2022 Mountain Dulcimer Day  
Workshops!

Saturday, September 24, 2022
9 am-12 noon / 12-1 pm lunch / 1-4 pm
ZOOM – Same Zoom link all day
$25 for entire day
Registration/Payment link will be added soon

Each artist was given the choice of playing songs, teaching a workshop or some combination. Here are the biographies of our 6 Mountain Dulcimer artists and a description of what each has chosen for their 1-hour presentation.

THE EXACT ORDER OF THESE WONDERFUL DULCIMER PLAYERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON.


Bill Dempsey
Bill Dempsey: “I started playing trombone when I was 9 years old. I did my first professional gig when I was in Jr. High. I started teaching in 1973. I built my first dulcimer in 1976. My main influences are Jean Ritchie and Richard Farina. I play 4 equidistant string dulcimer. I'm a singer/multi-instrumentalist. The dulcimer has helped me maintain and find peace and serenity while teaching beginning band, violin & recorder to 3rd, 4th, & 5th graders.” Bill is now retired from a long career as a full-time public school music teacher. Bill continues an active performing and private teaching schedule. He teaches online and from his home in San Juan Capistrano, CA. An avid surfer, he has a deep and abiding love of the sea and sea music of all kinds.


CLASS:
Bill will talk about Jean Ritchie and Richard Farina and perform some of their songs. He plays with 4 equidistant strings and a capo and will demonstrate why that is perfect for the player, like himself, who loves to sing with the dulcimer.
www.billdempseymusic.net

Leo Kretzner
Leo Kretzner Leo Kretzner – Tradition Meets Innovation
Leo and the mountain dulcimer met in 1975, and neither has been the same ever since. He has been a major innovator of the instrument, spanning from Celtic jigs and reels to blues and rock, and from Appalachian to contemporary, with guitar and vocals added to the mix.
Leo has performed and taught for over forty years at folk festivals and coffee houses all over the country. He is working on a new album, Mixed Colors/Art of the 4-String Dulcimer, out by Fall 2022. His other albums are Dulcimer Fair (’77), Pigtown Fling (’79), Bold Orion (’84), and Not-So-Still-Life (’90).


CLASS:
Half performance and half workshop focusing on playing 3-4 songs with 4 separate strings in 2 tunings: DADD and GDGD. leokretz@gmail.com

Joellen Lapidus

 Joellen Lapidus is one of the pioneers of contemporary mountain dulcimer playing, songwriting, and building. She blends Appalachian, Indian, Arabic, jazz, classical, and pop musical styles to give the mountain dulcimer a new range of rhythmic, melodic, and tuning possibilities. As a dulcimer maker, her work influenced many of the dulcimer builders of the 70's and 80's. Her instruments were known for their innovative shapes, exquisite sound hole and peghead inlay work. She introduced the dulcimer to Joni Mitchell and made three instruments for her between 1968 and 1976. She has also made instruments for David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Wendy Waldman, Garth Hudson and Harry Stiles.
She is a gifted teacher and is the author of the 2nd edition of her classic dulcimer instruction book “LAPIDUS ON DULCIMER 2". She has recorded 2 CDs, “Joellen Lapidus Live in Concert” and “Dulcimer Music For the Pelican Ballet”.
You can view her work and reach her at www.lapidusmusic.com

CLASS:
Joellen’s hour will be a performance of traditional and original tunes in her eclectic rhythmic style and commentary on the variety of tunings and techniques that make up her unique way of playing.
https://lapidusmusic.com

Sarah Morgan
Sarah Kate Morgan started her musical journey at 7 years old when she was introduced to old-time music through a dulcimer that her grandfather built. From there, she has gone on to develop a uniquely intricate and virtuosic style inspired by the traditional Appalachian music she grew up with in rural East Tennessee. At 18, Sarah placed 1st at the 2012 National Mountain Dulcimer Championships held in Winfield, KS. She recently graduated from Morehead State University in eastern Kentucky with degrees in Traditional Music, Appalachian Studies, and Arts Administration. Sarah Kate also performs as a regular member of the Michelle Canning Band, has recorded many albums, calls square dances, attempts to quilt and grow things in her garden, and works at the Hindman Settlement School in eastern Kentucky as the Traditional Arts Education Director.
CLASS:
Intermediate/Advanced Workshop: Learn the fiddle tune, "Goodbye My Honey I’m Gone". This is a really weird, crooked, and fun tune in the unusual key of Gm, from the playing of Eastern Kentucky fiddler, George Lee Hawkins. Tuning: CGC Capo needed. You can hear the tune at:  https://www.slippery-hill.com/content/goodbye-my-honey-im-gone 
sarahmorganmusic@gmail.com 
 

Kevin Roth

 Kevin Roth entered the dulcimer scene in 1974 and quickly became known as one of the innovators of dulcimer music. From 1974-1978 he recorded a dozen albums for Folkways Records and then formed his own label now numbering a total of forty-nine albums to his discography. In 2020 Kevin introduced ‘Dulcimeditation’ to the dulcimer world, and now teaches this form of playing along with his personal life-coaching career.

CLASS:
“I’ll be playing a mixture of old and new instrumentals and songs in unusual tunings for the 1st half and then introducing Dulcimeditation and how it works for the 2nd half.”
www.kevinroth.org  www.kevinrothmusic.com 
 

Cyntia Smith
Cyntia Smith is an internationally known fretted dulcimer artist, vocalist, composer, and arranger of Renaissance and British Isles traditional music. Cyntia recorded and co-produced five critically acclaimed albums with Ruth Barrett between 1980 and 1993. She is one of the pioneers in the development of chord-melody classical fingerpicking style and has been teaching the dulcimer and performing since 1979.
With luthier Dale Foye, she helped develop and build the Aeolus classical dulcimer, a hybrid of the Spanish classical guitar and the mountain dulcimer, and added her unique sound hole carvings and custom abalone inlays to many Aeolus dulcimers and to Mr. Foye’s guitars.
Cyntia co-founded the Southern California Dulcimer Heritage and the Harvest Festival of Dulcimers, and served as the artistic director from 1995 to 2006. Cyntia has been an instructor and performer at numerous festivals across the country, and continues to compose and teach the dulcimer. Her debut solo album, Soul Tending, features her original songs and instrumentals interwoven with guitar, percussion, flute, and cello. Cyntia can be contacted, and her physical and digital CD albums are available on her website: www.cyntiasmith.com 

CLASS:
“I'll be doing a concert using both diatonic and chromatic Aeolus dulcimers of mostly my original compositions and arrangements, plus pieces by other composers. I'll also talk about my techniques, too.”


 

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