Faculty
Our 2026 Faculty
Folk College brings you teachers who, besides being outstanding musicians, are kind and generous people who are anxious to share their love of music with you.
Scott Ainslie
Blues artist & historian
Scott Ainslie’s mother found him at the family piano picking out melodies from the records she listened to during the day when he was three years old.
He’s been a musician all his life.
A Phi Beta Kappa and honors graduate of Washington & Lee University, Ainslie came of age during the Civil Rights era, and cultivated a powerful affinity for cross-cultural exchange. He has studied with elder musicians on both sides of the color line – in the Old-Time Southern Appalachian fiddle and banjo traditions, as well as Black Gospel and Blues. He plays this music with affection, authority, and power.
Armed with a variety of instruments – vintage guitars, a fretless gourd banjo, a one-string, homemade diddley bow (aka cigar box guitar) and carefully chosen historical personal anecdotes of his encounters with senior musicians across the South – Ainslie brings the history, roots music, and sounds of America alive.
On stage, in educational teaching concerts, workshops, and school residencies, Ainslie explores the African and European roots of American music and culture. His easy, conversational way with audiences and cross-disciplinary approach to the music consistently garners rave reviews from presenters, audiences, students, and teachers, alike. He is a masterful and thoughtful historian, storyteller, and musician.
Ainslie transcribed the original recordings and published a book on Delta blues legend Robert Johnson [Robert Johnson/At The Crossroads (Hal Leonard, 1992)], and has an instructional DVD on Johnson’s guitar work [Robert Johnson’s Guitar Techniques (Hal Leonard, 1997)].
Ainslie has six solo CDs to his name and maintains an active recording, performing, and teaching schedule that carries him around the country, to Canada, and to Europe.
His most recent recording is an award-winning collection of songs played on a 1934 Gibson archtop, “The Last Shot Got Him.” The CD has received strong reviews from listeners and critics, alike, and among other honors, was chosen as the Album of the Year (a Tammie Award from the Times-Argus, Montpelier, VT).
Ainslie has received numerous awards and grants for his work documenting and presenting traditional music. He has been a Public Fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill, and received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA, a federal agency in Washington DC) and the Folklife Section of the North Carolina Arts Council.
A leader in both the North Carolina and the Virginia Visiting Artist Programs, Ainslie served the citizens of these states in rural community college-based residencies from 1986 through 2000.
In 2000, Ainslie was also presented with an Indie (the Independent Weekly Triangle Arts Award, Durham, NC), with the National Slide Guitar Festivals’ Living Heritage Award, and the 20th Annual Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award for “outstanding contributions to the fine arts” (from St. Andrew’s Presbyterian College, Laurinburg, NC).
As a traditional musician with expertise in Piedmont and Delta Blues as well as Southern Appalachian fiddle and banjo traditions, Ainslie has specialized in performing and presenting programs on the European and African roots of American music and culture in community and educational settings.
His performances present a wonderful palette of sounds and stories that will delight the ear, awaken the mind, and satisfy the heart.
This will be Scott’s fourth time at Folk College.
Low Lily
Amazing Americana
The introspective quality of contemporary folk, the precision of bluegrass, and the drive of Americana, Low Lily combines their individual talents into one stunning soundscape.
With the release of their new record ‘Angels in the Wreckage’ (produced by Dirk Powell), the Vermont-based American Roots band LOW LILY brings their infectious sound to a new level. With the energy of fiddle music, the introspective quality of contemporary folk, the precision of bluegrass, and the drive of Americana, the members of Low Lily (Liz Simmons, Flynn Cohen, and Natalie Padilla) combine their individual talents into one stunning soundscape.
Low Lily has shared their signature sound with enthusiastic audiences throughout North America and the UK, garnering two #1 songs on international folk radio and two Independent Music Award wins. In 2018, the band released a full-length album with 2X award-winning title track “10,000 Days Like These” and their original song “Hope Lingers On”, which has been sung by choirs around the world as an anthem for peace and justice.
High Horse
Progressive Acoustic Bluegrass
High Horse is a progressive-acoustic boy band featuring four friends, three bows, and one pick. A mix of Bluegrass, Old-time, and Celtic music, it’s a band of brothers playing alternative rock on acoustic instruments. It’s a rollicking romp of great vibes, virtuosic chops, and tight vocals.
Comprised of fiddler Carson McHaney, cellist Karl Henry, guitarist G Rockwell, and bassist Noah Harrington; the band draws from their varied musical backgrounds to explore and perform original compositions and tunes from diverse folk traditions.
High Horse is based in Boston, collecting the skills and artistry learned from their education at the Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory.
Their debut album will be released in 2024, produced by world-renowned mandolinist Jacob Jolliff and engineered by sound wizard Dave Sinko.
Ponyfolk
Nordic Soundscapes
Focusing heavily on their vocal harmony work and building their songs around intricate finger-picking textures and Scandinavian-inspired modalities, Ponyfolk’s new CD has been on the Folk DJ charts all season.
Ponyfolk was formed in 2014 by Clifton Nesseth (vocals, strings, guitar, synth/keys) and Paul Sauey (vocals, strings, guitar, bass). Based out of Duluth and Minneapolis, MN, the pair’s multi-instrumentalist abilities and vocal harmonies have carved them out a reputation of creating maximalist soundscapes that are defined by droning layers of guitars, strings, and synth textures – undergirding emotionally evocative lyrical imagery. Over the last few years, the band has expanded to include Aaron Hays (drums), Alex Nelson (keyboards), Mikey Marget (cello), and Lewis Franti (percussion). The band will be releasing their debut LP on February 22nd a celebration of traditional Americana and Nordic folk music. Performing in various configurations and styles, Ponyfolk’s music always keeps a foot planted firmly in the ethos of the folk traditions while stepping forward into new sounds and musical terrains.
Originally crossing paths at Shell Lake Arts Center’s summer camp as jazz students in 2004, Clif and Paul bonded over their mutual interest in bassist Jaco Pastorius and the English rock band, Cream. Several years later, they happened upon each other while auditioning for St. Olaf College’s music program in Northfield, MN. During their tenure in St. Olaf’s music major program (2006-2010), Paul Sauey played cello with the St. Olaf Orchestra and Clifton played flute in The St. Olaf Band.
After college, Clifton and Paul formed Ponyfolk (originally Pony), borrowing from the more acoustic side of their common musical tastes and exploring their growing interest in multiple folk music traditions. Focusing heavily on their vocal harmony work and building their songs around intricate finger-picking textures and Scandinavian-inspired modalities, they released EP I in 2015. A remix of this EP will be reissued in early 2025. In subsequent years, they began to add synthesizers and a more modern aesthetics to their sound while simultaneously becoming more serious students of various styles of Americana and Nordic instrumental music., the latter being inspired by their time at Nisswa-stämman: Nordic Music & Dance Festival in North Central Minnesota. Over the last few years, the band has a played a key role in moving the stämma to Duluth, MN, where it will undergo its 3rd iteration on June 13th & 14th, 2025. Clif and Paul both received fellowship grants from American Scandinavian Foundation (ASF), which will allow them to study music in Southwestern Sweden in July of 2025.
The band has also been working on a folk rock LP since 2021, which will also finally be released sometime in 2025. Ponyfolk’s music has been described as “the dark side of Simon & Garfunkel” and “early Pink Floyd mixed with the Lord of the Rings soundtrack.”
Midnight on the Water
Fusion of traditional fiddle tunes, jazz, tango, classical and more!
Midnight on the Water started as an idea. Nathan Bishop, Tom Krumm, and Dani Hawkins have collectively played well over one thousand performances with classical, jazz, trad, and pop ensembles, and in those engagements they have met a lot of crossover artists: classical musicians who play arrangements of pop songs, or trad musicians who dabble in jazz. But the trio never really met other string players who are equally at home across all those musical contexts – until they met one another! What would happen, they thought, if the three of them got together to play ALL the music in a single ensemble? After about a year of musical exploration and rehearsal, they are pretty excited about the results. All that’s missing is the most important part: you, our audience!
Simple Gifts
Our Host Band
Folk College’s host band, Simple Gifts, is two women (Linda Littleton and Karen Hirshon) playing twelve instruments, with styles that range from old time to Celtic to Klezmer and beyond. Karen Hirshon plays fiddle, mandolin, guitar, 6-string banjo, bowed psaltery, doumbek, and spoons. Linda Littleton plays fiddle, hammered dulcimer, banjo, recorders, and bowed psaltery. Simple Gifts members designed Folk College and work with the Huntingdon County Arts Council to make it a reality. They have a strong philosophy that everyone can play music, that music is best when shared, and that above all, music is about communication, not competition.
Rachel Hall
Rachel Hall grew up in a family of folk musicians. She recorded three albums and toured throughout the Mid Atlantic with Simple Gifts. She has travelled to Norway and the Shetland Islands to study traditional dance music on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Rachel plays English concertina, diatonic accordion, and piano. She organizes shape note singing in Philadelphia and is one of the authors of the Shenandoah Harmony. She is an associate professor of mathematics at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
Henry Koretzky
Henry Koretzky is a mandolinist, guitarist, and singer from Harrisburg, PA, who has performed in a wide variety of styles and groups, from bluegrass with Cornerstone, Sweetwater Reunion, and High Strung; klezmer with The Old World Folk Band; old-time with the duo Rootbound; as well as swing, celtic, contemporary folk, and contradance music. He has taught at Folk College in previous years as part of The Keystone Rebels and as part of a duo with singer-songwriter-guitarist Kevin Neidig, and has also been a staff regular at Greenwood Furnace Folk Gathering.
Jay Best
Mark Twain said, “When you want genuine music — music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth’s pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose, — when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!”
Jay Best has invoked the “glory-beaming banjo” for decades and has explored a wide variety of “genuine music” including old-time, folk, and blues. Jay leads a fiddle-mentoring group at the Confluence Creative Arts Center and performed on and produced the community CD Confluence: Coming Together. He loves playing banjo, guitar, and fiddle with friends and family, but his magnum opus was a recording made with a steel guitar tuned like a banjo and performed with cicadas at twilight.
Richard Sleigh
Richard has been exploring the harmonica from the inside out for over 30 years. He has performed with Taj Mahal, Maria Muldaur, Bo Diddley, Susan Werner, and many others. His studio work includes award winning films, TV, radio, and theatre soundtracks, and other projects. As a soloist, he combines his fluid and highly developed rack playing with soulful vocals, guitar, and intricate solo harp flights. Richard’s music is American roots – ranging from rural and urban blues, fiddle tunes, swing, country, gospel, to early rock and roll. He has three solo releases – “Steppin Out”, The Joliet Sessions”, and his most recent collection titled “Celtic Instrumentals”. You can also follow Richard on his blog.
Eric Ian Farmer
Born in State College, Pennsylvania and raised in North Carolina, Eric Ian Farmer has returned to his birthplace sharing his songs about relationships, social awareness, and finding one’s path in life while keeping alive classics by artists like Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, and Bob Marley. Eric learned how to become one with a song from Bonnie Carter and David Williams, singers in the church of his childhood just across the North Carolina state line in Danville, Virginia. Eric also draws inspiration as a singer from popular artists like Bobby McFerrin, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye. And his guitar playing is inspired by the percussive stylings of rock legend Bo Diddley.
Grace Lee
Grace has been playing Hammered Dulcimer professionally for over ten years, both as a soloist and with her acclaimed band, Seasons.
Grace takes on a unique approach to the Hammered Dulcimer by focusing primarily on playing traditional Irish music. Grace has done extensive research to make these tunes sound traditional on her instrument through instruction, listening to Irish records, and going to as many sessions as she can attend.
Kelly Parker & Lori Russo
Kelly e. Parker (right) is founder and artistic director of ABAFASI. Her life’s roles include: sistah, mother, grandmother, drummer, drum-maker, student, teacher, social worker, composer, craftswoman, wordsmith, jewelry-maker, and welder. Kelly’s first drumming experience occurred in 1994, and it recharged her life, since then drumming has been the soundtrack of her path. The drum is in her walk, talk, hair, children and spirit. Her travel to Africa in 2005 affirmed the influence that West African drumming has had on all genres of music. That influence has informed her rhythmic expressions.
Lori Russo was a lifelong music educator who retired in 2025. She fronts the award-winning Pittsburgh band, Lori Russo and the Uppercuts, that does of blend of rock, blues, soul, and jazz. https://www.facebook.
Carol Lindsay
Carol Lindsay has been a percussionist since 1968, a healer and educator since the 70’s.
She has studied Native American, Celtic, and Tibetan shamanic traditions.
Bob Nicholson
Based in Syracuse, NY, Bob Nicholson is in demand as a contra and square dance caller who is known for his relaxed teaching style, patience, energy, and ability to make the dance fun!
Bob is a Folk College tradition, making our annual Saturday night contradance truly special.