2019 Instructors
Dave Firestine
Dave Firestine is probably best known as the jam leader at the Carp Camp, an institution at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, KS. The Carp Camp is the center of the universe for fiddle tune jamming, where one can hear Irish, old-time, New England and French Canadian tunes from the crack of noon to the wee hours of the morning. Dave’s style is eclectic, incorporating a blend of old time and Irish styles. He is especially fond of tunes that have a unique twist, or sets that introduce interesting changes of tempo or keys to perk up the listener’s ears. Dave plays mandolin, banjo, bouzouki, bodhran, and guitar with several bands, the best known of which is Steam!, a high-energy, versatile contra dance band. As a Roster Artist for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Dave teaches workshops in schools. He also co-hosts the Tucson Irish session and old time/contra dance music session and leads jams and teaches workshops at the Tucson Folk Festival, Sharlot Hall Music Festival, the Dewey Dulcimer Festival and the CTMS Summer Solstice Music Dance and Storytelling Festival.
Katie Glassman
Based in Boulder, Colorado, Katie Glassman currently tours and records with the Western Flyers and leads her own band, Katie Glassman and Snapshot. She maintains a thriving teaching studio and travels to teach camps throughout the country. This summer Katie will open the online doors of her step-by-step fiddling method at the online academy called – Fiddle School. Students can go to www.fiddleschool.com for more information.
Katie holds a Bachelor’s in Performance with a Jazz Certificate from University of Colorado, Boulder, and in 2007 spent a year studying jazz violin at Centre Musique Didier Lockwood in Dammarie-Les-Lys, France.
Katie is the three time and current National Swing Fiddle Champion, Weiser, ID, she is the four-time Bob Wills Champion from the Bob Wills Festival and Fiddle Contest, Greenville, TX and the Colorado State Championships, Katie is a 7 time Colorado state fiddle champion. Other notable victories were in 2013 at Rockygrass in Lyons, Colorado, and the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, to name a few.
Sylvia Herold
Sylvia Herold covers a broad stylistic spectrum. For 16 years she toured and recorded with the popular San Francisco Bay Area swing trio Cats and Jammers. She was a five-year member of the Django Reinhardt-inspired Hot Club of San Francisco, and she performs with Wake the Dead, a band that melds traditional Celtic music with songs of the Grateful Dead (whodathunkit?) Her Sylvia Herold Trio plays smoking-hot swing and standards, and she’s the lead vocalist of Euphonia, a quartet that blends traditional folk music from America, the British Isles and beyond. She’s an impressive guitarist and vocalist, comfortable in a host of styles, and has recorded many, many works with the A-List of Bay Area musicians. She’s taught at a variety of camps over the years, and is highly regarded as an instructor. You can see much more at Sylvia’s website, and some fine videos here.
Gerald Jones
Gerald Jones, life-long Texan, has been involved with the performing, production and teaching of music for over 35 years. He’s a skilled player in many different styles including bluegrass, western swing, country, classical,jazz, and Polish war hymns… He’s played or recorded with with Jim “Texas Shorty” Chancellor, Mark O’Connor, Vince Gill, Sam Bush, Hank Thompson, Red Steagall, Jerry Douglas, Junior Brown and many more. He was he editor of Mel Bay’s webzine Banjo Sessions and a frequent contributor to Joe Carr’s Mandolin Sessions. Gerald invented the Acoustic Plus pickup used by Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Alan Munde, Bill Keith and many other great banjo players.
Gerald is also a favorite instructor at many bluegrass and roots music camps around the nation, teaching banjo, mandolin, guitar and many special topics such as Jam Survival Skills, Redneck Ear Training, Redneck Music Theory and others. Joe Carr said of Gerald, “students love him because he jams a lot with them and teaches as much out of class as in!”
Tim May
Tim May has taught for a bunch of years at the Colorado Roots Music Camp. He’s also one of today’s hottest flatpickers, period. For fifteen years, he performed with the progressive bluegrass band Crucial Smith, playing most of the high-profile festivals in the country including Telluride, Winfield and Winterhawk. In 2002-2003 he toured with Patty Loveless in support of her bluegrass albums Mountain Soul and White Snow: A Mountain Christmas. In 2005, he recorded on Charlie Daniels’ album Songs from the Long Leaf Pines, and was solo guitarist on the Grammy-nominated track I’ll Fly Away. Tim has also toured with John Cowan Band, performed at the Grand Ole Opry as a member of Mike Snider’s Old Time String Band and played on the all-star Rounder recording Moody Bluegrass: a Nashville Tribute to the Moody Blues, of which Mark Hurley of Higher and Higher, the Moody Blues fan magazine, said “The jaw-dropping guitar solo on The Voice would cause Eddie Van Halen to weep from insecurity.” Of his playing, Pat Flynn said “Tim always says that I influenced him, but the truth is that I’ve learned something every time I play with him. I owe him a lot,” and Dan Crary said simply, “Tim May has just become one of my favorite guitar players.” See a few videos of Tim.
Gretchen Priest
Gretchen Priest divides her time between performing, teaching fiddle and running the Musical Heritage Center of Middle Tennessee (also known as the Fiddle and Pick) that she founded in 2008 in Pegram, Tennessee, just west of Nashville. Her school teaches traditional acoustic instruments with a staff of 35, many of whom are among Nashville’s leading recording and performing professionals. Gretchen, along with her husband Tim May, formed the band Plaidgrass by merging the traditions of Irish, old-Time and bluegrass music and the instrumentation of fiddle, bouzouki, bodhran, bass and banjo in a variety of configurations. Prior to opening the Fiddle and Pick, Gretchen toured with the bluegrass band Crucial Smith and the Celtic rock band, Ceili Rain. She is often a featured performer on the Grand Ole Opry, Mountain Stage, the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, and many festivals across the country.
Raul Reynoso
Guitarist, singer and composer Raul Reynoso was born in Los Angeles, California. He started playing bluegrass guitar in 1974 and soon acquired the skills that would earn him two California State Flatpicking Guitar championships as well as many Western regional titles. Today, he is most noted for his expertise on acoustic guitar and mandolin with a mastery of styles ranging from bluegrass and western swing to ‘30s jazz in the tradition of the legendary Django Reinhardt. Raul first rose to prominence in the band of banjo virtuoso Larry McNeely, and his three-year stint with the band included one recording and two appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. The release of Raul’s CD “Royal Street” brought him international acclaim from jazz reviewers in the US, UK and Europe. The instrumental and compositional skills displayed on his CD have solidified his position as one of the world’s greatest guitarists. Music critic Jim Hilmar said “When it comes to guitar styles, Raul Reynoso’s clean, lithe, articulate picking technique is to die for.” Along with John Jorgenson, Raul is one of the pioneers of the Gypsy Jazz movement, and has been nominated Instrumentalist of the Year three times by the Western Music Association. Raul has taught privately for over 35 years, and has done workshop and clinics for the last fifteen. He’s done workshops with John Jorgenson for the JazzMasters Workshop, as well as bluegrass workshops with Dan Crary, John Moore, Beppe Gambetta, and Steve Kaufman.
Greg Schochet
Greg Schochet is a full-time performer, teacher and producer in Boulder, Colorado. Equally adept on guitar and mandolin, he is fluent in all manner of acoustic and electric styles, specializing in bluegrass, swing and country. He is the lead guitarist for Halden Wofford & the Hi*Beams, Colorado’s beloved and venerable honky-tonk and western swing band. Greg is an integral part of Colorado’s thriving roots music scene, and is a sought after instructor, session player, producer and collaborator.
A veteran of many teaching camps, Greg has also been guitar and mandolin teacher at Woodsongs Music, Colorado’s premier acoustic music store, for some 20 years. His teaching practice centers around preparing students to thrive in ensemble settings, whether it be a campground jam or a working band. Students start with technique fundamentals, then move to learning, executing and maintaining core repertoire, and finally learning to improvise tastefully and intentionally. Greg’s enthusiasm for the music he teaches, as well as his personable manner and attention to detail have established him a loyal and committed student body.
Jennifer Scott
Considered the finest jazz vocal improviser in Canada by peers, fans and musicians, Jennifer Scott is an important jazz voice. She’s sung with such greats as Gene Bertoncini, Clark Terry, Tommy Banks, Paul Horn and Kenny Wheeler, to name a few, and has been nominated for a Juno (Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) award. She’s performed to sold-out crowds from San Diego to Vancouver to Whitehorse and has more recently performed in Amsterdam, Milan and Rome. During a recent tour of the western states and Canada, she was named “Pick of the week” by the Los Angeles Times where she was quoted as having: “…a velvet tone & superb phrasing….” Jennifer has set herself apart from the jazz-vocalist pack with her mesmerizing renditions of the most unlikely tunes. With her warm, flexible contralto, she brings a striking emotional intelligence to everything she sings. As much a song stylist as an improviser, she puts her stamp on material through her supple sense of swing and deft, slippery phrasing. For years, she’s also been very much in demand as a clinician and teacher of workshops throughout the United States and Canada. Jennifer is also the wife of Roots Camp bass instructor Rene Worst.
Cosy Sheridan
Cosy Sheridan has been called “one of the era’s finest and most thoughtful singer-songwriters.” She first caught the attention of national folk audiences in 1992 when she won both the Kerrville Folk Festival’s NewFolk Award and The Telluride Bluegrass Festival Troubadour Contest, then released her critically-acclaimed debut CD Quietly Led on Waterbug Records. She has released nine CDs, her music is featured in the Robert Fulghum multi-media novel The Third Wish and she tours consistently throughout the US. Her concerts are wide-ranging explorations of modern mythology (meet Hades the Biker), love songs for adults, contemporary philosophy for the thoughtfully-minded and her signature parody on aging and women. Throughout this journey, her lyrical dexterity is backed by her distinctive, percussive bluesy-gospel guitar style. A guitar student of instrumental luminaries such as Guy Van Duser and Eric Schoenberg and a voice student at The Berklee School of Music, she brings a depth of experience to her craft. For the past 18 years, she has taught classes in songwriting, performance and guitar at workshops and adult music camps across the country including The Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and The Swannanoa Gathering. In 2008 she co-founded The Moab Folk Camp.
Rene Worst
Rene Worst has been a professional bassist since 1971. His virtuosic and supportive bass playing has been a Canadian treasure for many years on both acoustic and electric basses. He is as gifted on fretless as he is on acoustic, a rarity in the music industry. Born in Ifar, New Guinea in 1954, he moved to Canada with his family in 1960, settling on the West Coast where he grew up and went to school. At an early age he showed an aptitude for music, in particular jazz bass, and it wasn’t long before he was out establishing himself as a leading bassist. The list of noted artists he’s performed with is really too long to list here, but here are some of them: Chet Baker, David Bowie, Poison, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Aerosmith, Dr. Hook, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Ferron, Phoebe Snow, Beverly D’Angelo, Buddy Greco, Martha Reeves, Sheena Easton, Barney Kessel, Larry Corryell, and that’s just a short list… Rene has been a regular instructor at several camps including the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop; he’s also one of the founding members of the noted fusion band “Skywalk” and has anchored and produced six recordings with them.