NORTHEAST
CONCERTINA WORKSHOP

The Staff

David Barnert	David Barnert is an anesthesiologist in Albany, NY. He has been playing the Hayden Duet Concertina for 20+ years and other instruments (cello, banjo, guitar, recorders, hammered dulcimer, pipe & tabor, etc.) even longer, up to 40+ years. As an undergraduate, he studied music theory for 6 semesters in a serious academic music department. On concertina, he often plays for English Country Dances and Contradances and is the primary musician for the Pokingbrook Morris Dancers in Albany. He has been invited to participate in the Duet International CD compilation being produced in England, for which he recorded some tracks this past November.
Richard Carlin	Richard Carlin has been writing about and playing the concertina for over 30 years. He is the author of English Concertina, soon to be published in an enlarged secondedition by Mel Bay Publications. He has also produced numerous recordings for Folkways Records, now available from Smithsonian/Folkways.
Frank Edgley	Frank Edgley has been a performer and teacher of Celtic music for over 40 years. In the 1970s he became the Pipe Major and musical director of the Scottish Society of Windsor Pipe Band. Under his direction, the band won the North American, Inter-Provincial, Canadian, and U.S. Pipe Band Championships. In the early 1980s, he became interested in Irish traditional music and began to play the Anglo concertina. Over the years he has performed with several Trad bands in the Windsor/Detroit area at festivals in Ontario and Michigan, including Saline, Celtic Spirit, AACTMAD (Ann Arbor), Windsor, and Goderich. In Ireland, he performed at the Mrs. Crotty Concertina Festival and was one of the solo performers at the concertina concert at “Willie Week” in Milltown Malbay. He has won the Midwest Concertina Championship three times and has represented North America in the All-Ireland Competitions three times. Frank has been one of the staff teachers at the Celtic College in Goderich for nine years and has taught at the Milwaukee Celtic Summer School. He has repaired concertinas for almost 30 years and has been manufacturing hand-crafted Anglo concertinas for almost 7 years. He is the author of a concertina tutor, The Anglo Concertina, a Handbook of Tunes and Methods for Traditional Irish Music, as well as a session tune book, Irish Traditional Melodies Book 1 & 2 and a concertina instructional DVD.
Judy Hawkins	Judy Hawkins studied classical piano at an early age (with particular delight in Bartok) up through college. For the past 15 years she's been focusing on traditional fiddle tunes on the recorder, but when taking up concertina and discovering Allan Atlas' most excellent book Contemplating the Concertina, she immediately got back into classical music and loves to share/explore classical concertina techniques with others.
Micheál Ó Raghallaigh	From a musical family in County Meath, Micheál Ó Raghallaigh is one of the fine young concertina players currently making the scene in Ireland. Steeped in traditional music from an early age in his homeplace in Rathmolyon in County Meath from his Connemara-born father Padraig and mother Maire from Drimnagh in Dublin, he studied concertina with Rena Crotty Traynor from Kilrush and music with Antoin MacGabhann.  O’Raghallaigh recorded and played with the performing group Providence, three-time All-Ireland Senior Ceili Band, the Tain Ceili Band and in 2004 won the senior gold as a member of the Naomh Padraig Ceili Band from Meath. He has taught at the Willie Clancy Summer School and the Comhaltas Scoil Eigse as well. Both of his recordings, The Nervous Man and Inside Out, have achieved great critical acclaim.
Ian Robb	A native of London, England and a graduate of the English folk club scene, Ian Robb emigrated to Canada in 1970, and now lives in Ottawa. He is best known as a singer, a "writer of old songs" particularly as a member of the internationally celebrated vocal harmony trio Finest Kind, but is also recognized as a versatile player of the English concertina, using it for song accompaniment and also in a dance band setting. Ian is a self-described anarchist when it comes to style, having taught himself the instrument in a musically rich but relatively concertina-free environment.
John Roberts	Born in Wales and raised in Kidderminster, England, John Roberts got involved with the emerging folk music scene as a teen. When he came to the States in 1969 to attend graduate school at Cornell University, he met Englishman Tony Barrand and a 35-year singing partnership began. Moving to Vermont after college, the two became fast friends with Margaret MacArthur, a great source of Vermont and New England songs, thus adding song treasures from the American and Canadian branches of British folk song to their repertoire. Since then, John and Tony have performed around the country, at pubs, folk clubs, festivals, coffee houses, maritime museums, and even art museums. John has been on staff at the Augusta Heritage and Country Dance and Song Society music and dance camps. He has also been a member of Nowell Sing We Clear, featuring seasonally-themed performances of song and "mumming" (ritual folk theater). Not content with that, in the past few years he has also been performing in a trio called Ye Mariners All, which performs maritime song, and he has played for Morris dancing and for English country dancing. John has recorded over a dozen CDs with Tony and the members of Nowell Sing We Clear, as well as appearing on several other recordings including Ye Mariners All. Oh, and he has a "day job" doing music typesetting (especially guitar and banjo tablature) for Mel Bay, Homespun Books and Tapes, and Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop.
Bob Snope	Bob Snope acquired his first English concertina almost 25 years ago. In the mid-1980's he played for contra dances in the Boston/Cape Cod area with the band Nantucket Sound. During this period he was also the musician for the Northwest Clog Morris team Rose Galliard. Since joining The Button Box, where he oversees the repair and manufacturing side of the operation, he has performed regularly for English Country Dances in the Amherst area and has taught concertina privately and through the town's Leisure Services Department. A self-taught player, he enjoys working with beginners and has led workshops in music theory and playing by ear at the Northeast Squeeze-In and through the Eastern Cooperative Recreation School.