexico/El Paso, TX)
He is a registered Music Together® teacher and has been primarily focused on helping to support and equip parents to provide musically-rich environments for their infants and toddlers through pre-schoolers the past 8 years.
“I live for the aha! experiences that people have and am dedicated to helping people enjoy their musical explorations on their instruments and share them with others,” Eulberg says. Students respond enthusiastically to his engaging style and warm sense of humor, making him in demand at festivals across the USA.
Award-winner in the national mountain dulcimer contest at Winfield, KS he is also a multiple finalist in the national hammered dulcimer contest. His music, has been featured on PBS’ RoadTrip Nation, United Airlines Inflight Audio and NPR.
Active in Locals 1000 (Traveling) and 423 (Geographic) of the American Federation of Musicians, and the Pacific Northwest Chapter of NARAS (Grammys), Eulberg owns Owl Mountain Music, Inc., was the first guitar instructor on JamPlay.com is co-owner and teacher at dulcimercrossing.com.