Kristin Andreassen is a singer, songwriter & percussive dancer whose music honors both the playful & the profound. She's toured with some of the most respected acoustic groups around: the stringband Uncle Earl, the "folk noir” singing trio Sometymes Why,  the Appalachian clogging troupe Footworks, and NYC's "anti-folk" superhero Jeffrey Lewis. Her originals range from the infectious rhythms of her #1 kids' hit "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes” to the emotive soundscape in this shadow art video made with beloved MoM instructor Anna Roberts-Gevalt. 2018 promises a new trio album with drummer Shane Leonard & Punch Brother Chris Eldridge as well as an album of children's songs about emotions, co-created with Brooklyn psychiatrist Dr. Kari Groff for the Smithsonian Folkways label.  An experienced teacher & square dance caller, Kristin is a true believer in the transformative power of music camps for all ages. After studying creative writing, history and community development at Montreal’s McGill University, she is as surprised as her parents to have found a career where she employs all three of those skills in balance. www.kristinandreassen.com

Laura Cortese has built a distinguished career as an Americana fiddler, songwriter and vocalist. She is now one of the most in-demand musical collaborators on the folk circuit. She grew up in San Francisco, CA and moved to Boston, MA to study at Berklee College of Music, immersing herself in the city's vibrant indie music scene and enjoying a busy touring-and-studio career which included appearances with Band of Horses at Carnegie Hall and Pete Seeger at Newport Folk Festival. She tours internationally with her band, the Dance Cards. The group is bold and elegant, schooled in the lyrical rituals of folk music and backed by grooves that alternatively inspire Cajun two-stepping and rock ’n’ roll hip swagger. Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards have appeared at venues and festivals throughout the US, UK, Sweden, Canada, India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Estonia, Montenegro, Greece and Bangladesh pairing sophisticated string arrangements (two fiddles, cello & bass) and rich vocal harmonies with poignant and powerful singing. www.thisislauracortese.com

LADAMA is an ensemble of women musicians from across the Americas who, as well as performing as a touring band, strive to engage youth in their respective communities in the process of music-making, composition and audio production through collaboration and performance workshops. They are Mafer Bandola (Venezuela), Lara Klaus (Brazil), Daniela Serna (Colombia) and Sara Lucas (U.S.). With rhythm and percussion driving their original compositions sung in Spanish, Portuguese and English they combine disparate, traditional roots music with pop. The result is a sonic experience through which we can view our future as a world that communicates across continents and cultures, with sound and story. LADAMA has performed at TED, the Skoll World Forum, on ESPN, and at dozens of prestigious venues and festivals around the world. In January 2018 they were featured on NPR's All Things Considered which praised their "irresistible spirit and universal appeal." Their self-titled debut album (released on Six Degrees Records, 2017,) reached #1 on both iTunes and Amazon's Latin Music Charts. http://www.ladamaproject.org

Vocal powerhouse Rachael Price is a legend in the making. The lead singer of Lake Street Dive started her journey at a young age in international traveling choirs and jazz ensembles. While studying at New England Conservatory, Price met her fellow Lake Street Dive members. In May 2018 Lake Street Dive released the self-produced Free Yourself Up and has been busy touring in support of the album. On their rise to success over the past few years, they have sold out many of America's legendary venues, toured Europe and Australia, and made multiple national television appearances. During the band's downtime, Price is involved in a project with Vilray Bolles. With simple arrangements and only a guitar for accompaniment, Rachael & Vilray perform original works and revive forgotten gems of the jazz big bands and western swing ensembles. Their eponymous debut album, Rachael & Vilray, is out now on Nonesuch Records. Equal parts sass, gritty soul, and unfettered grace, Price has been called a “cool cannon blast of a voice” by Rolling Stone and continues to make fans from the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Mavis Staples, and Stephen Colbert. https://rachaelandvilray.com

Evie Ladin is a banjo player, singer, songwriter, percussive-dancer, choreographer and square-dance caller. Evie grew up steeped in traditional folk music/dance, and brings a contemporary vision to her compositions and choreography. Evie’s performances, recordings and teaching reconnect Appalachian music/dance with other African-Diaspora traditions, and have been heard from A Prairie Home Companion to Lincoln Center, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass to Celtic Connections. Based in Oakland, CA, Evie tours with Keith Terry and the Evie Ladin Band; and has produced 8 CDs and two instructional DVDs. In the percussive dance world, she is Executive Director of the International Body Music Festival, directs the moving choir MoToR/dance, does educational outreach with Crosspulse, and is an ace freestyle flatfooter. In the trad world, Evie teaches clawhammer banjo and harmony singing at the infamous Freight & Salvage, online at Peghead Nation and numerous camps and events. She leads rowdy square dance parties, getting every body easily dancing. In the songwriter world, she just writes great songs, subtitling her own band “neo-trad kinetic folk." In 2019 she released two CDs, celebrating both of her musical sides: one totally trad fiddle/banjo duets with 17 different fiddlers, Riding the Rooster, and one adventurous originals, Caught On A Wire. A highly entertaining performer, Evie enjoys facilitating arts learning in diverse communities. “The best example I have seen of a Neo-Trad band's sound being authentically anchored in old time music but extending it into new and entertaining directions.” —Founder, Clifftop Appalachian Stringband Festival www.evieladin.com

Keith Terry is a percussionist/rhythm-dancer/educator whose artistic vision has straddled the line between music and dance for more than four decades. He is the Founding/Artistic Director of Crosspulse, an Oakland, CA –based, non-profit organization dedicated to the creation and performance of rhythm-based intercultural music and dance, and has produced more than a dozen CDs, DVDs and Books for Crosspulse Media. He has collaborated with many performing artists including Charles ‘’Honi’’ Coles, Turtle Island Quartet, Jazz Tap Ensemble, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, San Jose Taiko, and Bobby McFerrin. His groups - Slammin All-Body Band, Crosspulse Percussion Ensemble, Professor Terry’s Circus Band Extraordinaire, Body Tjak (with I Wayan Dibia) and other projects have appeared at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors (NY), Grand Performances (LA), Bumbershoot (WA), NPR’s All Things Considered, PRI's The World, the Vienna International Dance Festival, Vancouver Island MusicFest, the Bali Arts Festival, and many more. As Artistic Director of the International Body Music Festival, Keith has solidified Body Music as a genre, galvanizing a global community. He tours extensively in the Americas, Asia and Europe, where his Body Music workshops, residencies and choreographic commissions are popular among professional performers and educators. He also tours on bass and percussion with the Evie Ladin Band. Keith has been on the faculty at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures, where he designed and taught a dozen courses on the relationship of music and dance; deep listening; synchronicity, time, and timing; and intercultural communication. He is a Guggenheim and Asian Cultural Council Fellow. Mr. Terry and his colleagues in action is like visiting an anatomical carnival, where hands, feet, fingers, bellies, rumps and mouths engage in an endless musical ballet. — Wall Street Journal www.keithterry.com

Matt Douglas is a woodwinds player, singer, and multi-instrumentalist living in Raleigh, North Carolina. After graduating from NYU in 2002 with a music degree, Matt went off to Central Europe as a Fulbright Scholar studying the Hungarian folk tradition and contemporary improvised music. After two years living abroad, he settled in North Carolina where his musical life got even weirder. In addition to being a full-time member of the indie rock band the Mountain Goats, Matt has collaborated with Hiss Golden Messenger, Bon Iver, Sylvan Esso, Erin McKeown, Josh Ritter, Chris Stamey, Superchunk, and more, having recorded on over 100 albums in the last 10 years. When he's not on the road or in the backyard studio in Raleigh, he is spending time with his amazing wife and three awesome children.

Mike Merenda is a songwriting force and clawhammer banjo explorer raised in NH and now dwelling in NY's Hudson Valley. Youthful musical forays into rock and punk later led to the more traditional folk realms and a productive creative partnership with his wife Ruth Ungar spanning 2 decades (so far.) They have toured extensively as both the duo Mike + Ruthy and the full band The Mammals. Mike curates the lineup of their community music festivals, the Winter Hoot and Summer Hoot at Ashokan. He is most fond of hoisting his antenna into the ether and seeing what emerges thru singing with a guitar or banjo in hand. In addition to his own original compositions he has recorded posthumous "co-writes" with Woody Guthrie & Allen Ginsberg. The Mammals' recent title track Sunshiner, which came to Mike in a dream, was nominated for Folk Alliance International's 2018 Song of the Year award. He attended Miles of Music's very first camp and is honored to be back.

http://themammals.love

Ruth Ungar is a multi-dimensional collaborator, touring and recording artist, and event organizer based in the Hudson Valley of NY. This year she and her husband Mike Merenda toured the US and UK with their band The Mammals, toured festivals for a month in Australia as Mike + Ruthy (duo) with their two kids, recorded a new full length studio album to be self-released in 2020, and organized their two annual community music festivals, the Winter Hoot & Summer Hoot at Ashokan. For 40 years Ruth's family has hosted summer traditional music and dance camps at Ashokan, the place that inspired her father, Jay Ungar, to compose his evocative fiddle melody Ashokan Farewell. Ruth is similarly known for eliciting an emotional response from an audience of any size. Her background in theater has also fueled a lifelong fascination with stagecraft, vulnerability, and the beauty of taking risks.

http://themammals.love

As a member of Punch Brothers since the band's inception, guitarist Chris Eldridge has been at the vanguard of acoustic music for much of the past decade. Although initially drawn to the electric guitar, by his mid-teens Chris Eldridge had developed a deep love for acoustic music, thanks in part to his father, a banjo player and founding member of the seminal bluegrass group The Seldom Scene. Eldridge later gained in-depth exposure to a variety of different musical styles while studying at Oberlin Conservatory, where he earned a degree in music performance in 2004. During his time at Oberlin, Eldridge studied with legendary guitarist Tony Rice. After graduating he joined the Seldom Scene with whom he received a Grammy nomination in 2007. In 2005 he founded the critically acclaimed bluegrass band The Infamous Stringdusters. At the 2007 International Bluegrass Music Association awards Eldridge and his Stringdusters bandmates won Emerging artist of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year for their debut album, Fork in the Road. Meanwhile, in 2005 he had caught the attention of mandolinist Chris Thile, who enlisted him, along with banjoist Noam Pikelny, violinist Gabe Witcher, and bassist Greg Garrison to start working on an ambitious side project. Soon after they decided to focus all of their collective energies into band and Punch Brothers was born. The band has since released 6 critically acclaimed albums, received 6 Grammy nominations and toured around the world. www.chriseldridge.net

Jefferson Hamer is a songwriter, guitarist, and traditional musician based in Brooklyn, NY. His new album Alameda features Jeff Picker, John Fatum, Alec Spiegelman, Hannah Read, Sarah Jarosz, and others. Writing for The New Yorker, Robert Sullivan said: “Alameda,” the title track on Hamer’s album, is a rock ballad with crispy guitar licks and geographic lyrics about a wandering worker, who is maybe the author, but maybe not. In the way that it talks about a long search for work, it reminds me of Woody Guthrie’s Columbia River song series…“Moving Day,” another song on the CD, is now up there with Guy Clark’s “L.A. Freeway” as one of my favorite songs about moving…
Murphy Beds, his traditional acoustic album with Eamon O’Leary, features harmony vocals backed by intricate guitar and bouzouki accompaniment. The Huffington Post said it succinctly: “The [Murphy Beds] album bears repeated listening from start to finish, with ten beautiful, crystalline songs.”
He also plays electric guitar (and moonlights as a Bostonian) with the six-piece roots rock ensemble Session Americana. In 2016 he recorded and co-produced their album Great Shakes.
His 2013 Child Ballads album with Anais Mitchell earned a BBC2 Folk Award and was named one of NPR’s top-ten Folk releases of the year. www.jeffersonhamer.com/

Zachariah Hickman is a double bassist, multi-instrumentalist and producer based out of Boston, MA. Originally from Lynchburg, VA, he received his formal training in jazz performance and composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. For most of his adult life he has toured with singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, traveling all over the world and recording 9 full-length albums. Currently, he is performing as bassist and musical director for Ray Lamontagne. He has performed at many notable venues and festivals, including Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Red Rocks, Bonnaroo, Dublin Castle, The Fillmore, and the Royal Albert Hall. With Josh Ritter, he has also performed with the Boston Pops in Symphony Hall, the New York Pops in Central Park, and many other orchestras in Europe and the United States. Television appearances include five David Letterman appearances, Conan O’Brien, Ellen Degeneres, and Late Night with Jools Holland for the BBC. As a producer, Zachariah as made records with a number of talented singers, including Rose Cousins (for which he won a Canadian JUNO award), Mark Erelli, Laura Cortese, Miss Tess, and his own bluegrass band Barnstar! He has also produced and ring-mastered his own circus, released his own brand of mustache wax, and runs a vaudeville style variety show, Zack Hickman’s House of Ill Repute.