Thomas Brown
Thomas Brown b.1976 Muscle Shoals, AL is a mixed-media artist from Louisville, KY. His stone and wood sculptures can be found in a number of private collections. After an experimental segue into ice sculpture he officially moved to New York in 2008 to work with Okamoto Studio where he was a principal sculptor. Brown has merged his interests in experimental music, performance and art in his works as an ice sculptor and ephemeral artist.
Creating opportunity in the face of the pandemic, Brown founded a small business carving animal portraits and miniature sculptures from avocado seeds.
In 2022, he competed in a televised sand sculpture contest airing on Canada's CBC Network this summer and has since participated in large scale sculpting projects across the US, the Netherlands, and the Ice Hotel in Quebec City.
Dinty Child
Besides being the off-season manager of Three Mile Island, Dinty Child is a longtime member of the Boston roots/folk scene. A fearless multi-instrumentalist he can most often be seen with the band Session Americana, as well as the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, the unapologetically loud and grimy Catbirds, as sensitive side man to any number of singer/songwriters, including Rose Cousins and Kris Delmhorst, and even fronting the 15 piece party band, the Funky White Honkies. In 2020, he released his first solo album!
Neil Cleary
These days Neil Cleary works primarily as a music supervisor, radio host and live DJ called Tad Cautious, but has a dark and confusing past as an internationally touring singer-songwriter / multi-instrumentalist sideman. He's done a handful of notable things just one time, like writing a song for Nickelodeon's "Blaze and the Monster Machines," playing Bonnaroo with Phish's Mike Gordon, and backing a drag queen at CBGB's. Recently he produced a string of singles for cartoonist and inveterate weirdo James Kochalka Superstar which have included contributions from Jello Biafra, Frankie Cosmos, and Moby. He lives in Burlington VT, is fond of the comedy "rule of three," and shows no signs of stopping.
Evan Diem
Evan Diem is a mixed-race Syracuse-based multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter hyphen-fan with a double-barreled last name. He specializes in using creative, contemplative, characteristic and compelling writing to compose catchy songs as well as craft clever one-liners. He was half-jokingly named eventual successor to the throne of hosting Entertain Us! by previous host Nelson Williams and in just his second year on the island he has ascended to that rank. Last year he proved he can perform his jokes, now he must prove he can perform as host. He does not know how to end a bio.
Chris Eldridge
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
Jefferson Hamer is a guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Brooklyn, New York. He has toured and recorded albums with Anais Mitchell (Child Ballads, winner of a BBC2 Folk Award), Sarah Jarosz (as guitarist and harmony singer on her Grammy-nominated Blue Heron Suite), and Session Americana. The Murphy Beds, his long-running traditional folk duo with Eamon O’Leary, has released two self-produced albums, about which the Huffington Post wrote, “[the album] bears repeated listening from start to finish, with ten beautiful, crystalline songs.” His original songs and lead guitar work are featured on Alameda, an acoustic and electric collaboration with bassist Jeff Picker and drummer John Fatum, featuring special guests from the NYC folk community and beyond.
Zachariah Hickman
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.
Tom Krueger
Tom Krueger is a dancer and Fiddler and lover of life. He first discovered partner dancing about 20 years ago on a trip to Buenos Aires. Tango, of course. And once he caught the dancing bug, there was no turning back. Tango lead to two-stepping, lead to swing dance, which led to cajun and salsa, and on and on… And now it’s just a mash up of all of it. While he is perfectly capable of teaching the specifics of each style, he prefers to focus on the whatever is the most fun and works with the music.
Shane Leonard
Shane Leonard is a record producer, musician, mix engineer, and songwriter who lives in Eau Claire, WI. Equally at home in an indie rock band as he is in an old time stringband, those who work with Shane (Mipso, Field Report, Rose Cousins, Stray Birds, Larry Campbell) know him as a studio/live swiss army knife, helping their sound to evolve past previous benchmarks. NPR and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) have praised his production with descriptors like "goosebumps inducing" (NPR Music), "a monster musician" (Justin Vernon) and "exquisite" (Paste Magazine). Anna Tivel, Humbird, J.E. Sunde and others have entrusted multiple albums to his care; they reside alongside multiple releases of his own music - the most recent being Strange Forms (2019).