Local 1000 AFM

The Traveling Musicians Union

Studio Musician

Alana Cline

by

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.

Windborne

by

“A quartet the likes of which I haven’t seen since… Coope, Boyes and Simpson, the Watersons, or The Voice Squad. Just absolutely phenomenal!” -BBC Traveling Folk

Windborne combines bold and innovative harmonies, styles from a variety of cultures with traditions of harmony singing, and a vocal blend that comes from longtime friendship and years of singing together. They also carry on the alliance of folk music and social activism, breathing new life into songs of change from the past that still ring true in modern times.

“The best musical discovery of the year…Stunningly powerful vocal harmony… Windborne sets a new bar for folk harmony singing today”  -Brian O’Donovan, WGBH-NPR

 

Hear Windborne in action:

Song of the Lower Classes – a protest song from the Chartists in England in the 1840s, a grassroots movement for voting rights

Stabat Mater (Corsica) live in Mont-Saint-Michel – a traditional setting of the Stabat Mater text from southern Corsica. A clip of this video went viral on TikTok in 2021, getting over 2 million views!

The Song of Hard Times  – Windborne’s arrangement and expansion of a song from the 1930s, found in the archives at the Library of Congress

WindborneSingers.com

Facebook.com/WindborneSingers

Instagram / TikTok: @WindborneSingers

YouTube.com/WindborneSingers

 

MORE ABOUT WINDBORNE:

Internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Windborne is a group of vocal chameleons who specialize in close harmony singing, shifting effortlessly between drastically different styles of traditional music within the same concert. Their musical knowledge spans many cultures, but they remain deeply rooted in American folk singing traditions – a typical concert program includes music ranging from American labor anthems and English ballads to ancient Corsican polyphony and traditional Quebecois tunes.

 

Hailed as “the most exciting vocal group in a generation,” Lynn Mahoney Rowan, Will Thomas Rowan, Lauren Breunig, and Jeremy Carter-Gordon share a vibrant energy onstage – their connection to each other and to the music clearly evident. They educate as they entertain, telling stories about the music and explaining the characteristics and stylistic elements of the traditions in which they sing. 

 

But there’s another, crucial dimension to Windborne. They are adherents to folk music’s longtime association with social activism, in particular its ties to the labor and civil rights movements and others that champion the poor, the working class, and the disenfranchised. Breathing new life into old songs, they seek out music from movements over the past 400 years and sing them for the struggles of today’s world. They believe deeply in the power of music to change hearts.

In addition to performing in New England and around the world, Windborne has taught workshops in schools, community centers, singing camps, and universities. Seasoned teachers and song-leaders, they delight groups young and old with enthusiastic, clear, and nuanced instruction for musicians of all levels of experience. Singers not only learn the notes of a song, but also work on the varied vocal styles, language pronunciation, and gain an understanding of the song in its original cultural context.

In 2014, Windborne was one of 10 groups selected by American Music Abroad and the US Department of State to tour as cultural ambassadors through music. They traveled to Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Angola, touring with internationally known artists, performing at sold-out national theaters, and collaborating with traditional musicians in each country. They also taught music and dance workshops to schoolchildren, English-language learners, dance schools, choirs, and music conservatories.

 

Erin McKeown

by

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.

Robb Johannes

by

For over ten years, Robb Johannes fronted the Toronto/Vancouver rock band Paint (www.paintband.com). Over the course of four albums, two feature films, and over 300 performances from Pacific to Atlantic, Paint came to be referred to as “Picture perfect” (102.1 The Edge), “Best live act in the city” (Musica Mas), “One of the top acts of the year” (The Toronto Star), and “Intelligent people making incredible music” (The Examiner), bedazzling audiences with their multisensory stage show while delivering insightful social commentary through their music, art, and relationship with its dedicated fanbase; “rockstars with a sincere change-the-world-with-heart attitude… the next U2?” (Midnight Matinee). Robb is currently expanding the use of his 3 1/2-octave countertenor voice, composition, songwriting, and multi-media skills into a new project that is…. a question of when.

Liv Cazzola [Tragedy Ann | The Lifers]

by

Liv Cazzola is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, educator, and avid collaborator. Though based in Guelph Ontario, Liv is typically seen performing in Tragedy Ann or The Lifers, in North America and Europe. She sings to seek understanding, question the current, relish in the goodness, and create necessary change. 

Recently, Liv won the Folk Music Ontario Songs From the Heart Award for her Children’s Song Thomas’ Lullaby, was a CFMA award nominee for Emerging Artist of the Year (The Lifers), and has received an OAC Creation grant, OAC touring grant, and FACTOR Recording Grants for upcoming solo & band projects. 
 

Orit Shimoni

by

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.

Joe Stanton

by

Singer/songwriter/fingerstyle Guitarist from the Canadian West Coast.

Joe’s philosophy of “playing wherever they’ll listen” has taken him and his Martin D28, on a 40 year
journey from his favorites haunts in his home on the Canadian Sunshine coast, to a concert in a hot air
balloon over the Swiss Alps, to the Kerrville Folk festival in the hill country of Texas, to the world
fingerpicking championships in Winfield Kansas, and aboard the historic “Canadian” VIA Rail train from
Vancouver to Toronto.
Joe’s acoustic guitar style has been likened to his heroes, Leo Kottke, Chet Atkins, Bruce Cockburn, and
his songwriting has resulted in 5 cd’s, styles ranging from Bluegrass, to contemporary folk, to alt country,
 
Over the years Joe has performed all over Canada, The U.S. and Europe. Highlights include performing
for the Olympic Torch Relay at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, The Kerrville Folk festival in Texas, as
well as the prestigious Vancouver Island Music festival in 2012.
 

Leigh Cline

by

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

by

Traditional and contemporary folksinger, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer

Erin Mae Lewis

by

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. 

Daniel Lapidus

by

I have worked with Sara Bareilles, Katharine McPhee, Bebe Winans, Warren Haynes, Ashanti, and Broadway hits like Hamilton and Waitress. So contact me now and let’s make your music shine!

Hi I’m Danny. I’m a Producer & Mixer based in Brooklyn, New York.

As an award-winning New York City based Producer, Mixer and Recording Engineer I have worked with Sara Bareilles, Katharine McPhee, Bebe Winans, Warren Haynes, Ashanti, and in the jazz world, Chris Potter, Oz Noy. I have worked on Broadway hits like Hamilton and Waitress. 

I want to help you make your music shine! I have delivered top quality mixes and remote production to satisfied clients all over the world. Together, we can take your music to the next level. Let’s make something amazing!!

I specialize in Pop, but have also produced a lot of Soul, Rock, RnB and Indie.

I mix/ produce, using a hybrid setup of analog hardware in seamless combination with Pro Tools 2021 Ultimate. I work in my tuned Brooklyn based mix room.

I enjoy every part of the music making process even helping with PR, marketing, distribution and branding. I love being part of the team and doing everything I can to help the artist bring out their unique sound through my dynamic mixes and productions.

My goal is to provide excellent communication and pay close attention to every detail in order to ensure that you get exactly what you want for your music. 

I’d love to hear about your project. Click the ‘Contact’ button above to get in touch.

**I am also the leader of the touring family music band “Hot Peas ‘n Butter”.

** I play Saxophone, keys, guitar