Pierre Schryer (fiddle) is part of the vibrant Franco-Ontarian culture of Canada and from an early age was immersed in the music and traditions of his heritage. As a solo performer he has received numerous titles and awards including Canadian Open Fiddle Champion, Canadian Grand Masters Fiddle Champion, Violoneux Championnat, and North American Irish Fiddle Champion. Pierre has studied and performs in many fiddle styles including Canadian, Québecois, Irish, Scottish, American, and Swing.
Over the last decade, Pierre has released several recordings on the New Canadian Records label including the New Canadian Waltz, 2 Worlds United, Acoustique!, Heat of the Moment and Blue Drag. Blue Drag was honoured with a Nomination at the 2004 JUNO Awards for best Roots & Traditional Album of the Year (Group.) It represents the ongoing vision of Pierre Schryer Band to create sophisticated & innovative arrangements of Celtic and traditional music, while incorporating elements of gypsy swing, improvisation, and world music. Pierre Schryer Band was officially showcased at the International Folk Alliance in Montreal in February 2005. His 2008 release mélangereceived a nomination in the category of Instrumental Solo Album of the Year at the 2008 Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Since its inception in 1995, Pierre Schryer Band has gained an international reputation as one of Canada’s most well respected traditional music ensembles by touring throughout Canada, the USA, Ireland, Europe and the UK, and performed at the International Cigar Festival in Havana, Cuba with Jazz great, Jane Bunnett in 2005.
On his own, Pierre has also shared the stage with many of today’s greatest Celtic artists, and performs regularly with Quebec's Club Carrefour promoting the authentic music, dance and songs of French Canada, Ottawa's Celtic guitar wizard Ian Clark, Ireland's genius accordion player Dermot Byrne, as well Symphony Orchestras across North America.

Throughout his career Pierre has maintained a commitment to education. Always in demand for workshops, music camps, and competition panels, Pierre enjoys sharing his experience and expertise with young fiddlers. His compositions are featured on Mel Bay’s publishing of both “Fiddler Magazine’s Favorites” and the “Canadian Fiddle Music Vol. 2”. Pierre is also an accomplished luthier and watercolour artist, currently performing on one of his own violins and creating the cover art and design for his recordings.

Ian Bell (song, guitar, storytelling, harmonica) has performed professionally across Canada and in the United States for over a quarter century. He has appeared on his own and with a number of ensembles at numerous folk festivals (Winnipeg, Mariposa, Edmonton, Ottawa, Yellowknife, Owen Sound, Lunenberg, Montmagny, and others) and in concerts in every sort of venue. With the group Muddy York, and along with Wade Hemsworth (composer of the Blackfly Song & Log Driver’s Waltz), Ian performed for two weeks in the Folklife Pavilion at Expo 86 in Vancouver, BC.  In 1993 Ian was named “Folk Artist in Residence” for that year at Joseph Schneider Haus Museum, in Kitchener, Ontario. As a long-time freelance broadcaster, Ian has also worked on many occasions with Stuart McLean on CBC Radio’s Vinyl Café.  Since 1996 Ian has co-written and served as musical director for 5 Vinyl Café national concert broadcasts. Ian has been a regular contributor to the weekend Fresh Air program on CBC radio and in 2004 performed as part of the “Roots of American Music” Festival at Lincoln Center in New York City. In July 2005, Ian travelled to Estonia with long-time collaborator Anne Lederman to perform at the Viljandi Folk Festival. Ian appears on dozens of recordings as sideman as well as several under his own name.

For much of the past 20 years, Ian Bell has taken his music from coast to coast through concerts, broadcasts, and recordings. Ian captivates audiences by introducing some of Canada's seldom-heard musical traditions into his music. He has been the leader of The Dawnbreakers, and Professor Chalaupka's Celebrated Singing School, and with Anne Lederman was part of the folk group Muddy York. He has produced several of his own CD’s containing songs and tunes of his own, including the 2006 release “Shallow Water”.

As a singer/songwriter and storyteller, Ian Bell has been introducing audiences to themselves, with original words and music rooted in the fields and townscapes of Southwestern Ontario. Ian's repertoire ranges from old songs and ballads, to Celtic/Canadian dance tunes, as well as original compositions inspired by anything from blacksmiths to Charles Atlas, from woolly mammoths to, dare we say it ... love! He has performed in venues ranging from the CBC's Glenn Gould Theatre to rural church basements. In concerts on his own or with The Dawnbreakers, Ian performs on guitar, button accordion, harmonica, and mandolin. Ian continues to draw inspiration from his full-time work as the curator of a small town museum.

James Stephens is known for his work both as a performer and producer / recording engineer.  In performance, he plays a multitude of stringed instruments with an emphasis on fiddling. He has an abiding interest in traditional forms and styles of various ethnic origins, but also works extensively with singer-songwriters and was the principal songwriter in critically acclaimed pop/roots band “Fat Man Waving.” He has performed with many Ottawa area singer/songwriters such as Jennifer Noxon, Lynn Miles, Ian Tamblyn, Melwood Cutlery, and Terry Tufts and spent 10 years playing in popular local C&W/Texas Swing group, The Black Donnellys and neo-traditional Celtic group, Six Mile Bridge.

James can presently be found performing with traditionally influenced groups such as The Brian Pickell Band, Finest Kind, Écosse (Bobby Watt, Duncan Gillis and Rob Graves), renowned clawhammer banjo player Ken Perlman, whistle player/composer Frank Cassidy (The McGee Band), JIIG (James, Ian Robb, Ian Clark, Greg Brown) whose self-titled CD won Ian Robb best traditional singer of 2005 at the Canadian Folk Music Awards (CFMA’s) and newly formed fiddle collective EH! , a collaboration with fiddler Anne Lederman and fiddler/pianist Emilyn Stam that attempts to balance the traditional with the newly composed. James also performs regularly with singer/songwriter Ian Tamblyn as well as the duo, Healy and Juravich.

James has co-produced and engineered recordings with all of these musicians as well as such others as Pierre Schryer (the album “Blue Drag, co-produced and engineered by James, was nominated for a 2004 Juno Award and who’s 2008 release “Mélange was nominated for a 2008 CFMA), Ian Tamblyn,  Washboard Hank,  Dermot Byrne,  Shelley Posen,  Nicholas Williams,  Lynn Miles (2003 Juno winner),  Chris White,  Genticorum, Tom Lips,  Galitcha,,  Tena Palmer and John Geggie ,  Tena Palmer and Emory Lester and Slavik Hanslik,  Beth Cahill, George Sapounidis (Chairman George) , Missy Burgess,  Laura Smith ,  Tom Juravich and Teresa Healy,  Denis Lanctot,   Debbie Quigley and Martin Gould,  The Toasted Westerns,  Michael Jerome Browne, Concession 23, Charlie Sohmer, Willie P. Bennet, Kyle and Jake Charron, Danny O’Connell, Frida’s Brow(nominated for best vocal group in the 2008 CFMA’s),  Tony Turner,  La Ligue de Bonheur,  Matt Pepin,  Bob Carty,  Crowfoot ,Neil MacDaniel(nominated for a 2008East Coast Music Award) and many others.

   In addition to performing and production, James has taught at numerous music camps across Canada and some in the US. He is presently involved in a Canada Council funded mentoring, teaching, and recording process in Smithers, BC known as the “Truffles” project. This project was co-created by well known fiddle innovator and composer, Oliver Schroer and the local fiddle ensemble, The Valley Youth Fiddlers (founded by local musician, Lesley-Jean MacMillan.)
Anne Lederman (fiddle, song) is a fiddler/singer/composer originally from Manitoba. She is strongly rooted in several Canadian musical traditions, including old and new Métis and French-Canadian, Scots-Irish, Eastern European and African. She sings in several languages and is also an inspired player of mandolin, piano, bones, feet, jaw harp and more.
Over her 30-year career, Anne has worked with such artists and groups as Harry Hibbs, Muddy York, The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, Margaret Christl, Don Freed, Holly Cole, Cindy Thompson, Theresa Tova, Tom Leadbeater, Garnet Rogers, Siyakha, Allison Lupton and Siyakha Backo. She has her own band, Fiddlesong, and currently performs also with LOKA, a Celtic-Canadian ensemble with Loretto Reid, October Browne and Kelly Hood. She is especially known for her work with Métis fiddling and has produced archival collections of this music for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, as well as a hit play for the Blyth festival called Spirit of the Narrows.
Anne has devoted much of her career to working with children. She has done workshops and concerts on Canadian instrumental and song traditions at countless schools, libraries, festivals and special events throughout the country. In 1998, she recorded a unique collection of songs about coming to Canada from all over the world, “Come from Every Way”. Anne also teaches fiddle extensively to both children and adults, privately, at York University and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and in music camps and Suzuki schools throughout North America.
Anne has recorded many CDs with various groups, and has four under her own name: “Not a Mark in This World” (Canadian traditional songs), “7 Cats” (fiddle), “Come from Every Way” (for children), and “Fiddlesong”. (www.annelederman.com)

Mark Roberts plays traditional music on the flute, tin whistle, 5-string banjo and bouzouki and has had a long and varied career in music. He toured and recorded with the seminal band Touchstone and played the banjo with the Red Clay Ramblers on Broadway in the show Fool Moon, His flute and pennywhistle can be heard in the Jon Sayles film The Secret of Roan Inish, and he’s brought his whistle on tour with Don Henley.

Mark has taught at the Swananoa Gathering, Augusta Heritage and The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. He has performed on and produced many recordings, most recently “The Gloup”, a flute CD with guitarist Dan Compton.

Mark and his partner Andrea Cooper have taught together at Pinewoods camp and perform regularly with the Pacific Northwest’s favorites, The Noodles. They live with their fetching son Fenton in Seattle, WA.

Andrea Cooper can pinpoint the moment: It was 15 years ago when she unwittingly found herself spending an evening at the Tranzac Club in Toronto captivated by beautiful Irish music, particularly the flute, which she later learned was played by none other than Pat O’Gorman!

Since then, her music has taken her to places as far as Eek, Alaska and San Juan Island, where she’s been teaching a beginning tin whistle class at the Friday Harbor Irish Music Camp for 4 years in a row. While living in Vancouver she co-hosted the session at the Irish Heather, a piece of it captured on the CBC recording “In the Heather”.

Somewhere along the way (most likely inspired by her mum), she also started frailing the 5-string banjo. In Seattle she teaches clawhammer banjo to adults and at an after-school kids’ stringband class. Currently she is working on her Music Together certificate, a program to teach music and movement to 0 to 5-year-olds with their caregivers.

Duncan Gillis (whistle, flute, pipes) is a professional musician, instructor and instrument-maker living in Ottawa with his wife Ananda and son Bodhi. His musical career began at the age of seven with lessons on the practice chanter from his father. With his Cape Breton background, Duncan was exposed very early on to a living tradition of dance-music, which has continued to guide his musical interests. His playing eventually led him to the wider scope of Celtic music, adding tin whistle, flute and stringed instruments on top of the Highland pipes. In 2003 he invented a new instrument for pipers called the Highland Hornpipe.

His piping tutelage continued with the late Charlie Bell of the Air Command Pipes and Drums (Royal Canadian Air Force) and later, as a competing member of the Glengarry Pipe Band, with Roger Martin and Pipe Major J.T. MacKenzie. After working and playing in the re-enacted regiment of the 78th Fraser Highlanders on St. Helen’s Island, Montreal, Duncan played with the all-too-brief Dunvegan Pipe Band under Pipe Major Scott MacAulay and Pipe Sergeant Colin MacLellan.

Over the years Duncan has played with many bands and is currently a member of a West Quebec based group called Écosse, with Bobby Watt (formerly of Cromdale) and James Stephens (Finest Kind, Ian Robb and Jig, The Pierre Schryer Band, Six Mile Bridge) and Rob Graves (Cheza). He has also shared the stage with Gaelic singers Catherine-Ann MacPhee and Patricia Murray, piper Rob Crabtree, folk singers Andy Irvine and Garnet Rogers and has performed and recorded with fiddle players Alexis MacIsaac and Pierre Schryer, and with singer-songwriter Ian Tamblyn.

Duncan’s musical career has seen him play at countless Highland games, folk-festivals, the House of Commons and Parliament Hill, the Governor General’s residence at Rideau Hall, the Grand Hall of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and at a national welcome for Nelson Mandela. He was also a regular musician for Ananda Kelly’s Cape Breton Ceilidhs and Dances, which took place bi-monthly in Ottawa for several years.

Duncan taught tin whistle, flute, bodhran, mandolin and Highland pipes for many years at the Ottawa Folklore Centre as well as through Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Ottawa and at folk festivals and camps.

Ananda Kelly (dance teacher and caller, child dance workshops) comes from Cape Breton Island, where she first found her love of traditional music and dance. She has worked on spreading that joy since moving to Ottawa. In 1999, she organized and called a community dance series called The Cape Breton Ceilidhs and Dances that ran for several years. From 1999 to 2001, she founded and ran “Ceilidh in the Woods”, a successful Celtic music and dance weekend camp in Lac Ste-Marie, Quebec.

Since 2001, she has run a Celtic music and dance booking agency called The Wandering Minstrels through which she and her husband, Duncan Gillis, and many musical friends, perform for weddings, parties and conferences, instilling an appreciation of traditional music and dance, and a sense of togetherness, cooperation and fun.

Ananda has taught Cape Breton step-dancing and set dancing to both adults and children through schools, community centres and private functions.

David Rankine (art) was born in Willowdale, Ontario to Scottish parents and developed an early appreciation of Celtic culture and history. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at York University and it was there that David began to explore Celtic art and saw how closely it was connected to Celtic music and dance.

Since art school, David has sought to contemporize Celtic art and has been at the forefront of the Celtic art explosion in Ontario and North America. He has participated in numerous group and solo shows across Canada (including his own ongoing A Rustle of Wings and Carpet Pages series).

David's teaching experience extends from formal instruction at York University (School of Nursing), Haliburton School of Fine arts, Mohawk College, Cedar Ridge Art Centre (Toronto) and the Goderich Celtic College, to workshops and classes for primary and secondary level students.  David also teaches professional development courses for teachers and other artists. In 2005, David presented his lecture: The Book of Kells, Dark Age Visions of the Divine at Tyndale College and the University of Toronto.

David's work can be found in collections throughout North America, Britain, Japan and Germany. His commercial artwork extends to design and illustration work for books, CD covers, cards, posters, jewellery, and rugs and recently, the design of a 14' stone High Cross in Winnipeg, Manitoba. David works and lives in the quiet village of Everett, in Simcoe County, Ontario, along with his daughter Laura, and Peter the rabbit (of course!).

Daniel Gorno (step dance, caller, pottery) performs and teaches traditional dances from Ireland, France, England, Canada and Appalachia. He strives to entertain, inspire and educate workshop participants and audiences in experiencing dance as it has been created and moulded by cultures and generations. He has studied step dancing and traditional social dancing for 25 years, most notably with Benoit Bourque, one of Quebec’s great stepdancers. Daniel plays bones and bodhran at dances and school programs with string band Tanglemere, and leads workshops in jitterbug, waltz, polka, Cajun dance and even a tango or two. An original member of "Dance All Night" and current dancer with "Step in Time," Daniel also calls contras and squares.

Dan grew up on Grosse Ile, Michigan, a large island in the Great Lakes chain, and one of his early pastimes was digging in the dumps behind old abandoned homesteads.   There he found early American salt-glazed stoneware and redware as well as European and Asian imported pottery.

When he was fourteen he started throwing for a local potter, and won the "Artist of the Year" award as a senior in high school.   He attended Thomas Jefferson College studying pottery and kiln building.  After College he had pottery apprenticeships in Courtmacsherry, Ireland and La Borne, France.  In addition, his wood firing and kiln building experiences have taken him to Canada, Mississippi, California, and back to Michigan. He has been a potter for 36 years.

Terri-Lynn Mahusky is a product of the tradition-rich Ottawa Valley region, beginning stepdancing at age 3 and fiddling at age 10. She has been privileged to have as fiddle teachers Delmer McCallum, Dan Schryer, Ian Hamilton, Brian Hebert, Louis Schryer and Denis Lanctot. Her step-dance instructors include Susan Childerhose, Debbie Reid, Nathan Pilatzke and Gilles Roy.  Terri-Lynn has competed in numerous competitions throughout Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. She was in the Junior Showcase at the Grand Masters at 17yrs of age and competed at the Grand Masters and placed, in the top 11, five times. She has won the Canadian Open Fiddle and Step-dance Competition in Blind River and traveled to Europe with the O.P.P. Bearhug Band in 2002 on a NATO Tour to entertain the military and their families. Terri-Lynn has been a part of several groups and bands including "Gilles Roy & the Stepping Ambassadors", "Celtae", "Celtic Moon", "The Riverthieves", and has filled in with Celtic and country bands throughout Ontario and Quebec. She has toured extensively with these groups throughout Ontario, Quebec, the East Coast and the United States. Terri-Lynn has two CD's recorded and a third one is on the way.

Judy Moore has been a mild-mannered elementary teacher in Grand Erie for the past 20+ years, teaching music, art and primary classes.  She has taught Music Part 1 for Nipissing University as a teaching additional qualification.  This winter and spring she has been working with a lovely little choir of downtown Brantford youngsters who enjoy singing as much as she does.  Judy is a long-time member of Paris' community theatre and has been involved with many productions both on and back-stage.

Emilyn Stam is a composer and teacher on piano and fiddle. Having recently moved to Toronto, she is quickly being recognized as a versatile accompanist, innovative improviser, and creative collaborator. Emilyn has studied closely with world-renowned violinist and producer Oliver Schroer. Together they have worked on various projects including the Twisted String and the Smithers album (Big Dog Music, 2007). They have also collaborated on a number of fiddle and piano duets. Most recently, Emilyn provided piano accompaniment for Oliver’s "Last Concert on his Tour of this Planet" (Toronto, June 2008).

A prolific composer as well as a performer, Emilyn’s tunes are quickly spreading across Canada. Fiddlers from coast to coast are playing her tune "Oranges in Mongolia". Gordon Stobbe’s latest album, Almost Home, features "First Snow", a tune he co-wrote and recorded with Emilyn. Emilyn has collaborated with many other musicians, including Pierre Schryer, Daniel Lapp, David Woodhead, Anne Lindsay, Anne Lederman, Bill Brennan, Casey Sokol, October Browne, Adrian Dolan, Andy Hillhouse, Cedric Smith, Terry Jones, and Jaron Freeman-Fox.

Currently, Emilyn is teaching and performing in the Toronto area. She recently released her solo piano project, Holding Time, featuring 12 improvisations recorded just weeks after losing her good friend and mentor Oliver Schroer. Also, check out Emilyn with Jaron Freeman-Fox at http://www.myspace.com/goatnote

Julie Schryer (piano) was born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie and has lived all her life in the Algoma region. She has/is raising 5 children, all of whom have been homeschooled. She is considered one of the most accomplished piano accompanists for traditional music in Canada and grew up playing in the Canadian fiddle competition milieu with her 4 brothers. She spent 6 years recording and touring with the Pierre Schryer Band, an internationally renowned traditional music group led by her brother, Pierre. She is well known as a teacher at the Goderich Celtic College, the Valley of the Moon Fiddle Camp in California, and the Northwest Fiddle Fest in Smithers, BC. She has been featured on numerous recordings including those by Anne Lederman and Eleanor Townsend. For the last 5 years, Julie has been recording and performing with the Brian Pickell Band, touring the CDs “Fresh Canadian Fiddle Tunes” and “Entwined” and appearing at the National Art Centre in Ottawa, and at several music festivals in Ontario and the USA. Julie and Pat O’Gorman also play as a duo and have appeared together at the Chicago Celtic Festival among numerous other engagements. AlgomaTrad originated as Julie’s vision. She dedicates many hours of volunteer time as an administrator for the camp while balancing family life and she is a much-in-demand local music teacher and working musician.

Pat O’Gorman (pipes, whistle, flute) began playing bagpipes 40 years ago in the Ontario Highland Piping world and has studied traditional music in Ireland, Brittany and Cape Breton. He plays wooden concert flute and Irish Uilleann pipes and whistles as well. Pat has been at the cutting edge of Celtic music for 25 years with bands such as Na Cabarfeidh, Rare Air, Morgaine Le Fay, Windbags, and most recently with The Brian Pickell Band. He has toured throughout North America and Europe, has appeared on over 30 recordings, and has been recorded for numerous television and radio programs and for several films including the Canadian features Men with Brooms and the 2009 release One Week.  Pat has taught at the Goderich Celtic College, the North American Comhaltas Conference, the Boston College Gaelic Roots Week, Chris Norman’s Boxwood Flute Week in Lunenburg, NS, and the Northwest Fiddle Fest in Smithers, BC. He acted both as Chair and instructor for many years at the Chris Langan Irish Traditional Music Weekend in Toronto. In 2003, he was heard as a guest soloist, along with David Greenberg, with the Baltimore Consort on CBC Radio’s InPerformance. This concert appeared in February 2004 on CBC TV’s programme OpeningNight. Pat has lived in the Algoma region for 7 years and is an administrator and founder, with Julie Schryer, of the Algoma Traditional Music and Dance Family Camp.

Chelsea Sleep, from Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast of BC, grew up playing with the local fiddle association the Coast String Fiddlers. She studied under Canadian fiddler and composer Oliver Schroer and performs with his group, The Twisted String. Chelsea teaches Suzuki violin and fiddle privately out of her studio in Gibsons, and has taught at numerous fiddle camps around BC, having become a well-known advocate for teaching Oliver Schroer’s music and working with young children. She directs the two youngest groups of the Coast String Fiddlers Association and the Sunshine Coast/Lower Mainland chapter of The Twisted String.  Chelsea is currently working on her first album, and is in the process of releasing a compilation book of fun and easy fiddle tunes. www.thetwistedstring.com, www.coaststringfiddlers.com

Jake Charron (piano, guitar) is quickly building a reputation as one of Ontario’s finest piano accompanists for fiddle music.  He has become a much sought-after accompanist for traditional styles, playing guitar and piano with musicians across Ontario. Jake has performed with 8-time Canadian Open Champion fiddler Louis Schryer opening for Natalie McMaster, and more recently had shows with guitarist Brian Pickell and Canadian and Grand Master Fiddle Champions Shane Cook and Mark Sullivan.  Jake has had the opportunity to play with Fiddler and Dancer Stephanie Cadman and the National Academy Orchestra, and also with the International Symphony Orchestra featuring Shane Cook.  He was one of the house-pianists at the Canadian Open fiddle championship in Shelburne for 2006 and 2007. In the summer of 2006, along with his brother Kyle, Jake was a part of A Taste of Nova Scotia, lead by Tom Leadbeater. He appears as accompanist on his brother Kyle’s CD “Tribute” and on their duet CD “Fine Blend”.  Jake is currently studying Kinesiology at Western University.