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2025 Faculty
ABC offers full-time tracks in old-time banjo, bluegrass banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and guitar. ABC also offers workshops in other instruments (e.g. bass) and in jamming. While an old-time banjo student will be faced with a choice among multiple simultaneous old-time banjo workshops in every period, even a student playing an instrument with just one or two workshops will find other interesting workshops (jamming, singing, etc.) and hosted jams (and time for practicing) to fill the time and make the weekend seem much too short!
Teacher Bios
Bluegrass Banjo
Greg Cahill
formed the Special Consensus in 1973 in the Chicago area and the band became a full time touring (nationally and internationally) and recording entity in 1975. Greg has appeared on all of The Special Consensus recordings (seventeen audio recordings and one performance video) and has released three solo recordings (two with internationally renowned mandolinist Don Stiernberg and one with mandolin maestro Jethro Burns), one European bluegrass music recording (with renowned Czech guitarist Slavek Hanzlik) and four banjo instructional videos/DVDs (Musician’s Workshop). He has also appeared on numerous recordings by other artists and on countless national television and radio commercials (jingles). Greg conducts workshops and master classes at bluegrass camps and festivals worldwide. His teaching credits include Nashcamp , the Maryland Banjo Academy, Banjo Camp North, the British Columbia Bluegrass Workshops, the Sore Fingers Summer School (UK), and Bluegrass Camp Germany. He has taught at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago for over 40 years and became the first adjunct professor teaching banjo at the Columbia College (Chicago) Strings Department.
Gina Furtado grew up playing the banjo in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. She first gained international recognition with her stint playing in Chris Jones and the Night Drivers. Since then she has released two records with Mountain Home Music Company that feature her creative banjo playing and quirky songwriting, resulting in several #1 songs on Bluegrass Today charts. Gina has been a final nominee multiple times for IBMA's Banjo Player of the Year.
Eli Gilbert
is one of the most watched and supported banjo instructors online today. His videos have been viewed on YouTube millions of times, with over 60,000 subscribers. In addition to his online educational resources, Eli has taught at numerous bluegrass and banjo camps, including Banjo Summit, Augusta Bluegrass Week, Banjo Camp North, and Ashokan Bluegrass Camps. As a performer Eli has toured throughout the US and Canada with such artists as Dale Ann Bradley, Alan Bibey, Chris Jones, and Rick Faris; he now tours with Missy Raines and Allegheny. Eli is an alumni of the Jazz Studies program of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, as well as the Bluegrass and Country Music Program at East Tennessee State.
Alan Munde needs no introduction to long-time Bluegrass fans. From his early creative work with Sam Bush in Poor Richard's Almanac to his traditional bluegrass apprenticeship with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys to his 21-year stint anchoring the landmark Country Gazette, Alan has blazed a trail as one of the most innovative and influential banjo players of all time. Along the way, Alan also recorded and contributed to numerous instrumental recordings, including the 2001 IBMA Instrumental Album of the Year -- Knee Deep in Bluegrass. Alan has supplemented his recorded work with several instructional publications for the banjo; from 1986-2006 he taught Bluegrass and Country Music at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas. In 2024 Alan was elected to the IBMA Bluegrass Hall of Fame..
Mike Stahlman is a Portland, Ore. banjo player whose playing style was heavily influenced by Earl Scruggs and Alan Munde. Mike has taught bluegrass banjo at Portland Community College in Portland since 1997, and currently plays banjo and tours with the Oregon-based band Lee Highway. He also plays with The Loafers. Mike has recorded two banjo instrumental CD's -- Bluebonnet and First Dance.
Banjo player Tray Wellington's
approach to the quintessential American instrument is all about looking forward. An International Bluegrass Music Association Award winner, Wellington is critically acclaimed not only for his technical prowess, but also for leveraging his unique point of view to craft a one-of-a-kind voice on the instrument. It's a feat that's all too rare in these roots genres that seem to value emulation and regurgitation over all else. Instead, Wellington has time and time again reasserted that his playing style, and all of the many varied and disparate parts that combine within it, is wholly his own – and it's unconcerned with tradition.
Old-Time Banjo
Hilarie Burhans
has been playing and teaching clawhammer banjo for more than 45 years. She lives in the Appalachian foothills of Athens, Ohio and is a much in-demand player at old-time music festivals thanks to her intensely rhythmic, driving banjo style. Hilarie co-founded the Hotpoint Stringband, a nationally-touring contradance band with whom she has recorded five albums. HBO used a song she recorded on the critically acclaimed show Deadwood, and she has collaborated on too many other musical projects to count! More than 5,000 subscribers enjoy her banjo YouTube channel, and her instructional videos on the Patreon platform have many devoted subscribers who praise her clear, relaxed teaching style.
Joseph Decosimo has introduced audiences around the world to the beauty and vitality of the fiddle, banjo, and song traditions from the Appalachian South. A student of the last master traditional musicians in his native Tennessee, Joseph draws on a well of profound creativity and repertoire even as he creates fresh sounds. A sought-after, supportive teacher, and PhD holding folklorist, he served on the faculty in ETSU's Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music Studies Program. He is a national Old-time banjo champion, winner of the Clifftop fiddle contest, and a member of the prize-winning Bucking Mules. His most recent recordings While You Were Slumbering and The Aluminum Wonder have resonated in the Old-time scene and far beyond.
Frank Evans
fell in love with banjo at age 10 and quickly developed a passion for Old Time Appalachian music. He won the youth banjo contest at the Clifftop Appalachian String Band Festival when he was 13 and later placed second over all. In 2010 Evans joined the bluegrass outfit the Slocan Ramblers and recorded their first album Shaking Down the Acorns produced by Juno award winner Andrew Collins. The album gained attention world wide and led them to open for Steve Martin at the Toronto Jazz festival in 2013. In 2011 Evans became the first banjo player to attend Humber College of Music where he studied Jazz. Currently Evans tours extensively year round throughout the world and has played at Rockygrass, Merlefest, and Jacobs Ladder Festival in Isreal. He has taught at the Rockygrass Academy, Nimble Fingers Bluegrass Camp and has played and taught alongside Tony Trischka, Peter Rowan, John Reischman and Ken Whiteley. The Slocan Ramlers released their most recent album, Queen City Jubilee in June. Evans is based in Toronto.
Maggie Lind has been singing and making music her whole life. She got a banjo as a teen and soon met and learned from renowned musician Tom Sauber. She became enthralled with the tunes, dancing, old recordings, stories, and community that go hand in hand with old-time music. After visiting elder tradition bearers such as Joe Thompson, Charlie Acuff, and Clyde Davenport, she was inspired to play fiddle and call dances as well. Maggie has been teaching clawhammer banjo in Portland for 20 years. She has taught hundreds of students in her popular Portland String Band Class and has taught and performed at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Dare to be Square - West!, Portland Old Time Music Gathering, Berkeley Old Time Music Convention, and Wallowa Fiddle Tunes Camp. She believes playing music is our human birthright and delights in helping others join in the fun.
Perhaps the best-known exponent of the "melodic" clawhammer style, Ken Perlman is known wherever banjos are played as a master of clawhammer technique and an expert teacher of clawhammer mechanics. He was a Banjo Newsletter columnist from the early 1980s till the magazine closed down in 2021; he has written several books on clawhammer instruction including Melodic Clawhammer Banjo and Clawhammer Style Banjo, he has recorded several series on audio and video banjo instruction, and he has taught at well over a dozen music camps including Augusta Folk Heritage, Colorado Roots Music Camp, Common Ground on the Hill, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp, the Swannanoa Gathering, and the Tennessee Banjo Institute. A co-director of American Banjo Camp, he has also been music or co-director of several other banjo camps including Banjo Camp North, the Bath International Banjo Festival, Maryland Banjo Academy, Midwest Banjo Camp, and Suwannee Banjo Camp. Ken toured for nearly fifteen years with renowned Appalachian-style fiddler Alan Jabbour (1942-2017), and recorded two CDs with him: Southern Summits and You Can’t Beat the Classics. His most recent solo recording is rails & Frolics. His most recent banjo books are Appalachian Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer and Cape Breton & Prince Edward Island Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer. In the summer of 2017, Ken was invited to offer a Master’s Showcase at the Appalachian String Band Festival (AKA: “Clifftop”), an event set up to “showcase the legends who have dedicated their lives to the preservation and presentation of old-time music.
Molly Tenenbaum began playing old-time clawhammer banjo as a teenager, and has since played for square dances and dance camps around the Pacific Northwest with The Queen City Bulldogs and Dram County. She has a songs-and-tunes duet with her brother, Dan Tenenbaum. She’s taught banjo at camps including the Rocky Mountain Old-time Music Festival, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes and the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, and teaches regularly at Dusty Strings Music School in Seattle. Her recordings are Instead of a Pony and Goose and Gander. She loves the intertwine of the banjo and fiddle more than just about anything, and is at her happiest when her banjo is guessing what the fiddle will do at the same time the fiddle does it.
Fiddle, Guitar, Bass, Mandolin, & Other Instruments
Dale Adkins is a native Oregonian and longtime Northwest guitar legend who Flatpick Guitar Magazine states is: ". . . a major force!" As a part of Grammy nominee Kate MacKenzie's touring band, Dale performed across the U.S. and Europe in the 1990s. Other musical collaborations include guitar legend Dan Crary, John Reischman and the Jaybirds, Frontline, True North, Jim Faddis, Rock Ridge, Midnight45, and many more. Dale is an instrumental wiz on guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and tenor guitar. Dale has been playing and performing on mandolin in Bluegrass and Old Time configurations for more than 20 years. Dale is also the owner and engineer/producer of Big Owl Studios where he has recorded and produced acoustic recordings of beautiful, pure quality for musicians all over the US. As an avid fly fisherman, Dale would also be thrilled to take you on a guided fishing trip on the Deschutes River.
Greg Blake
was born and raised in West Virginia where he developed his love for bluegrass & traditional country music; most of his adult life has been spent in the Midwest - Missouri, Kansas and Colorado. He spent nearly fifteen years with the Bluegrass Missourians and while with them, he earned SPBGMA’s Guitar Player of the Year Award five consecutive years (nine nominations), and a Kansas State Flatpicking championship. He was also nominated twice for SPBGMA’s Male Vocalist of the Year Award. He subsequently helped form the band Jeff Scroggins & Colorado, and started traveling more extensively throughout the US and worldwide. With the release of his first solo album in 2015, Greg is now being recognized as one of the industry’s premier vocalists and guitarists. He was just recently nominated for Male Vocalist of the Year by the IBMA. Now a member of Special Consensus, Greg also teaches guitar and vocals throughout the year at bluegrass instructional camps.
Greg and Jere Canote, from Seattle, WA, are as renowned for their affable attitudes and humor as they are for their music. Greg on fiddle, and Jere on guitar, and both on banjo ukes, perform zany concerts, play for dances, lead songs, and promote a good time! The twin brothers started singing soon after they were born and haven't closed their mouths since. They spent their early years in California's Sacramento Valley, inventing songs with their father at the piano and tagging along with their parents' folk and square dance group. They honed their skills performing in many bands and discovered old-time music in the mid 1970s. In 1978 they attended the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, WA, and eventually became frequent teachers there. After touring the country with dance caller and singer Sandy Bradley for four years, they returned to the Northwest for a thirteen year stint on Seattle's National Public Radio show, "Sandy Bradley's Potluck," as Sandy's affable side-kicks. The rigors of finding new material for a weekly radio show kept the twins on their toes, mining and performing gems of American music of the past as well as writing new songs in those styles.
Peter Langston will play anything with strings on it (guitar, mandolin, bass, dobro, even the banjo!). He has played in bands on both the East Coast (Metropolitan Opry, Wretched Refuse) and the West Coast (Puddle City, Entropy Service, Portland Zoo), and has performed with such notables as Doc Watson, Bill Keith, Reverend Gary Davis, Tony Trischka, Clark Terry, Peter Rowan, Missy Raines, Chill Wills, Alison Brown, Johnny Gimble, Molly Tuttle, and Mike Seeger. He appears regularly with bluegrass/Americana bands 3 Play Ricochet and The Rumblestrip Drifters. Peter has led a double life as a musician and a computer whiz and has taught computer science, audio recording, and songwriting at the college level.
Mick Nicholson started out as a tuba player, and was a member of the Bremerton Symphony for 6 years. While a Navy musician in the 1970s, he led several jazz and rock bands as an electric bassist touring thoughout the Pacific. In order to concentrate on the upright bass, Mick joined the Washington, DC Navy Band in 1984, culminating with a four year stint in the navy's premier Country/Bluegrass group, "Country Current." Mick moved back home to the Northwest in 1995 and quickly became an active player in the local acoustic music scene. Comfortable with a wide variety of styles, he has gigged with artists ranging from Vince Gill to Dizzy Gillespie. Presently, he is a member of "Me and the Boys" (bluegrass), "The Don Alverson Quintet" (jazz and dixieland), and "The Less Paulish Trio" (Django on steroids). In addition, Mick freelances as an electric and acoustic bassist and teaches at various band camps and workshops. He also plays a mean tuba, though he does not endorse or receive any remuneration from the Mean Tuba Company.
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