Marcy Prochaska: Hammered Dulcimer

Last night I got back from the Chattanooga Dulcimer Festival. I have so much to say about this weekend that I think I’ll break it up into several individual posts. Meanwhile, here’s a few pictures:

Alyce, Sharon, and Carol traveled together from Ohio. We stayed in the same guest house along with luthier Jerry Read Smith and Doug, who works in Jerry’s store. We had a great time hanging out together for breakfast, dinner, and evenings. This picture was taken with Sharon’s camera, but I forget who took it for us!

Those of us in the guest house all arrived Thursday evening. The festival began Friday morning with two 90-minute classes followed by lunch, another class, a break for jamming or practice, dinner, then the evening concert. Saturday’s schedule was about the same.

During lunch both days there was a mini-concert. I played on Friday, and Stephen Humphries on Saturday. I did a bit of classical, several originals including the one I’m singing in the picture, and “What Child Is This? / Menuet.”

This picture is one of the many Brad Bower took over the weekend.

Sunday everyone who was sticking around headed downtown to jam at the aquarium.

Some of us had to stop for snacks occasionally.

Kathy Angus (wife of Rob, who is seated at the right playing the Nick Blanton dulcimer) took these two pictures.

See more photos at the official festival site.

I forgot to post the one picture I got at this spring’s UPDF before my batteries gave up (I know, I should have brought some spares).

Bill Mitchell, of Peat and Barley, playing his Dusty Strings D-600.

Upper Potomac Dulcimer Fest

I love going to the UPDF each September.

This year the highlight of the festival for me was having a whole day of interesting classes with Dan Landrum (which has its own blog entry).

I also enjoyed seeing friends and meeting new folks, jamming, and the hospitality of my gracious and fun hosts.

Dan and I in this first picture. Below are my hosts Fred and Sarah on the left, and on the right are Don, Joanie, Butch, Christine, Nick, and Christie standing, with me and Kitty seated. Unfortunately I don’t remember all the names of the folks in the final picture.

(Can you tell I forgot to scan these until after I’d already cropped them and stuck them in my scrapbook? Guess which one overlaps Dan on the album page…)

 

A few other things

Also in September, our pastor hired The Hanshaw Trio to play at a presbytery dinner featuring a lecture on arts and the church.

In October, I celebrated five years of dulcimer with an anniversary concert at Cornell’s Johnson Museum. (See the concert flyer in another blog entry.)

The show began with the duo Pas de Deux, and closed with The Hanshaw Trio.

Then there was a surprisingly gorgeous day in November when a bunch of us got together to jam at the farmers’ market.

Here’s Rick Biesanz who books for the Peaceful Gatherings Coffeehouse in Corning and singer-songwriter Joe Crookston.

In the second picture, that’s Debra Chesman, who runs a jam and house concert series near Corning, Rick, Joe, and Gary Kline, a fellow Rick plays with in the Seneca Moon String Band.

On October 2, I went to a house concert: Carolyn Cruso, who plays hammered dulcimer, flute, and sings with guitar.

Joe Crookston, a recently-arrived local singer/songwriter, organized the event and also performed a short set of his own songs. I met him this spring when I was busking on the Commons; his little girl liked the dulcimer, so he stayed a while and we chatted a bit. He’s another one of those people who seems to be comfortable in his own skin. I saw him and another singer/songwriter, jazzy-folky Linda Stout, in a concert this summer. I really like his music. He’s got a driving rhythm, great guitar licks, a warm rich voice, and a way with lyrics.

The email “flyer” for the house concert said something about jamming afterwards, so I brought my dulcimer. No one else had brought an instrument, but the three of us — Carolyn, Joe, and I — jammed anyway. What fun! We did some traditional tunes — Morrison’s, Staten Island, Julia Delaney — and some Irish songs, and improvised in Am. That was the scary part, for me — but I managed to throw in some interesting ideas.

This morning Joe sent me this picture: