A highlight of the Celebration is a concert of festival musicians scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 29, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in Gray Auditorium of Presser Music Hall. Other performers include Laura Boosinger, Donna and Lewis Lamb and the Berea College String Band.

The weekend begins on Friday evening at 7 with an Open Mic and Jam Session hosted by Donna and Lewis Lamb in the Alumni Building Activities Room. On Saturday, music workshops led by festival musicians are scheduled from 10 a.m. – noon. Each workshop is $10 per person. John Harrod will present this year’s Symposium “A Keen Cut with the Bow: The Art of Kentucky Fiddling,” from 1:30-3:30 in the Alumni Building’s Baird Lounge. Following that is a Square Dance Workshop with Donna and Lewis Lamb at 3:30 in the Activities Room. A new addition this year is a Kids Concert, with Laura Boosinger, scheduled at 2 p.m. also in the Alumni Building. The Celebration concludes Sunday morning with a Traditional Gospel Sing at Union Church in Berea, at 9:30.

Concert admission Saturday evening is $8 for adults and $4 for children and youth ages 10-17. Tickets can be purchased at the door. Music workshops are $10 (square dance workshop is free). All other festival events are free of charge.

The Celebration is made possible in part by a grant from the Kentucky Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information, call the Berea College Appalachian Center at 606-985-3140, visit http://www.berea.edu/appalachiancenter or email:

A complete Celebration schedule of events and bios of participants is below.

31st Celebration of Traditional Music – Festival Musician BIOS

John Harrod (guitar, fiddle and vocals, symposium) has documented, recorded and performed traditional music for over 35 years. He was the recipient of the 2004 Folk Heritage Award of the Governor’s Awards in the Arts for his work in traditional music. In the 1970s and 80s, he played with a number of bands such as the Progress Red Hot String Band, the Bill Livers String Ensemble, and the Gray Eagle Band that re-introduced old-time musicians such as Bill Livers and Lily May Ledford to Kentucky audiences. During this time he also worked for three years as artist-in-residence in Kentucky schools. He has taught fiddle classes at many festivals and workshops. Along with Mark Wilson and Guthrie Meade, Harrod has produced a series of field recordings of Kentucky fiddle and banjo players that is available on Rounder Records. His field tapes are in the Appalachian Sound Archive at Berea College and are being copied for a similar archive in the new traditional music center in Morehead.

Paul David Smith (fiddle, fiddle workshop) learned his craft from legendary Pike County, Ky. fiddler Snake Chapman. He has played with several bands over the years and has been featured as a guest artist and master fiddler at such gatherings as the Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop, W.Va., the Augusta Heritage Workshops and Fiddler’s Grove. He accompanied Snake Chapman on his two recordings and is featured on his own CD “Devil Eat the Groundhog.”

Jeff Keith (mandolin, guitar, tenor banjo and vocals), one of the band’s younger members, has performed with the Hogwash Revival, the Wayward Members of the Mud Bay Jug Band and the Shanty Hollow Boys. He is currently a graduate student in American history at the University of Kentucky.

Jim Webb (banjo, guitar, mandolin and vocals) is a long-time songwriter and performer in Kentucky, known for his work with the Falls City Ramblers, the Old Louisville Express, the Buzzard Rock String Band, the Gray Eagle Band, and the Juggernaut Jug Band. He has worked for a number of years in Kentucky’s artist-in residence-in-the-schools program. Webb and his wife Stephanie have a CD “Old Time Tunes from East Kentucky.”

Don Rogers (lead guitar and vocals) has roots in old-time Kentucky music that run deep. His grandfather and great uncles recorded in the 1930s as the Kentucky String Ticklers. Rogers has revived and updated his family tradition with his own group, the New Kentucky String Ticklers. He and his wife Carmen also perform their original songs as the Flat Bottom Fantods (see Huckleberry Finn for an explanation of that one.)

Kevin Kehrberg (bass and vocals) is a studio bassist who has toured with the Wildwood Valley Boys. He is a graduate students in musicology at the University of Kentucky with a special interest in the music of Bill Monroe and knows every part to every quartet number Monroe ever produced.

LAURA BOOSINGER, of Asheville, N.C., is an award-winning performer and recording artist whose primary focus is the interpretation of traditional music from the Southern Appalachian region. She plays instruments ranging from the banjo to finger-style autoharp and whose singing styles go from ballads to play-party songs. She has performed at the Tennessee Homecoming at the Museum of Appalachia, MERLEFEST and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and was named “Most Outstanding Performer” at the oldest continuing traditional music festival in the country, Asheville’s “Mountain Dance and Folk Festival.” She has recorded a collection of songs, “Down the Road,” with a number of well-known Nashville musicians. Boosinger also performs programs with George Shuffler, who played with Ralph and Carter Stanley for more than 20 years.

DONNA AND LEWIS LAMB are from Paint Lick, Lewis (fiddle) grew up in a family that played old time music and taught his daughter Donna (guitar) the music he loves. They performed in Berea’s outdoor drama “Wilderness Road” for four years, at the 1982 World’s Fair, and for many years have performed at dances and festivals in the region. They have also accompanied the Berea College Country Dancers on many tours in the United States, Canada and other locations world-wide. They have one CD that includes traditional songs and tunes and new songs by Lewis. Lewis and Donna also are excellent instrument builders and both play on instruments they built themselves.

THE BEREA COLLEGE STRING BAND was formed in 1999. Al White (guitar and claw-hammer banjo), director and founder of the group, spent a number of years performing full-time in several different professional bluegrass bands. Al is married to Alice McLain White, and performed for six years with her family, The McLain Family Band. He has also been a featured performer with The Bluegrass Alliance, James Monroe, Sweet Grass, Bluegrass Overdrive, and the Big River Boys. The other members of the Berea College String Band are students at Berea College, including and Amber Field (fiddle), Megan Vaught (lead vocals), Dan Pray (bass), and old-time fiddle playing champion Jake Krack of Nicut, W.Va. The group toured Ireland in summer 2004 and Japan this fall.