Tickets will be LIVE on November 2nd!
For the seventh year, we will offer virtual classes to keep you progressing in fiddle, banjo, dulcimer, guitar and singing. Each class meets for one hour each week for 8 weeks via Zoom. All class times are listed in US Eastern Standard Time. Tuition is $160 and scholarships are available!
Cowan strives to provide services to all folks. We encourage you to consider what best suits your needs to participate in our program and select one of the three ticket options for the Winter School: Standard, Partial and Full Scholarship. We hope you are able to participate in our program as well as support our ongoing services to the community. Thank you for being part of the Cowan Family!
To apply for the Nancy McClellan Scholarship scholarship, select the desired “scholarship” button when registering. If you need help with registration or have questions, please contact the Cowan Creek Mountain Music School; coordinator, Stacy Dollarhide at CCMMS@cowancommunitycenter.org, (606) 335-5350. Class size is limited to 15 so register soon!
Singing: Songs from the Archives
Anna Roberts-Gevalt
Day of the week TBA @ 7:00 PM
Level: All
Course Description:
An old time singing class, working with songs from the vast archive of recordings and transcriptions made by ballad collectors, folklorists, and singers themselves, in the first half of the 20th century.
We’ll learn a set of 8 new songs recorded in Appalachia, New England, and Ireland, learn about some archives, singers, and collectors, and talk about some of the politics and history of song-catching.
In each class, you can expect :
- Vocal exercise or warmup, a moment to focus in on singing techniques and anatomy, breath support
- Study a song from an archive !
- We’ll learn a little bit about the archive and/or field recorder who recorded the song, and other context about collecting
- Learn about the person singing the song, and the song’s origins
- Do a close listen of the song & recording
- Learn the song !
- Piece together a version to sing – sometimes deciphering “incomplete” or damaged recordings, referencing other versions of a song, or deciding to learn this beautiful scrap-version !
- Work to make the version “your own” – working with style, tempo, phrasing, and finding the right key for a song
- Most of the class we’ll work a capella, but if there’s interest we can talk about making arrangements with instruments for some of them!
- Research project !
- We’ll end the 8 weeks with an independent research project – I’ll guide you through the process of finding and learning a song from an online archive, perhaps one connected to a place you live, a place from your family history, or a story that resonates with you
Find Anna’s draft syllabus here.
Bio:
Anna RG is a composer, artist and community organizer living in NYC. She’s the founder of the Sick Music Center, an ongoing project dedicated to communal study, experimentation, and support, of disabled and sick music making past and present.
She toured for a decade with a research-based ballad project, Anna & Elizabeth, their Smithsonian Folkways album called a “radical expansion of what folk songs are supposed to do” (New Yorker). She’s performed at Carnegie Hall, Big Ears Festival, NPR’s Tiny Desk, has worked with members of Kronos Quartet, Lonnie Holley, Jim White and Susan Alcorn. Most recently, Anna was artist in residence at Issue Project Room, Recess Art, the NEW INC program at the New Museum, Loghaven, and Macdowell; she holds an MFA in sculpture from Bard College.
Advanced Fiddle
Nokosee Fields
https://www.nokoseefieldsmusic.com
Day of the week TBA at 7:00 PM
Level: Advanced
Course Description:
What is advanced fiddle playing? Is it playing fast? Is it knowing a lot of tunes? I believe
advanced musicianship is awareness. In this course we will go through ways to sharpen our listening skill and attentiveness to our playing habits. We will work through exercises that pertain to old time fiddling, we’ll work on tone, volume, bow rhythms and of course tunes.
My goal with this class is to get you thinking beyond the jam and beyond the surface layer of
what it means to be an advanced player. My hope is that you come away from this class with a fresh perspective of the music and that you can nurture your own way of engaging with playing the fiddle to the best of your ability. I want you to deepen your awareness of your playing and come away with the tools needed to engage with the music in a way that will lead to lasting and assured development.
Bio:
The great nephew of celebrated Cherokee fiddler Sam O’Fields, Nokosee carries a longstanding Cherokee fiddling tradition into the present. Through powerful live and recorded performances, he lovingly and playfully reimagines his tradition with immense skills and sensitivity as a performer of traditional fiddle music. His prowess has not gone unnoticed: He’s won some of the most prestigious contests in the United States and has performed and taught at flagship festivals and workshops.
Beyond fiddling, he’s collaborated with his mother Anita Fields (NEA National Heritage Fellow 2021) on site specific visual and sound art installations that address the complex history of their Osage ancestry. The work premiered through Counter Public of St. Louis and was featured in New York Times and NPR.
An in-demand recording artist and performer, he has recorded and worked alongside some of the most well-known artists in the field–luminaries like Jim Miller and Tim O’Brien
Advanced Dulcimer
Roxanne McDaniel
https://roxannemcdaniel.com/home
Day of the week TBA @ 7:00 PM
Level: Advanced
Course Description:
This course is suitable for advanced and upper-intermediate dulcimer players looking to further develop their technique, expand their repertoire, and challenge themselves to grow as players. This course will cover a wide variety of tunes from different traditions, as well as alternate tunings, left and right hand techniques, embellishments, methods of improving rhythm playing, use of a capo, chords, playing in unusual time signatures, playing in different keys without retuning, and more. The majority of this course will use DAD tuning. A 1+ fret will not be required for this course, but a 6+ fret will be necessary.
Bio: Roxanne McDaniel is a dulcimer player and instructor based in Johnson City, Tennessee. A graduate of East Tennessee State University’s Old Time and Bluegrass program, her dulcimer playing draws on influences from a variety of styles. She teaches regularly at festivals such as The Quarantune Dulcimer Festival and the North Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Festival. She was a recipient of a Tradition Bearer’s Fellowship in 2023, and in 2026 was recognized by the state of Tennessee as a master artist. She currently teaches dulcimer instruction at The McKinney Center in Historic Jonesborough, Tennessee. She performs as half of the drum-and-dulcimer duo Bratfolk, and is the host of the radio program Outside The Box on WBCM Radio Bristol 100.1FM at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, Virginia.
Bio:Roxanne McDaniel is a dulcimer player and instructor based in Johnson City, Tennessee. A graduate of East Tennessee State University’s Old Time and Bluegrass program, her dulcimer playing draws on influences from a variety of styles. She teaches regularly at festivals such as The Quarantune Dulcimer Festival and the North Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Festival. She was a recipient of a Tradition Bearer’s Fellowship in 2023, and in 2026 was recognized by the state of Tennessee as a master artist. She currently teaches dulcimer instruction at The McKinney Center in Historic Jonesborough, Tennessee. She performs as half of the drum-and-dulcimer duo Bratfolk, and is the host of the radio program Outside The Box on WBCM Radio Bristol 100.1FM at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, Virginia.
Advanced Banjo
Randy Wilson
https://www.rwilsonbanjo.com/about
Day of the Week TBA @ 7:00 PM
Level: Advanced
Course Description:
Randy Wilson plans to introduce eastern Kentucky banjo techniques to folks interested in different approaches to the banjo. He will show a Line Fork technique he learned from Lee Sexton and Morgan Sexton on the Line Fork of the Kentucky River. It is not what folks call “Claw Hammer” or “Overhand” banjo. So, students have to be prepared to learn a completely different style of banjo. I will also be doing a brush stroke method of banjo playing. It is not two finger banjo. Again, it is something different I learned from George Gibson, with my own accents and style. As part of the brush stroke method I will be teaching thumping on the banjo. So, you have to open up your hand to play. You can’t keep your hand in a claw hammer grip. We will be learning how to go from claw hammer method to brush stroke. I hope we pass on some of these old eastern Kentucky methods of playing the banjo. More than clawhammer.
You can find samples of the Linefork playing style, and Randy’s teaching style in the lessons available on his website, rwilsonbanjo.com. Navigate to the “Watch” page and check out Lessons 2,3, and 4.
Bio:
Randy Wilson is a fifth generation eastern Kentuckian who worked for the Hindman Settlement School for 30 years doing songs, stories, and dances in the elementary schools. He plays traditional and original tunes on banjo, guitar, autoharp, and mountain dulcimer. Randy has played in many festivals across the country- Appalshop’s Seedtime on the Cumberland, Hindman Settlement School’s Family Folk Week, The Great American Dulcimer Festival at Pine Mountain State Park, The Smithsonian Festival of Folk Music on the national mall, cultural exchange festivals with native peoples of Alaska and Puerto Rican folks in the Bronx, NYC. Included are concerts and cultural exchanges at the University of Rome, Rome, Italy and a recent tour of music in Japan. Randy is steeped in dance calls from eastern Kentucky and beyond- the Kentucky running set, squares, circles, reels, and play party games.
For twenty years, Randy produced Kid’s Radio for WMMT at the Appalshop in Whitesburg, Ky, airing children’s voices and oral histories from across the region. He made numerous recordings with students in addition to his own recordings- albums from children’s music to blues to Christmas songs.
Intermediate-Advanced Guitar: Fretboard Liberation!
Thomas Deakin
Day of the week TBA @ 7:00 PM
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Course Description:
Do you ever feel a disconnect between the music inside you and the instrument you’re holding? Are you confined to the first little bit of the fretboard, and mystified what to do with the rest of it? Do you wonder what chords are made of, and how to put them anywhere you want?
This is an approach to build an understanding of what music is made of, based on the idea of the major scale, and what that means both for common sounds, and the stranger, more adventurous options.
This is not a course for learning tunes or specific techniques, this is an informationally based, ear guided exploration into the wild world of what tunes are made of, and how to make them your own.
Bio:
Thomas Deakin is a moving target, making music in a breakfast cafe in Bellingham, a bucket on royal street, German theatres, okanogan grange halls and basque tabernas. After decades of playing a variety of single note instruments he’s recently fallen in obsession with the polyphonic world of guitar.
Dogs, music, humor, and fighting off the ever present doom take up his time when he’s home in Louisville, Ky. He is thrilled to offer an unconventional approach to liberating your guitar fretboard. This class may also be of interest to other string pluckers/strokers/bowers, with a bit of translation and flexible thinking.
Thomas has taught and performed widely. He currently teaches at the Louisville Folk School.
Early-Intermediate Fiddle: Fiddling of the Red River Gorge
Blakeley Burger
https://www.blakeleyburger.com
Day of the week TBA @ 7:00 PM
Level: Beginning-Intermediate
Course Description:.
This class will examine the fiddle techniques as executed by older generation fiddlers who resided in the Red River Gorge geological area. We will break down foundational skills on the instrument pertaining to tone, pitch, rhythm, bowings, tunings, and relevant music theory within the context of traditional dance tunes and listening pieces local to the region. Additional resources and discussion will be available to those students interested in a deeper understanding of the lives of the players whose recordings we will be drawing from, such as Lella Todd, Darley Fulks, and Lily May Ledford.
Bio:
Blakeley Burger is a musician dedicated to the skill of her instrument. Since 2024, she has toured nationally and internationally as the fiddle-player for acclaimed singer-songwriter, Kelsey Waldon of Oh Boy Records (John Prine). She has recorded for and/or performed alongside numerous successful women artists and woman-fronted bands, including Carla Gover, Grace Rogers, Brit Taylor, The Local Honeys, Cait Justice, Nina Nastasia, Josephine Foster, and YAPA!, among others. She received a Bachelor’s of Music (violin performance) from the University of Louisville in 2016, studying under renowned Classical violinist/educator, Brittany MacWilliams, and has taught private music lessons and group classes both independently and through organizations such as Nelsonville Old-Time Week, Cowan Creek Mountain Music School, Louisville Folk School, and Yes Arts. She has served as a folk arts apprentice to Kentucky fiddle music scholars, John Harrod and Jesse Wells, through the Kentucky Arts Council’s Folk Arts Apprenticeship, and Cowan Creek Mountain Music School’s Charlie Whitaker Memorial Scholarship.