Traditional Dance
New England Dancing Masters
Peter and Mary Alice Amidon, Mary Cay Brass, Andy Davis:
publishers of CD’s, books, and videos (VHS and DVD) on teaching dance to children.
http://www.dancingmasters.com
Country Dance and Song Society of America
Sponsors of summer traditional dance camps, storehouse of information on traditional
dance and people around the country, mail order of books, recordings and videos
relating to traditional dance and music.
http://www.cdss.org
Marian Rose – Community Dance Project
Marian Rose, a musician, dance educator and writer based in Vancouver, B.C., Canada has created the Community Dance Project as a tool to preserve and rejuvenate the ritual of community family dancing together with the vibrant musical traditions that go along with it. Her site has great book/CD resources.
http://www.marianrose.com
Sanna Longden - International folk dance teacher
Sanna does workshops for children and adults, is the founder of ’Pourparler’
(see above) and has great CD, video and book dance resources. She is a world dance teacher and multicultural movement educator from Evanston, Illinois, who teachers in schools and at educator conferences locally, nationally, and internationally.
http://www.folkstyle.com
The Dance Gypsy
Contra dance information page: find a contra dance in your area.
http://thedancegypsy.com/
Great Meadow Music
A great source of recordings and videos of New England contradance.
http://www.greatmeadowmusic.com
Brattleboro Dawn Dances
All night contradances with several bands and callers that attract hundreds
of dancers from across the northeast.
http://www.dawndance.org
Nightingale
A sublime contra dance and concert band: Becky Tracy (fiddle), Keith Murphy
(guitar, mandolin, piano), Jeremiah McLane (piano, accordion). Becky Tracy
and Keith also play with Andy Davis on our New England Dancing Masters recording
'Any Jig or Reel', and Keith plays with our sons Sam (fiddle) and Stefan (percussion),
along with Thomas Bartlett (piano) on NEDM's recording 'Other
Side of the Tracks.'
http://www.nightingalevt.org
Mary Lea
Mary, a great violinist, violist and fiddler, plays in numerous bands. She is probably best known for her wonderful work with the English Country Dance band 'Bare Necessities', with whom she plays across the United States and throughout the UK and Europe. She is part of the extraordinary community of musicians and friends living in Brattleboro.
http://www.sover.net/~marylea/bnmems_m.htm
Lissa Schneckenburger
Lissa is a gifted dance fiddler and singer. She has exquisite taste in percussionists (our son Stefan). If we run, we can get to her house in 17 seconds.
http://www.lissafiddle.com/
Singing
Hallowell
Kathy Leo heads up this hospice singing group of which Mary Cay Brass (of New England Dancing Masters fame, and head of the Saxtons River based River Singers/Emerald Stream Singers) and Peter Amidon are the music directors. Their first CD 'Angels
Hovering Round' is available for sale on the Amidon website store.
http://www.hallowell-singers.org/
Sam Amidon
Sam is our son. He plays banjo with Doveman, Fiddle with Stars
Like Fleas, collaborates often with composer Nico
Muhly, has been performing and recording as the band samamidon (singer, banjo, guitar), is a comic book artist, a performance artist ('... and displayed unexpected dance moves' -from a review of a samamidon show in Iceland by producer Valgeir Siggurson), and a master of the
short film. Sam's first samamidon album is coming out this February: 'But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted' and he is working on his second. Sam (fiddle) plays with our other son Stefan (percussion) and with Keith Murphy (mandolin/guitar) and Thomas Bartlett (piano) on our New England Dancing Masters CD 'Other
Side of the Tracks'. Sam lives in Brooklyn, NY
http://www.samamidon.com
Tony Barrand
Tony Barrand's singing has had a profound impact on our singing our singing over the last 30 years through his duo work with John Roberts and his guy quartet work with Nowell Sing We Clear. Now I am honored to share the choir directing job at the Guilford Community Church with Tony (along with NEDM's Andy Davis). Where we live cheek by jowl with the Whetstone Brook, Tony lives on top of the two hills overlooking all of metropolitan Brattleboro.
http://www.sover.net/~barrand/
Village Harmony
Village Harmony is an umbrella for a range of choral music, world music and harmony singing activities. They offer, among other things, domestic and international annual summer camps for teenagers and adults where campers learn and perform unusual choral and harmony-singing repertoire from around the world. Peter and Mary Alice will be leading a session in August 2006.
http://www.villageharmony.org
Fasola
Sacred Harp (Fasola) home page. Information about, and resources related to Shape-note singing.
http://fasola.org
Storytelling
National Storytelling Association
Bringing together and nurturing individuals and organizations that use the power of storytelling in all its forms.
http://www.storynet.org
The League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (LANES)
LANES is dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of the art of storytelling in all its aspects: traditional, creative, educational, cultural, personal, and therapeutic.
http://www.lanes.org
Tim Jennings and Leanne Ponder
Tim and Leanne make their living by telling folk tales in one and two voices, and by playing traditional Celtic music on harp and concertina. They work in front of all kinds of audiences — currently
one of their favorites is college students. They tour throughout New England,
with occasional forays into the Wide World.
http://folktale.net/
Marny Gillard – Storyteller, Writer, Educator
Listen to Marni Gillard's stories, and she will draw the stories out of you.
http://www.storypower.com/gillard
Education & Children’s Music
American Orff-Schulwerk Association
An association of elementary school music teachers. Orff Schulwerk is a way to teach and learn music. It is based on things children like to do: sing, chant rhymes, clap, dance, and keep a beat on anything near at hand. These instincts are directed into learning music by hearing and making music first, then reading and writing it later. This is the same way we all learned our language.
http://www.aosa.org
Organization of American Kodály Educators
An association of elementary school music teachers. The mission of the Organization of American Kodály Educators is to enrich the quality of life of the people of the U.S.A. through music education by promoting the philosophy of Zoltán Kodály.
http://www.oake.org
Keep Arts in the Schools
A wonderful website of research and data on the educational value
of arts in the schools.
http://www.keepartsinschools.org
Children’s Music Network
In the 1980s, like-minded teachers, performers, songwriters, radio hosts, and parents who cared about the quality and content of children's music established The Children's Music Network (CMN) -- a nonprofit association that now has members across the United States and Canada.
http://www.cmnonline.org
Festivals
Old Songs Festival
A great festival devoted to participatory traditional song as
well as dance that attracts a singing audience. Each day starts
off with a Sacred Harp sing led by Peter Amidon that attracts
upwards to 250 singers.
http://www.oldsongs.org
Dance Flurry
Great traditional dance festival in Saratoga NY, always around Valentine’s day.Thousands of dancers come from throughout the Northeast to join in contra, square, and many other kinds of traditional dance.
http://www.danceflurry.org
New England Folk Festival
Sponsors of a great dance festival in Natick, MA, as well
as the Cambridge, MA Thursday night contra dances.
http://www.neffa.org