Given the current status of the COVID-19 outbreak and best projections of how it will develop in the coming months, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 CROMA festival. This was a tough decision, but seems to be the right choice in order to keep everyone safe and healthy so that we can get together again in 2021!
11th Rocky Mountain Old-Time Music Festival
Tentative Dates: July 7-11, 2021
Performers
Brad Leftwich & the Humdingers (Bloomington, IN)
Brad Leftwich and the Humdingers features the iconic fiddling of Brad Leftwich fueled by the banjo and banjo uke of rhythm machine and wife, Linda Higginbotham, and the guitar and bass of old-time music power couple Sam Bartlett and Abby Ladin. Dubbed a supergroup in the old-time music community, the band formed as a group of friends and veteran musicians jamming together in their hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. Rooted in the heartland, these musicians are acclaimed by music lovers world-wide for their exciting and nuanced playing and devotion to the old-time tradition.
Brad Leftwich has long been considered a gold standard for traditional old-time fiddling, and a highly regarded banjo player and singer as well. He grew up in Oklahoma and took up the banjo and fiddle as a teenager, inspired by the banjo/fiddle duets of his grandfather and great-uncle and the guitar-playing and singing of his father. He learned directly from such legendary masters as Tommy Jarrell, Melvin Wine, Violet Hensley, and the Hammonds family. In his over 40 years as a performer, he has released 12 feature recordings to stellar reviews, appeared on dozens of anthologies, and created teaching materials that define the genre. He has entertained at the White House, backed up Doc Watson on stage, and counts the late Buck Owens and John Hartford among his admirers. For more about Brad, go to www.bradleftwich.net and also see the Brad Leftwich youtube channel.
Linda Higginbotham is best known for her musical collaboration with Brad, which began in the early 1980s when they traveled extensively learning traditional music from the last surviving practitioners of the art and performing at major folk festivals. She grew up in a musical home and learned to play guitar from her father, a Tin Pan Alley songwriter. Although born into a family proud of its long pioneer heritage, she was first introduced to old-time music as a teenage runaway in the tenements of the lower East Side of New York! She moved to Bloomington, Indiana, in the early 1970s where she helped start an active community based on old-time music and dance. She began playing clawhammer banjo and banjo ukulele after meeting Brad and is widely known for her part in popularizing the banjo uke in old-time music.
Abby Ladin grew up immersed in the East Coast traditional folk music revival of the 1970s. As a dancer Abby was clogging by the age of 6, performing with her sister Evie by age 10, and touring nationally at 18 with the renowned dance and music company Rhythm In Shoes. As a musician, she has played bass with some of this country’s finest fiddlers, lending her percussive strength and blending harmony vocals with sweet simplicity. She has won several top honors in the traditional band competition at the Appalachian String Band Music Festival. Abby is also a member of The New Mules, founded by (the late) Garry Harrison, with whom she recorded the now legendary Red Prairie Dawn album in 2000.
Sam Bartlett is a nimble, irrepressible performer on guitar, banjo, and mandolin. His original compositions have been profiled on NPR’s All Things Considered, Salon.com, and The Thistle & Shamrock. His evocative musicianship has been featured in the Ken Burns documentaries, Prohibition and The Dustbowl. Sam is known as one of this country’s most engaging dance musicians, and has been crisscrossing the States playing for dances for 30 years. He is also the author of a best-selling book on pranks and parlor tricks, The Best of Stuntology (Workman Publishing.) More information can be found at stuntology.com.
Steam Machine (Minneapolis, MN)
Steam Machine is a band that bridges the old-time bluegrass divide. Clean, powerful fiddling, rolling three finger banjo, and classic brother-style duets over a driving, rock-solid rhythm section combine to form a big sound on stage and square dance floor alike. Their unique repertoire highlights the fiddle traditions of Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky, with rare early country and bluegrass songs mixed in. In 2018 the band took second in the Clifftop traditional band contest and released their first album. Steam Machine spent 2019 playing festivals, camps, and venues throughout the US. Band members AJ Srubas, Aaron Tacke, and Rina Rossi will be joined at CROMA by multi-instrumentalist Adam Kiesling on bass. Learn more about Steam Machine by visiting their website.
Tui (RI & NY)
Tui is an internationally touring old-time duo made up of Jake Blount and Libby Weitnauer. They draw inspiration equally from rare archival recordings and the music of their peers, and both have extensive experience with other genres of music. Tui’s diverse influences enable them to create music that is innovative and technically demanding, yet accessible and affecting as only old songs can be. Jake Blount is a fiddler, banjo player and scholar based in Washington, D.C. He has performed and recorded with acclaimed fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves and award-winning old-time string band The Moose Whisperers. Fiddler and singer Libby Weitnauer has degrees in classical violin performance from DePaul University and New York University, and she has performed in a wide array of venues and concert halls, including the Smithsonian after a summer of research and music-making under the supervision of GRAMMY-Award winner Dom Flemons. Learn more about Tui, including about their album, “Pretty Little Mister,” at their website.
The Horsenecks (OR, CA, UK)
The Horsenecks play hard-hitting and heartfelt Old Time and classic Bluegrass music. Their sound is centered around the pairing of the signature rhythmic Appalachian fiddle style of Oregonian Gabrielle Macrae, (the Macrae Sisters, Hook & Anchor) and the driving yet subtle three-finger banjo playing of Liverpudlian Barry Southern (Tramp Attack, The Loose Moose Stringband.) Learn more about The Barry and Gabrielle at their website.
The Horsenecks will be joined by Kevin Sandri on guitar and vocals. Kevin is from Portland, Oregon and has been a strong part of the old time scene there since he joined the original line up of the renowned Foghorn Stringband. He now is a member of The Horsenecks and has played on both of the first two albums they have released. On stand-up bass is the amazing Katy Harris. Katy lives in San Fransisco and plays with a lot of folks up and down the west coast. Katy will be joining us on a UK tour this spring.
Elizabeth & Sandy LaPrelle (VA)
Mother-daughter duo Elizabeth and Sandy LaPrelle love singing together. You can find them performing at venues of all types and sizes, sharing close harmonies, flat-footing, and sing-alongs. Sandy grew up singing the traditional songs her mother and father sang to her at home, and she passed those traditional singing styles on to Elizabeth, who has been performing since she was eleven. Raised in Rural Retreat, Virginia, Elizabeth now tours the US regularly both performing and teaching. Please visit Elizabeth’s website to learn more.
Dance Callers
Larry Edelman (Denver, CO)
Larry Edelman has been playing, calling, and teaching for traditional dances for more than 35 years. He plays fiddle, guitar and mandolin in several bands, including the Soda Rock Ramblers, the Percolators, and right here in Colorado, the Prairie Chickens. A renowned dance caller and teacher Larry has traveled widely throughout the United States and in Europe, delighting both novice and veteran dancers with his humor, enthusiasm, skillful teaching, knowledge of dance history, and colorful calling. Larry is an avid dance researcher and during the 1980’s while collecting traditional square dances in southwestern Pennsylvania, he was awarded a Fellowship in Folk Arts from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to study with elder caller Jerry Goodwin, and produced the movie “Dance to the Music and Listen to the Calls” that documented the apprenticeship. Larry also produced Yee Haw, a quirky and informative movie of how square dancing has been portrayed in historical, non-theatrical motion pictures. Larry has trained scores of square dance callers who have attended his acclaimed intensive square dance calling workshops.
Rina Rossi (Minneapolis, MN)
Rina Rossi first learned to call square dances in 2010 when a group of Minneapolis/St.Paul callers began hosting “caller nights,” essentially house parties where people could learn to call. With 7 years of experience as a dancer with the Wild Goose Chase Cloggers, she took to calling quickly and began calling square and barn dances around Minnesota. Since then she’s had the honor of calling at the DC Square Dance, the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention, the Hiawatha Music Festival, The Monday Night Square Dance, and countless community barn dances from small town Wisconsin all the way to Germany. Besides dance calling, she also plays fiddle and bass and has taught numerous clogging classes and workshops.
Chris Kermiet (Denver, CO)
Chris Kermiet has been dancing since he could walk. His father was a square dance caller, and some of his earliest memories are of the dances in the old Grange Hall on Lookout Mountain (outside of Golden, CO). Having called now for over 35 years, Chris calls squares, contras, Appalachian big circle dances, English Country Dances, and celtic ceilidhs. He was recently celebrated as a “Living Legend of Dance in Colorado” by the Carson-Brierly Dance Library at the University of Denver.
Pat Danscen (Denver, CO)
Pat Danscen’s energetic calling and clear, concise teaching has delighted dancers of all ages and levels of experience for 20+ years. She has called dances and taught workshops in Colorado and several other states. In addition to calling, Patricia plays double bass and guitar and performed with a clogging troupe for 12 years. She delights in seeing seas of smiling faces twirling and whirling on the dance floor as she shares her passion for dance and music.
Staff Musicians
More info (soon)
Master of Ceremonies
Virginia Musser (Lawrence, KS)
Virginia Musser is an enthusiastic player and supporter of old-time music. She plays upright bass and raises two kids in her spare time, and loves using her emcee powers to bring together music communities. Virginia and her family have been to every Rocky Mountain Old-time Music Festival!