2025 Camp II – Instructors

Dave Firestine

Dave pulls out the “take no prisoners” style of playing at every dance – bringing the tunes to their full potential and beyond. He is a tune-meister and music jams are super fun when he is in the driver’s seat.

Originally a drummer, his strong sense of rhythm and syncopation is the foundation of his playing and tune writing, and truthfully he is never happier than when he gets to pull out the laptop drum kit to back swing and honky tonk tunes. Don’t worry, he can access his sensitive side when playing waltzes and beautiful melodies.

Dave is a music vagrant retiree now, but before that, he was Senior Gyzmologist building lightning detection systems. He is currently playing with the dance bands STEAM! (www.dancetosteam.com) and The Privy Tippers.

Emory Lester

Emory Lester has been a notable fixture in the acoustic mandolin world for the past four decades, and is an innovator of mandolin technique and a renowned creative artist, multi-instrumentalist, and instructor. His large body of recorded work has placed him among the elite mandolinist of our time. He has inspired and influenced many of our current generation’s mandolin players, and pointed the way with his clean, clear, fast and efficient mandolin technique.

Emory has performed across the U.S., Canada, Europe, U.K. and Czech Republic, with Clawgrass banjoist Mark Johnson, Wayne Taylor and Appaloosa, and his own Emory Lester Set, as well as a roster of famous notables such as Del McCoury, Tony Rice, Steve Martin (on The David Letterman Show), Babik Reinhardt (son of Django), and Jim Hurst, to name a few.

He has a long and impressive body of recordings including nine solo albums, all of which showcase Emory’s skills as a composer, arranger and creative multi-instrumentalist. A sought-after instructor of mandolin, banjo and guitar, he has a world-wide roster of online students and has taught at many prestigious music camps and workshops in the U.S., Canada, Europe and the U.K. for the past 25 years.

Ken Perlman

Ken Perlman is a pioneer of the 5-string banjo style known as melodic clawhammer; he is considered one today’s top clawhammer players, known in particular for his skillful adaptations of Celtic, Appalachian, & Canadian fiddle tunes to the style. He is also a highly skilled guitarist whose book, Fingerpicking Fiddle Tunes was the very first contemporary manual devoted to adapting fiddle music to fingerstyle.

He has toured throughout most of the English-speaking world and in Western-Europe, both as a soloist and – for over fifteen years – in a duo with renowned Appalachian-style fiddler Alan Jabbour. An acclaimed teacher of folk-music instrumental skills, Ken has written such widely used banjo instruction books as Clawhammer Style Banjo. Fingerstyle Guitar, Melodic Clawhammer Banjo and Everything You Wanted to Know About Clawhammer Banjo; he has been on staff at prestigious festivals around the world, and he is currently director of three music-instructional camps: American Banjo Camp, Midwest Banjo Camp, and Suwannee Banjo Camp.

Also an independent folklorist, Ken spent close to two decades collecting tunes and oral histories from traditional fiddle players on Prince Edward Island in Eastern Canada. His most recent solo recordings are Frails & Frolics and Northern Banjo; his recordings with Alan Jabbour are Southern Summits & You Can’t Beat the Classics; his latest book is Appalachian Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer Banjo. (Last update 2023)

See Ken Perlman videos

Gretchen Priest

Gretchen Priest: Born in IN; Living in Nashville, TN since 1995. She toured with Celtic rock band, “Ceili Rain” and bluegrass band, “Crucial Smith”. Performed on the
Grand Ole Opry, and with various artists including Kathy Mattea, Joy Lynn White, Manhattan Transfer, Lyle Lovett, Charlie McCoy, and she played for the Pope!

She has taught at many camps over the years including Alaska Trad Music Camp, Texas Acoustic Music Camp, Nashcamp, CO Roots Camp, Steve Kaufman’s Camp, and Mark
O’Connor’s Fiddle Camp. She is the founder & Director of the Musical Heritage Center, AKA… the Fiddle & Pick since 2008; hosting traditional music events with
workshops and concerts by expert instructors. She teaches private lessons and leads inclusive multi-level jams, sessions and classes.

Gretchen loves playing tunes for dancers; Contra, flatfootin’, Irish dance. She currently performs with the “Nashville Irish Trio”; Eamonn Dillon (pipes & whistle), Robert Johnson (guitar & bouzouki). Tours with eclectic bluegrass artist, Erinn Peet- Lukes. Gretchen’s “PLAIDGRASS” CD shows her fiddle skill in Bluegrass, Old-Time & Irish. Recording project release soon, “Roadside Distraction”, with mandolinist Emily Wilson (Old-time, Irish and wacky tunes). (Last update 2022)

Cindy Scott 

Cindy Scott’s path has been, well, different. Raised in a family of musicians, her first instrument was flute, which earned her a scholarship to Louisiana State University. She went on to get an MBA and learned to speak German and Spanish along the way. During a study abroad program, she began singing in the jazz cellars of Germany with local musicians. Back in the US, she climbed the corporate ladder for a while, but in 2005, left a successful business career for a musician’s life in New Orleans, where she promptly lost all her household belongings to Hurricane Katrina. She decided to stick around and has since become firmly rooted in the rich music scene of the Crescent City.

Cindy maintains an active performance schedule in New Orleans and elsewhere. She has performed in cities all over the US and Europe and in more exotic locales like Mexico, Turkey, and Kazakhstan. Her recording “Let the Devil Take Tomorrow” won OffBeat Magazine’s Best Contemporary Jazz Album award for 2010, and All About Jazz said of her, “The Devil may take tomorrow, but … Cindy Scott clearly owns today.” She is currently working on her fourth album, which will reflect more of her singer-songwriter tendencies.

Cindy is also a respected voice instructor of many styles. She has taught contemporary voice at both the University of New Orleans and Loyola University, and as of 2016, Berklee College of Music.  She’s taught a myriad of professional vocalists, and was hired to coach Oscar-winning actor Octavia Spencer and actor-comedian Russell Brand.  One of her former students, Jon Cleary, just won a GRAMMY™ for his recording “GoGo Juice.”

…and Roots Camp founder Charlie Hall was proud to claim her as his cousin. (Last update 2018)