The Bluegrass University at Jenny Brook includes seven beginner classes for adults.  The classes are two and a half hours of hands-on instruction.

UNIVERSITY PREVIEW:  Friday at 6:30 pm.  Learn about the Classes & Teachers at the Bluegrass University found on the map in your program book!

MEET & GREET:  Saturday at 1:00 pm.  Meet and get to know your potential teachers.

Students Per Class:  Minimum = 3, Maximum = 9.

MEET THE 2022 BLUEGRASS UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTORS

Banjo – Bruce Stockwell

Bruce Stockwell has been playing bluegrass banjo since 1968 and teaching since the ’70s. By age 16 he had won banjo contests, recorded his first album, and opened for Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, John Hartford, and many others. In the late ’70s he worked with Phil Rosenthal and Mike Auldridge as Old Dog producing two albums on Flying Fish. Since the 1980s, Bruce has performed with his two brothers (and now wife Kelly) in various acoustic/electric formats, currently as the Stockwell Brothers Band. In 2005 he won the Merlefest Banjo Contest, and in 2008 a NH Arts Grant led to the formation of Hot Mustard, a double-banjo bluegrass band.

Mandolin – Flynn Cohen

Acoustic Guitar and mandolin player Flynn Cohen has performed all over the world with many notable acts in traditional and contemporary acoustic music. He can be seen in concert with the American folk band LOW LILY (formerly known as Annalivia), and legendary Irish Accordion player John Whelan, as well as duo shows playing music from his four solo albums. He has performed at the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York City. Flynn has degrees in Music from Dartington College of Arts in Devon, England and at Mills College in Oakland, California. He taught for many years in the Music Departments at Keene State College in New Hampshire and Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts and is currently an online instructor with Peghead Nation.

Fiddle – Cathy Day

Cathy Day began performing at age 10 with her parents and sister in the Rose City Bluegrass Band which played numerous shows throughout the Northeast US during the 80s. As a teen, she arranged and taught the harmonies to her band, and taught fiddle, bass, and dobro. She was a member of the award-winning all-girl band, SassyGrass, and the New Hampshire-based band Marcy Hill. She has a passion for passing on bluegrass music as an instructor at Bluegrass Kids Academies, hosting music jams, and Wernick classes in her home. She demonstrates bluegrass music to kids in the schools, plus still finds time to teach in her spare time. Cathy is a point person for the newly formed Connecticut Bluegrass Association

Singing – Micah Nicol

Micah Nicol grew up with a mandolin in one hand and a banjo in the other playing bluegrass and classic country music with his father in the most popular (and only) group in the West-Central-Ohio Nursing-Home circuit: Harps n’ Strings. He has now graduated with a degree in Music Production and Engineering from Berklee College of Music and spends most of his musical life as a guitarist and singer for The Ruta Beggars, a traditional bluegrass and swing group based in Boston. Micah has a deep love for musical theater and content creation and lives parallel lives as a magician, uni-cyclist, and clown.

Dobro – Dave Bevins

Dave Bevins (dobro wizard) started at home with his family, The Chilson Hill Gang.  As a teenager, he guested many times with the Country Gentlemen and Don Stover.  He became a 4-year member of Green Mountain Bluegrass with Dan & Stan Tyminski and after that joined the Mardi Gras band.   In 2003 he won the National Resonator Dobro guitar competition.  Dave has appeared & recorded with John Cowan, Pat Flynn, Scott Vestal, Victor Krauss, Andrea Zohn, & Andy Leftwich.  He also has a CD recorded in Nashville, produced by Pat Flynn & engineered by Bert Battaglia, who also engineered Belas Fleck’s ‘Perpetual Motion’ CD. For the last 15 years, he’s performed at festivals from Indiana to Georgia and here in the northeast with the Atkinson Family.

Bass – Daniel Klingsberg

Dan is an experienced jazz, roots and bluegrass bass player based in Portland, ME who originally hails from Arlington, MA. He plays and tours with a number of groups including Mudskippers, PRNCX, Ben Krakauer, and The Ladles. He has performed with Darol Anger, Joe Morris, Peter Rowan, Stuart Duncan, and many others. He graduated from New England Conservatory in 2019.

Guitar – Tony Watt

IBMA and SPBGMA award-winning bluegrass musician Tony Watt has performed throughout the United States and Europe, on the Grand Ole Opry, and beyond. He has been featured in Bluegrass Unlimited, Bluegrass Today, and Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, and his version of Cherokee Shuffle with Noam Pikelny and Andy Falco has been viewed over 200,000 times on YouTube. Tony has toured with Rounder Recording artist Alecia Nugent, with Leigh Gibson, guitarist for The Gibson Brothers, with Jenni Lyn Gardner, former mandolinist for Della Mae, and currently performs with Alan Bibey & Grasstowne. He is the Vice President and Education Co-Director of the Boston Bluegrass Union (BBU) which puts on the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival. Tony has taught bluegrass for over 20 years and is a visiting artist at the Berklee College of Music’s prestigious American Roots Music Program. He is also the director of The Bluegrass University, which presents JamVember, a weekend-long bluegrass jamming “non-festival” held the weekend before Thanksgiving at the Sheraton in Framingham, MA. Tony is also the new host of Bluegrass Tuesdays at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, MA, which is one of the longest-running and most-successful bluegrass nights in the country.

All classes are $35.00 and paid to your instructor at the time of your class.

TONY WATT:  tonywatt@gmail.com

JENNY BROOK:  jennybrookbluegrass@gmail.com