About

About

Dale Morris, Jr. began playing violin at age three. By the time he was ten years old, he began his professional career performing with the Bar-D Wranglers at the Bar-D Chuck Wagon Supper and Western Show in Durango Colorado. He performed there for the next three summers alongside his father, Dale Morris, Sr. As a teenager, he competed in many fiddle contests, winning numerous championships in the United States, including the Texas State Championship, Grand National Title and the Grand Masters Championship. Upon graduation from high school, he went to college on a music scholarship and performed with the jazz band at Weatherford College, in Weatherford, Texas. 

About

Dennis Lichtman is a multi-instrumentalist (clarinet, mandolin, fiddle, and more) who has been living, performing, composing, and teaching in New York City since 2002. He is a Selmer Paris Artist as an endorser of their Signature Clarinet. His music was recently used in director David Simon’s The Plot Against America (HBO) and he has appeared this year as a clarinetist on Succession (HBO) and The Blacklist (NBC). Lichtman’s newest album, Secret Workshop, features eleven original compositions inspired by the strange, unusual, and revealing objects he discovered in the off-limits workshop of his late father, an eccentric and extremely private inventor/machinist/mad-scientist. The project was made possible with a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and includes a music video directed by award-winning Mexican animator Fer Lozada. Prior albums include Jerron Paxton & Dennis Lichtman, a duo effort with the young lion of acoustic blues formerly known as “Blind Boy” Paxton, and Just Cross the River, featuring original compositions inspired by the migration of jazz legends into the borough of Queens, NY beginning in the 1920’s. Lichtman is also a member of ragtime quintet The Lovestruck Balladeers and Ghost Train Orchestra, whose 2023 album of Moondog’s music is a collaboration with Kronos Quartet. Since 2007, Lichtman has been the clarinetist and bandleader of the famed Tuesday night traditional-jazz jam session at Mona’s in downtown New York, which was profiled in the New York Times, and has been described by the Wall Street Journal as “ground zero for an emerging late-night scene of young swing and traditional jazz players.” Lichtman has performed at Carnegie Hall, major festivals throughout the United States, and on stages in Europe, Brazil, and China. He is on the faculty of several jazz and string music camps and workshops, and has led college master classes and school workshops through the Midori Foundation, Lincoln Center’s Meet The Artist Series, and Beijing’s Ping-Pong Productions.

About

Don Vappie, musician / composer / educator, is the 2021 Steve Martin Banjo Prize Winner and was inducted into the Banjo Hall of Fame in 2022. In addition, he has received awards for his contributions to the preservation of New Orleans Creole Culture through music and film. He has produced 7 of his own albums, co-produced and starred in a PBS documentary, performed as a featured artist with orchestras on movie and television soundtracks, and at concerts and festivals around the world. Vappie’s highly regarded unique and original tenor banjo style is equal only to his love of his Creole heritage and tradition. 

About

For many guitarists, landing a gig with bluegrass mandolinist David Grisman’s groundbreaking bluegrass/jazz quintet would be the culmination of a career in music. But for Grant Gordy, it was more of a beginning, an apprenticeship in combining bluegrass and jazz that served as a launchpad for his own music. How far he has traveled since then can be heard on Peripheral Visions, his stunning new quartet recording and welcome successor to his eponymous 2010 debut.

About

Jen Hodge is a Grammy-nominated bass player, currently living in New York City and originally hailing from British Columbia, Canada. A versatile and passionate musician, Jen is in high demand for her rock-solid bass playing, her consummate professionalism, and for the warm, infectious spirit she brings to the bandstand. Jen is a fixture of NYC’s hot jazz community, frequently featuring in the house band for the long-running Mona’s Tuesday Night Hot Jazz jam session hosted by multi-instrumentalist Dennis Lichtman, and performing with such artists as Bria Skonberg, The Hot Sardines, Jon-Erik Kellso & The EarRegulars, Cynthia Sayer, and Danny Jonokuchi & The Revisionists. 

About

Jeremy Wakefield is a steel guitarist and composer living and working in Portland, Oregon. He first discovered the sound of the steel guitar coming out of a thing called a radio, on the kitchen table of his grandparents’ South Dakota home. Jeremy has recorded and performed live with a multitude of Western Swing, Country and Lounge artists , but is probably most known for his background compositions in the SpongeBob SquarePants series. He also enjoys writing descriptions of himself in the third person.

About

Maxwell is a New Orleans-based, internationally recognized multi-instrumentalist performer and music teacher. Specializing in mandolin and banjo, Maxwell began his training in California and then spent several years busking professionally in New Orleans’ city streets and night clubs, integrating himself into a rich and diverse array of musical styles including jug band, ragtime, jazz and little-known catalogue of traditional Italian mandolin music. Maxwell’s dedication to exploring the origins of the music he plays has always been of central importance. His repertoire reflects a deep investment in reviving authentic performance idioms of historic musical styles. His attention and priority to referencing specific historical sound recordings lends him a uniquely attentive and intimate sound.

About

Raconteur of song Molly Reeves is a performer and adorer of early 20th-century American music. Molly is known globally for her enigmatic approach to rhythm guitar and her ability to invoke the idiomatic tone and language of 1920s and 30s acoustic guitar players. A crooner by nature, her dynamic and warm vocal stylings echo popular singers and storytellers of yesteryear. Molly resides in New Orleans where she plays with The New Orleans Jazz Vipers, The Shake Em’ Up Jazz Band, Russell Welch Hot Quartet, and the Chloe Feoranzo Quartet in addition to leading her own projects. As a guitar instructor Molly is sought out for her creative and enthusiastic teaching methods and is a faculty member of the New Orleans traditional jazz camp.

About

Tyler Jackson is a world renown tenor banjoist and upright bassist. Under the tutelage of Buddy Griffin, Tyler quickly learned the ukulele, tenor banjo, and electric bass. Tyler went on to study the double bass at the University of North Texas under Lynn Seaton and began to fine-tune his skills as a professional bassist. During this period, he was asked to work for Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys. Touring with Price took him all over the world and to venues across North America including the Grand Ole Opry, Massy Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Gruene Hall, as well as the Stagecoach Festival, Austin City Limits Live and more. In 2007-09 Ray Price teamed up with Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard to form the highly successful “Last of the Breed” tour. Tyler worked with many well-known artists spanning genres including Earl Klugh, John McEuen, Randy Travis, Jim Cullum, and Dale Watson.

About

A native of Monroe, Louisiana, Albanie Falletta was in their formative years exposed to the local music of Louisiana: the sounds of cajun, zydeco, blues and gospel musics at festivals and backyard parties. After relocating with their family to San Marcos, Texas at the age of nine, Albanie began taking guitar lessons. They began their love and study of early American Jazz when hey were exposed to the Parisian Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt. Listening religiously to recordings of Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Fats Waller, and other such great figures of jazz, they developed their feel for swing. Soon Albanie was performing alongside mentors Slim Richey, Django Porter, Ray and Linda Sriro, the Jazz Pharaohs, and other players of the Austin scene where they lived and performed in the years after high school. Between 2008 and 2013, they led their own swing/early jazz band, Albanie and The Fellas, and was a member of several groups including the Thrift Set Orchestra, Guy Forsyth and the Hot Nut Riveters, Ivy Divey (a swing trio featuring three part harmony singing with Emily Gimble and Katie Shore), and others.

About

Charlie Burnham is an American violinist and composer. He has a unique highly imaginative style that crosses genres, including bluegrass, delta punk, free jazz, blues, classical and chamber jazz. He often performs with a wah-wah pedal. He initially became renowned for his work on James “Blood” Ulmer’s Odyssey album. The musicians on that album later performed and recorded as Odyssey the Band, sometimes known as The Odyssey Band. He was also a member of the String Trio of New York, and currently plays in the 52nd Street Blues Project, Hidden City, We Free Strings, Improvising Chamber Ensemble and the Kropotkins.

About

Craig Ventresco is a San Francisco-based guitarist and revivalist of early 20th Century jazz, pop, and folk material. He grew up in Maine, but established himself as a guitarist specializing in older styles of American popular music by playing on the street every day for tips in San Francisco, beginning in the late 1980’s. Craig formed the band Bo Grumpus, which gained a cult following among the more daring ragtime enthusiasts, and with whom he released five records.

About

Dave Biller has toured and recorded with Wayne Hancock, Dale Watson, and Deke Dickerson and is mostly known as a professional pedal steel player, but his record, Hot Guitars of Biller & Wakefield, captured the ears of music lovers everywhere. Like many guitarists of his age, Biller’s first heros’ were classic rock guitarists such as Jimmy Page, Clapton, and Hendrix, but jazz “became his religion” after discovering a ‘Best of Coltrane’ cassette in a clearance bin in an old record store. Dave Biller has a unique guitar style that takes influence from jazz heavyweights such as Barney Kessel and Howard Roberts, country pickers such as Roy Nichols and James Burton and the three Blues Kings; Freddie, Albert, and BB, but he says the guitarist which made the biggest impact on his playing was Django Reinhardt. Of Reinhardt, Biller said “In 1998 I saw the film footage of him for the first time and it changed my life in music forever. It was a pivotal moment and for the next 5 years I was hopelessly lost in the world of gypsy jazz.”

About

In the course of a career that has spanned more than six decades, David Grisman has had an immeasurable impact on American acoustic music. A trail-blazing instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and creator of a living musical genre, David has influenced contemporary string players from Bluegrass to Pop and Jazz. We are delighted that he will be joining us on Saturday May 17th to present a workshop on arranging, and to participate in a moderated conversation about his music and his vital work as a conservator of string traditions. We doubt that he needs much of an introduction to anyone who’s considering attending Red Hot Strings, but we shall nonetheless try…

About

Dennis Lichtman is a multi-instrumentalist (clarinet, mandolin, fiddle, and more) who has been living, performing, composing, and teaching in New York City since 2002. He is a Selmer Paris Artist as an endorser of their Signature Clarinet. His music was recently used in director David Simon’s The Plot Against America (HBO) and he has appeared this year as a clarinetist on Succession (HBO) and The Blacklist (NBC). Lichtman’s newest album, Secret Workshop, features eleven original compositions inspired by the strange, unusual, and revealing objects he discovered in the off-limits workshop of his late father, an eccentric and extremely private inventor/machinist/mad-scientist. The project was made possible with a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and includes a music video directed by award-winning Mexican animator Fer Lozada. Prior albums include Jerron Paxton & Dennis Lichtman, a duo effort with the young lion of acoustic blues formerly known as “Blind Boy” Paxton, and Just Cross the River, featuring original compositions inspired by the migration of jazz legends into the borough of Queens, NY beginning in the 1920’s. Lichtman is also a member of ragtime quintet The Lovestruck Balladeers and Ghost Train Orchestra, whose 2023 album of Moondog’s music is a collaboration with Kronos Quartet. Since 2007, Lichtman has been the clarinetist and bandleader of the famed Tuesday night traditional-jazz jam session at Mona’s in downtown New York, which was profiled in the New York Times, and has been described by the Wall Street Journal as “ground zero for an emerging late-night scene of young swing and traditional jazz players.” Lichtman has performed at Carnegie Hall, major festivals throughout the United States, and on stages in Europe, Brazil, and China. He is on the faculty of several jazz and string music camps and workshops, and has led college master classes and school workshops through the Midori Foundation, Lincoln Center’s Meet The Artist Series, and Beijing’s Ping-Pong Productions.

About

Don Stiernberg has been a professional musician for nearly 50 years. Along the way he has been involved in performing, writing, recording, producing, and teaching but is best known for his mandolin playing. His path was set very early on as he grew up north of Chicago. Emulating his older brother, he experimented with playing various stringed instruments, finally landing on the mandolin. Things got serious when an ad played on the radio: “Study Mandolin with the great Jethro Burns”. At his first lesson he discovered what he wanted to do: play the mandolin, be a musician, and try to be as cool as Jethro Burns! Within a few short years he was playing professionally, first in a bluegrass band with his brother, later standing right next to his hero in The Jethro Burns Quartet. There was no turning back, and thanks to encouragement and mentorship from his family and hero he is still out there trying to achieve those early goals. Currently Don is regarded as a leading exponent of jazz mandolin style, and a respected teacher. In June of 2020 his tenth recording project ”Straight Ahead” by The Don Stiernberg Quartet, was released and quickly garnered praise in The Chicago Tribune as one of the “Best Jazz Recordings of 2020”. There are four online instructional courses for mandolinists available at Soundslice.com, and the book “Jazz Mandolin Appetizers” is available from Mel Bay. In person, Don teaches at mandolin-focused camps and events from coast to coast and abroad, and covers the same territory performing at clubs, festivals, and concert halls with his own group. On the horizon is more of the same: a dedicated pursuit of ‘the good notes” to share with audiences, listeners, and students.

About

Eva Scow is an American mandolinist and violinist from Fresno, California. She began studying music at a young age, starting on the piano and violin at age 4, and later adding the mandolin at age 8. Growing up she played in Classical orchestras and bands, exploring different kinds of music from Bluegrass to Brazilian Jazz. She began playing professionally in high school, collaborating with different musicians/bands around the country.
At age 15 she recorded for mandolin pioneer David Grisman on his album ‘Tone Poets’. She was selected to perform at Carnegie Hall in 2006 for a Young Artist Spotlight alongside bassist Edgar Meyer. She recorded her debut album with guitarist Dusty Brough entitled ‘Sharon by the Sea’ (Adventure Music) in 2007. The album features influences, from Flamenco, Jazz, and Brazilian folk music. That same year she also recorded with jazz guitarist Anthony Wilson for his album ‘Power of Nine’ (2007). Eva has performed at the International Festival du Mandoline in Lunel, France (2010). She toured alongside country pop duo Attwater, opening up shows for Willie Nelson (2011). Eva has opened concerts for artists Poncho Sanchez, Lee Ritenour, and JJ Cale. She has recorded on numerous projects, ranging in styles from R&B, Country, Pop, and Jazz. Eva also teaches string orchestra and jazz education at the middle school level in Fresno, CA. Eva is a member of the contemporary jazz quartet Espacio, and the progressive funk group The Experience. She continues to play in numerous groups across California as a side-person, equally at home in the classical, folk and jazz idioms.

About

Evan Price is a versatile violinist and composer best known for his work with the paradigm-shifting chamber ensemble, The Turtle Island Quartet, and with The Hot Club of San Francisco, the most venerable gypsy jazz band in North America. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he grew up studying classical violin while mixing with folk and jazz musicians of all stripes, learning to fiddle and improvise in various styles as well as teaching himself to play numerous folk instruments. He also developed a love of chamber music and with it a taste for composing and arranging, greatly inspired by the early recordings of Turtle Island. He joined that group at age 24 and within a year was also playing with the Hot Club of San Francisco. In 2016, he composed and performed his first large-scale work, a Concerto for Jazz Violin and Orchestra, and recorded his debut solo album, “Dialogues.” Both reveal an artist with not only the ability to traverse far-ranging genres with authority but the maturity to assimilate them into a uniquely American voice. 2022 saw the premier of “Letters From Brno,” an award-winning documentary film featuring original chamber music by Evan. And in 2024, his concerto for two mandolins, “A Game Of Cat and Mike,” was premiered by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra with Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg, soloists. His current projects include leading his own jazz trio, continuing to perform with the HCSF, directing the International Space Orchestra, and performing with the San Francisco Ballet and Opera Orchestras. He is the recipient of 2 GRAMMY® awards for his work with Turtle Island.

About

Jeremy Wakefield is a steel guitarist and composer living and working in Portland, Oregon. He first discovered the sound of the steel guitar coming out of a thing called a radio, on the kitchen table of his grandparents’ South Dakota home. Jeremy has recorded and performed live with a multitude of Western Swing, Country and Lounge artists , but is probably most known for his background compositions in the SpongeBob SquarePants series. He also enjoys writing descriptions of himself in the third person.

About

Born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, Paxton’s music is steeped in the rich cultural heritage of the Great Migration. His family’s journey from Shreveport, Louisiana, to the Athens neighborhood of South LA in the 1950s laid the foundation for his appreciation of Southern Black culture. As an only child, he spent much of his upbringing absorbing the culture his family had taken with them to California from the South. Paxton grew up very close with his grandmother, often shadowing her mannerisms and adopting them as his own. While Futurama or King of the Hill were on the family TV, he’d find himself sitting down with her, practicing banjo chords he’d heard on her favorite records. Since relocating from Los Angeles to New York City in 2007, Paxton has found an embracing audience within the city’s diverse cultural communities and vibrant music scene. He discovered that New Yorkers are sensitive to the kind of authenticity in storytelling that he was exposed to as a child. 

About

Los Angeles-based guitarist and bandleader Jonathan Stout is well-known to swing dancers everywhere for the wonderful dance orchestra he leads, but any fan of swing guitar currently stalking the internet knows him for the beautiful touch he brings to relaxed swinging versions of standards played chord-melody style on an array of prized old archtop guitars. One of the few guitarists working today who harken back to the era when acoustic chord-melody giants roamed the earth, his recordings and Swing Guitar Blog have increased people’s awareness of past masters like Allan Reuss and George Van Eps. During the past year Jonathan has given fans a welcome relief from the pandemic doldrums through his regular “front porch practice sessions”.

About

Like many fiddlers, Katie was inspired at a young age by her grandfather. At six years old she told her parents she wanted to “play music you can clap your hands and stomp your feet to”. Hailing from Ft. Worth “Cowtown”, Tx, Katie grew up playing in a world of strong fiddle traditions, attending fiddle contests, music camps such as Mark O’Connor’s and Johnny Gimble’s, and with some classical training, was part of the Ft Worth Youth Orchestra. After receiving an Associates Degree in Commercial Music in 2008, Katie moved to Austin, Tx. In addition to becoming a luthier and teacher, Katie leads her own project and has performed and collaborated with musicians including The Jitterbug Vipers, Continental Graffiti, Ghosts Along the Brazos, Willie Nelson, and George Strait. Inspired by many styles and cultures, Katie’s voice and fiddle have taken her around the country and abroad. Currently the female vocalist and fiddle player for 9-time Grammy Award winning band, Asleep at the Wheel, Katie looks forward to every new adventure and opportunity to sing and play!

About

Guitarist, singer, songwriter, and Brooklyn native Matt Munisteri grew up with early interest in American folk music that led him from finger-style Country and Ragtime guitar, through Blues, to Tin Pan Alley and Jazz. His own compositions, and lauded guitar playing, accurately reflect this life-long immersion in the history of American Popular Song; linking rural and urban, long-gone with contemporary. As one of “New York’s finest vintage guitar stylists” (Downbeat Magazine), Matt is regularly called upon to play on a wide range of CDs, movie soundtracks, television shows, and commercials. He’s also worked with a wide range of artists in the studio and on the road. Over the past decade he’s worked regularly with violinist Mark O’Connor’s Hot Swing, Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra, and the singer Catherine Russell, in whose trio he is the guitarist and music director. A sought-after accompanist, Matt has recorded with many of today’s most individual singers, including Holly Cole, Madeline Peyroux, Liz Wright, “Little” Jimmy Scott, Geoff Muldaur, Sasha Dobson, Catherine Russell, Kat Edmonson, and Loudon Wainwright. In addition to arranging for his own bands Matt has contributed arrangements to 5 of Catherine Russell’s CDs, and to Wainwright’s 2010 Grammy-winning CD “Hight Wide and Handsome – The Charlie Poole Project.” In 2014 he was a co-producer of his friend Julian Lage’s debut solo guitar CD “World’s Fair”. Matt has played every one of Carnegie’s Halls, but on the rare occasions that he’s not on the road, Sunday evenings find him crammed into a dim corner of a tiny watering hole on Manhattan’s lower west side, playing music with cherished musicians and friends as The EarRegulars.

About

Maxwell is a New Orleans-based, internationally recognized multi-instrumentalist performer and music teacher. Specializing in mandolin and banjo, Maxwell began his training in California and then spent several years busking professionally in New Orleans’ city streets and night clubs, integrating himself into a rich and diverse array of musical styles including jug band, ragtime, jazz and little-known catalogue of traditional Italian mandolin music. Maxwell’s dedication to exploring the origins of the music he plays has always been of central importance. His repertoire reflects a deep investment in reviving authentic performance idioms of historic musical styles. His attention and priority to referencing specific historical sound recordings lends him a uniquely attentive and intimate sound.

About

Mikiya Matsuda is a steel guitarist and sometimes string bassist living in San Francisco, CA. He is the leader of the Alcatraz Islanders, a swing-era Hawaiian group, and a regular sideman with various traditional jazz and western swing dance bands in the Bay Area. Mikiya graduated from Amherst College with a B.A. in music, studied privately with steel guitarists John Ely and Alan Akaka, but mostly learned (and continues to learn) the instrument by listening and playing along with old western swing, country, Hawaiian, and mainland jazz recordings.

About

Raconteur of song Molly Reeves is a performer and adorer of early 20th-century American music. Molly is known globally for her enigmatic approach to rhythm guitar and her ability to invoke the idiomatic tone and language of 1920s and 30s acoustic guitar players. A crooner by nature, her dynamic and warm vocal stylings echo popular singers and storytellers of yesteryear. Molly resides in New Orleans where she plays with The New Orleans Jazz Vipers, The Shake Em’ Up Jazz Band, Russell Welch Hot Quartet, and the Chloe Feoranzo Quartet in addition to leading her own projects. As a guitar instructor Molly is sought out for her creative and enthusiastic teaching methods and is a faculty member of the New Orleans traditional jazz camp.

About

Tyler Jackson is a world renown tenor banjoist and upright bassist. Under the tutelage of Buddy Griffin, Tyler quickly learned the ukulele, tenor banjo, and electric bass. Tyler went on to study the double bass at the University of North Texas under Lynn Seaton and began to fine-tune his skills as a professional bassist. During this period, he was asked to work for Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys. Touring with Price took him all over the world and to venues across North America including the Grand Ole Opry, Massy Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Gruene Hall, as well as the Stagecoach Festival, Austin City Limits Live and more. In 2007-09 Ray Price teamed up with Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard to form the highly successful “Last of the Breed” tour. Tyler worked with many well-known artists spanning genres including Earl Klugh, John McEuen, Randy Travis, Jim Cullum, and Dale Watson.

About

Whit Smith is a guitarist, singer, songwriter and founding member of the highly acclaimed Western swing trio, The Hot Club of Cowtown. He is known by guitarists for his driving rhythmic style, and for his ability to move through chord progressions employing endlessly creative variety harmonies. After nearly 30 years of vigorous touring, performing and recording, Whit has arrived at a style that pays clear homage to a variety of influential guitarists from the 1930’s and 40’s, while serving as the perfect vehicle for his own bracingly original ideas. His years with Hot Club of Cowtown have been vital to the creation of his unique style: “Playing in a trio setting left a lot of room to develop a bigger more animated sound, so through necessity I developed ways of harmonizing around the melody using double stops to make us sound like a much bigger band.” A native of New England, Whit has lived in several cities including New York and Tulsa before settling in Austin, Texas in 1997. He freely admits to suffering from Vintage Guitar and Amplifier Acquisition Syndrome.

About

Zoe Guigueno (GIG-an-oh) is a bassist and songwriter headquartered in New York City. While jazz trained, she can also often be found playing klezmer, Americana, or indie-rock. She has performed with Steve Martin, busked in a pink gorilla costume, and played upright bass while whitewater rafting. Her most recent solo album, We Were Radar Stations, came out on Fiddlehead Records in October 2022.