Irish Music Plucked String Instruments Workshop~presented by Peghead Nation

This three-hour intensive participatory workshop is focused on the adaptation of Irish traditional music to plucked string instruments, namely acoustic guitar, mandolin, tenor banjo, and bouzouki. The hosts (two of whom are Peghead Nation teachers) are all nationally-known musicians who will guide you through the fine points of adapting traditional melodies, including right hand technique, ornamentation, and phrasing. The workshop will be hosted by Timbre Folk in Berkeley, CA.

Instructor bios:

DAVE CORY

Dave Cory has been playing Irish and American folk music on tenor banjo, mandolin, bouzouki and other fretted instruments for over twenty years. Throughout years of gigging and recording, Dave has contributed to numerous independent projects and releases, from pub sessions to theatre soundscapes, and instructional camps to touring groups. After early classical guitar lessons, and chance hearings of the Chieftains and the Bothy Band, Dave started traveling to trad music festivals and summer schools in Ireland each year, before moving to Boston and working with the wildly active music community there. Since then, he has moved back to the west coast, has taught at numerous music camps and schools, has recorded and/or performed with The Magic Square, The McKassons, Joey Abarta, Lissa Schneckenburger, and One For The Road, to list a few. He teaches regularly at his home in Oakland, CA.

MARLA FIBISH

A San Francisco native, Marla is one of the prominent voices of the mandolin in Irish music.  She brings a deep and distinctive sensibility to the tradition on one of its lesser-heard instruments. She is a dynamic performer and a sought after teacher. Her playing is featured on her 2020 release The Bright Hollow Fog, on the 2017 Noctambule release A Sweetish Tune, on the eponymous Three Mile Stone recording with San Francisco favorites, fiddler Erin Shrader and guitarist Richard Mandel, and on The Morning Star, a duo CD with legendary Irish singer and bouzouki player Jimmy Crowley released in 2011 —  an all instrumental project that features Irish music on an array of mandolin-family instruments: mandolin, mandola, mandocello, bouzouki, and dordan. She has performed and taught nationally and in Ireland, and was a featured performer at the 2018 Masters of Tradition festival in Bantry, Co. Cork. Marla teaches privately, and in group classes, online with Peghead Nation, and has taught at many music camps, including The Swannanoa Gathering, Lark Camp, California Coast Music Camp, The Mandolin Symposium, Colorado Roots Music Camp, Portal Irish Music Week and O'Flaherty Irish Music Retreat.

FLYNN COHEN

Dubbed “a versatile string virtuoso” by Dirty Linen magazine and an “ace guitarist” by the Boston Globe, Flynn Cohen has performed around the world with many notable acts in traditional and contemporary acoustic music. Currently based in southern Vermont, he is a long-time guitar sideman to Irish accordion legend John Whelan and tours with his award-winning folk band Low Lily. A former guitar student of John Renbourn and Davey Graham, Flynn has degrees in Music from Dartington College of Arts in England and Mills College in California. He taught Music classes for many years at Keene State College in New Hampshire and is presently an online instructor for Peghead Nation. "Flynn Cohen is a superb guitar player, and he successfully joins the pantheon of better known names that made the guitar an accepted instrument for playing melody in traditional Irish music." –FolkWorld

Host or Publisher Peghead Nation