Performers:

JAYME STONE - Jayme Stone keeps an ear to the ground. His curiosity and unlikely set of reference points started early with the quirky physics of the banjo, led to a mysterious librarian who stocked his local public library with a vast trove of banjo recordings, and landed him long-lasting lessons with a series of maestros, from Tony Trischka to Bill Frisell. Influenced by Japanese poetry and Brazilian literature and featuring what he calls a “tiny symphony that takes place inside an imaginary light bulb”, Stone’s album, The Utmost, won the 2008 Juno Award for Instrumental Album of the Year. The most recent chapter in Stone’s musical travelogue takes place in Africa. He went knowing what’s still news to most: that the hide-covered instrument with an “extra” drone string we call the banjo actually comes from West Africa. He became particularly curious about the music that may not have made it across the ocean on slave ships headed west from Senegal and Mali in the 1700-1800’s. An eight-week trip to Mali was supported by a prestigious Chalmers Arts Fellowship and found Stone sitting in with Toumani Diabate and the Symmetric Orchestra in downtown Bamako, lost in circles of Wassoulou polyrhythms and in a rural Dogon village with no electricity where he inadvertently discovered a banjo predecessor unheard of in the West. The resulting album, Africa to Appalachia, is a boundary-crossing musical collaboration with singer and kora maestro Mansa Sissoko. Produced by David Travers-Smith and featuring celebrated ngoni master Bassekou Kouyate, the recording won the 2009 Juno Award for World Music Album of the Year. Inspired by folk dances from around the world, Stone’s brand new album, Room of Wonders, includes music from Norway, Sweden, Brazil, Bulgaria, Italy and North America. His third solo recording, following the international breakout success of Africa to Appalachia, features fiddle pioneer Casey Driessen, gravity-defying guitarist Grant Gordy, former Punch Brother Greg Garrison and special guests Olov Johansson (nyckelharpa), Nick Fraser (drums), Kevin Turcotte (trumpet), William Carn (trombone) and more. Learn more about Jayme HERE

STEVE MULLINS - Steve Mullins has earned a bachelor’s degree in American Folk Music, a master’s in musicology, and a doctorate in ethnomusicology from the University of Colorado. His doctoral dissertation is entitiled Flamenco Gestures: Musical Meaning in Motion, dealing with aesthetics in Spanish flamenco. Steve has been featured in a cover story in World Rhythm Magazine. He has been a columnist for Mandolin Magazine since its inception in 1999. His compositions have been heard in settings as diverse as television commercials, documentaries, national public radio, silent movies, multi-media flamenco shows, and dancing horse performances at the National Western stock show. He has performed throughout the Western United States for the “National School Assemblies” agency, and has also concertized in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Mexico, and Spain. He has performed with the Colorado Music Festival orchestra, the Boulder Philharmonic, the Longmont Symphony, Denver Brass, and the Boulder Maher Festival Orchestra. He is a member of Mike David’s “Spirit of Adventure” ensemble, Ojaleo, Fiesta Colorado, the Barbelfish Balkan Band, Laughing Hands and Dance España. He produced the Worldbeat Music and Dance Festival in Longmont (1999-2001) and has received a grant to compose and record music for “The Spanish Muse” multi-media flamenco show, and a commission to compose music commemorating the opening of Sandstone Park in Longmont. He teaches mandolin and flamenco guitar at the Olde Town Pickin Parlor in Arvada Colorado, and is currently teaching World Music, Latin American Music, and World Music Theories at CU. He is also the author of the 1st ever banjola instruction book. He is currently composing a flamenco suite for orchestra (to be performed by the Longmont symphony in Nov. 2011), and will soon be completing a new CD of duets for banjola and mandolin (entitled Shine and Rise), along with a CD of compositions for guitar, marimba, and violin with his new group The Rim of the Well. Hear Steve playing the banjola -

EDWARD VICTOR DICK has been a professional luthier for the past 33 years and has built everything from classical & steel string guitars to lyres & lutes to basses & banjos to harps & bouzoukis.  All this just so he could finally create the Banjola.  And, of course, then he had to learn how to play it. Hear Edward playing the banjola here -