Find a Union Musician

<p><p><br /> My first band was (Whirligig) with Linda Gonzalez and Ben Robinson from Athens, Georgia in the nineties. We performed primarily folk music.

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. 

Tom Kastle has been a singer and folk musician for decades, traveling the world, collecting and performing maritime songs and stories, and captaining sailing ships on the Great Lakes. These days, Tom lives in Madison and his passions are even more diverse and include a recording of original songs based mostly on traditional fiddle tunes, film projects like Francisco Torres’ Delight In the Mountain, with Richard Riehle and Tom Wopat, an opera role, and television where he hosted a short documentary that was nominated for an Emmy Award. Add in musical director and composer credits, and recent theatrical roles ranging from musicals to Shakespeare, playing a political pundit with the legendary Ed Asner in God Help Us! and a one man play based on the life of Joe Hill and you have an artist living a vivid life, indeed!

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.

One of America's premiere song leaders and co-creator of the songbooks Rise Up Singing and Rise Again, Annie is also an accomplished performer and jazz vocalist. She carries with her a suitcase of incredible song knowledge and a repertoire that includes over 2400 songs from many genres, including Americana, contemporary folk, ballads, gospel, country and jazz.  Annie is a master song interpreter, accompanying herself on guitar and banjo. She loves to collaborate with other artists. Her folk recording, Mountain Side, features Annie's stunning vocals along with haunting harmonies by the talented voices of Tracy Grammer, Katryna and Nerissa Nields and Mary Witt of the O-Tones.

Heather Dale’s original Celtic music explores world legends and history. She finds contemporary themes within old material, and fuses folk traditions with blues, jazz, and world music influences. Often compared to Loreena McKennitt and Sarah McLachlan, Dale’s rich vocals are paired with more than a dozen folk instruments in live performances with multi-instrumentalist Ben Deschamps. In her 25+ year career, she's released 18 studio albums, 5 live albums, 3 songbooks and a full-length musical theatre work based on the King Arthur legend titled “Queens of Avalon.” She and Ben have played 1500+ shows across 3 continents, and together they run the musician-friendly OnlineConcertThing.com music platform. Heather & Ben have been proud Local 1000 members since 2011. 

“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

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.