Archives: Artists

Tina Bergmann

Tina Bergmann

Artist Homepage
https://allroadsleadhome.com/

Tina Bergmann has been performing concerts, and teaching workshops and private lessons from an early age. A fourth-generation musician, Bergmann began playing music at age eight, learning the mountain dulcimer from her mother in the aural tradition and learning the hammered dulcimer at the knee of West Virginia-native builder and performer Loy Swiger. Demonstrating gifts for both performance and teaching, she has been a featured performer across the United States, performing solo; as a duo with her husband, bassist Bryan Thomas; with her stringband Hu$hmoney; and as a member of Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland’s world renowned Baroque Orchestra.
More…

Rachel Huitsing

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LadyWinterMusic
Instagram: @rachelhuitsing

“The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are who we become.” Rachel Huitsing
“Rachel’s songs speak to the soul with a bitter-sweet ache that lingers long after the music has ended.” Christina Hotz

A dedicated musician for most of her life, Rachel has only just begun performing her original music this year. Inspired by Enya, Loreena McKennitt, Evanescence, Leslie Hudson and more she draws on her years of classical training to blend intuitive piano and heartfelt lyrics to tell stories and share experiences. Influences of opera, musical theatre, jazz, folk, celtic and goth/emo music can all be heard in her work. An avid reader of fantasy, mythology and folklore, she often features characters from far off and imagined lands in her music.
More…

Renée Janski

Artist homepage:
https://www.reneejanski.com

Renée Janski can not remember life without music. She’s been a composer, music teacher and performer for over 25 years. Janski has toured internationally with classical ensembles, with Big Bad Gina and works with Muses on the Road. She has 5 albums and is working on her 6th. She is a celebrated composer and arranger.
Janski resides in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas with her wife, RJ and their dog, Theo.

Heather Dale

Artist homepage:
http://heatherdale.com/

A Canadian recording artist with Celtic roots, Heather Dale deftly transcends the limits of both Celtic balladeers and folk singer-songwriters. She finds contemporary themes within old material, and fuses folk traditions with blues, jazz, and world music influences. Often compared to Loreena McKennitt and Sarah McLachlan, Dale’s unique vocals are paired with more than a dozen folk instruments in live performances with multi-instrumentalist Ben Deschamps and the Amphis Chamber Strings.
More…

Apryl Knight

Artist homepage:
http://www.aprylknight.com/

Apryl Knight plays music from many times and many lands on WAY too many instruments! She brings years of experience and enthusiasm to all of her performances, playing bowed psaltery, hurdy gurdy, flute, pennywhistle, bodhran, guitar, pianonomicon, and whatever else she can get her hands on – and she sings, too!

Apryl plays instrumental and vocal music from the Medieval and Renaissance eras, and delights audiences with “that crazy-looking instrument” (the historically-accurate hurdy gurdy) as well as her double bowed playing technique on the psaltery.
More…

Sarah Kate Morgan

Sarah Kate 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 unique intricate and virtuosic style inspired by the traditional Appalachian music she grew up with.

A native of East Tennessee, Sarah Kate has incorporated the rich musical heritage of the area into her music. 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 and Appalachian Studies.You can find her living in a little hippie camper on a farm in Olive Hill, Kentucky, playing lots of music, dabbling in instrument restoration, and calling the occasional square dance.

Artist Homepage: sarahkatemorgan.com

Erin Mae

Artist Homepage:
https://www.erinmaemusic.com

Erin Mae is a mountain dulcimer virtuosa who has taken an obscure American folk instrument, and with it has developed a high level of technical proficiency and musical expression. Erin has been playing for over twenty years and in that time has developed a unique and progressive style with her signature percussive chop and fiddle-tune flat-picking.
More…

DJ Hamouris

Artist homepage:
https://djhamouris.com

Facebook:
Deborah “DJ” Hamouris, Musician & Teacher

DJ Hamouris is a performer, songwriter, teacher, recording artist, choral director, and community music organizer. She teaches mountain dulcimer classes at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse and teaches private lessons in her Oakland studio, as well as directing the singing group Women & Song. Deborah founded the Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering at The Freight in 2013. With Steve Eulberg, she co-founded the Berkeley Dulcimer Orchestra in 2014, currently in its 7th season. Musically versatile, she performs as both a jazz vocalist as well as a traditionally-influenced songsmith on her dulcimer. Throughout her career, her work has focused on highlighting women’s issues and providing opportunities for female musicians.

DJ has seven recordings, the most recent being a collaboration with renowned guitarist, Mimi Fox — 1 in 8, written during her year as a breast cancer patient. This music accompanies their theatrical show of the same name, including personal stories from a patient’s perspective. Indian Summer, a book of her dulcimer arrangements, was released in 2019.

Steve Eulberg

Artist homepage:
https://steveeulberg.com/

Steve Eulberg is a traveling, performing, teaching musician, based in San Mateo, California. Growing up in Pemberville, Ohio, he knew he would never get away from music, and since then he’s produced over 15 recordings, with his primary instruments being the mountain and hammered dulcimers and the guitar. Steve uses the vibrations of wood and string, playing and singing traditional songs and fiddle tunes; weaving together Celtic, Old-time, blues and jazz.

From his artistic statement: “I stand within the tradition of handmade, acoustic, home-grown music, giving life to old songs and tunes and songs by passing them on while creating new ones to add to the mix.”

As of 2020, he is celebrating 40 Dulcimer-Filled Years, and this award-winning instrumentalist and songwriter’s music has been characterized as “smile inducing, toe-tapping, thought-provoking folkgrass”. He weaves together age-old songs and tunes with new melodies and contemporary lyrics accompanied by dulcimers and more. His 2019 recording, Between the Tracks, had him returning to his guitar roots with a collection of original fingerstyle compositions.

“… a superb dulcimer player … and a first rate composer.”—Neal Walters, Dulcimer Players News

S. J. Tucker

Artist Homepage:
sjtucker.com

“Without our songs and stories, we are nothing.” S. J. Tucker has been the glad captain of her own independent music career since 2004, when she left the workaday world behind to travel the continent, singing songs and changing lives. Named a vanguard of the Mythpunk movement and even “the face of neo-tribal Paganism” by Witches & Pagans Magazine, Tucker is the voice of lore at the campfire and the sharp laughter of modern myth. With one hand anchored in her art and the other held out to you, she is songs and stories, community and wit.

With over fourteen full-length releases to her name and several more currently in the works, Tucker has received awards for both songwriting and performance, and has traveled the United States, Canada, and Europe with her music. S. J. (called “Sooj” by fans and friends) believes that there’s more than one way to be a rock star. If you’re chasing your dreams and living your life in a way that keeps you happy and healthy, Sooj believes you’ve got it made. You may often find her on tour with similarly hard-working artists and groups who believe in giving their fans all that they’ve got, such as Toronto’s Heather Dale Band, Seattle cellist Betsy Tinney (often with their shared project, Tricky Pixie), or Northwest Arkansas’ own Renée Janski.

A dynamic live performer known for her willingness to follow an evocative ballad with a tune about ninjas or pirates, Tucker is never in danger of taking herself too seriously. She lets it be plain on stage that she loves her job, but she also shows grace and calm, courting and cajoling her audience. Reviewers compare her voice to that of Joni Mitchell or Tori Amos, her guitar work to that of Emily Saliers. Apart from writing lyrics and music, S. J. loves fire dancing with poi and hula hoop and has given fire performances & workshops across the country. Additionally, she has worked as a professional audiobook narrator and an indie film score composer.

Spring of 2014 marked a big milestone on Sooj’s career timeline: ten solid and joyful years of touring and performing full time as an independent artist. In the years since, she has written over 150 new songs, released her jazz-and-blues influenced Stolen Season record, participated in The Green Album‘s efforts to help Rainforest Trust conserve over 10,000 acres and counting of irreplaceable rainforest habitat, and co-created Heather Dale’s Arthurian stage musical Queens of Avalon. During 2019, she launched a rousingly successful Patreon site, produced & narrated the audiobook of Daughter of the White River by Denise Parkinson, and celebrated her little son’s first birthday. On her plate for the near future are such treasures as a long-awaited follow-up to her spiritually focused Blessings album, a musical collaboration with husband Ryan James Loyd, a return to full-time touring, continued monthly online concerts, and a record of songs all inspired by her adventures closer to home. Sooj hopes to keep successfully straddling the line between touring, presenting online shows, and producing new musical content as all the coming chapters unfold like vibrant leaves.

“Tucker is not only fantastic; she’s like a character out of a fantasy novel. She weaves myth and magic into her lyrics as easily as a strain of cello, a lick of something electric, the chuffing of a train engine…Tucker has a knack – no, a genius – for weaving old ways with new.”

–C. S. E. Cooney, blackgate.com

“S. J. Tucker sounds like no one else out there. I’m not sure if she is fairy, shape-shifter, otherworldly, or just a super intelligent, super perceptive young woman…Critics have compared her voice to Joni Mitchell and Tori Amos, her guitar style to Emily Saliers. I believe she is a complete original coming straight from Neverland where Magick is real.”

—Phil King, Audiofuzz.com