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News from Falling Mountain |
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 wild carrot with their songwriting students at The Columbus School For Girls
 Spencer Funk of wild carrot helping earnest guitar students
 (L to R) Suzi Perri, Patrick Ourceau, and Eamon O'Leary join flutist Linda Hickman for a faculty jam at 2006 Alaska Fiddle Camp
 Bog Wanderer Jesse Winch was on the Celtic Week faculty for Swannanoa Gathering
Andrew McKnight's 3rd Grade songwriters sing their choruses during the recording session at Cabin Studios, Leesburg VA 
Andrew with a couple of his co-writers interviewed on WAGE 1200 AM, Leesburg VA Hear "Be My Friend, Too", Mrs. Shaw's 3rd Grade, streaming MP3 Hear "Different", Mrs. McCoy's 3rd Grade, streaming MP3 |
Our passion and commitment to giving back to our community here at Falling Mountain is a part of what we do here - "making music matter" is more than a mantra, it's simply the way we are. But our artists are active in giving back in many ways, and in particular in sharing their musical talents and gifts in instructional settings both in person and through a variety of teaching materials. 2006 has been a particularly productive year of teaching for the Falling Mountain family, and here are a few highlights: Madeline MacNeil has long been a highly sought workshop leader, and this year has been no exception. She received an award for her contributions to the dulcimer world this summer at Western Carolina University, and signed another deal with Mel Bay Publications for a new series of instructional books and videos through 2008. And along with Ralph Lee Smith, she is busy planning a weeklong mountain dulcimer workshop at Shenandoah University for late July 2007. In addition to their heavy songwriting workshop schedule during the school year in elementary schools throughout southwestern Ohio, Cincinnati-based folk duo wild carrot did their annual residency at Kentucky Music Week at the end of June, teaching songwriting, guitar, mandolin, and vocal performance classes. From the Celtic side of the Falling Mountain family, flutist Linda Hickman has taught from coast to coast, including at Irish Week in the Catskills in East Durham NY. the second week in July and at Fiddle Camp in Anchorage Alaska in early August. Bog Wanderer Jesse Winch was the staff bodhran instructor for Celtic Week at the Swannanoa Gathering in western North Carolina this summer. While the summer festival season is always a high point of workshop activities, several artists have year-round commitments in academic settings. Guitarist and composer Michael DeLalla continues his afternoon a week duties for guitar and ensembles at Shenandoah Conservatory, while fellow Oxymoran and percussionist N. Scott Robinson is on the fulltime faculty at Towson State University in Baltimore. In the spring Andrew McKnight made several visits to the Loudoun Country Day School in Leesburg VA to do some creative writing with two 3rd-grade classes that each crafted a song and went on a field trip to the recording studio. With the help of studio musicians Wayne Estes on electric bass and Jesse Schultzburger on drums, and engineer Les Thompson at Cabin Studios, Andrew recorded the basic electric guitar tracks and the lead vocals, and the kids sang the choruses of their songs, entitled "Be My Friend, Too" (a happy sounding funky and uplifting pop song) and "Different" (more rough-edged rock and roll sound, with lots of energy). Two students from each class were interviewed on their local community radio station for the world debut of their songs. |