Category: Workshops

☼ ☼ ☼ Mari Black Trio Workshops | Nelson Town Hall | October 4, 2026

About, Concerts, Dance Music, Events, Songs, Workshops

 
 
Join a pre-concert Workshop with Mari Black and her trio on Sunday, October 4 from 11:00AM -12:30 PM at the Nelson Town Hall
 
 
Tuition is $35 and includes concert admission. Children under 16 FREE w/paying adult.
 
 
 
“Get Jammin’!” Workshops, with Mari Black & her trio
No matter what instrument you play, come join Mari and her band to learn some snazzy fiddle tunes AND how to put them together in a full ensemble!  To begin, all melody players (fiddle, flute, accordion, etc) will join Mari to learn some fun tunes, while all backing instrument players (guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, piano, ‘cello, bass, etc) will work with Adam and Noah to learn how to accompany the same tunes … then we’ll all join up in the second half of the workshop to put the whole ensemble together!  Melody players, you’ll explore how to learn melodies more quickly and comfortably by ear, and discover how to inject your tunes with stylistic flair and authenticity (phrasing and groove, bowings, ornaments, etc).  Backers, you’ll improve your fluency with picking up chords for tune melodies, and expand into ideas for different rhythmic and harmonic options to add variety and zest into your playing.  When we all come together at the end of the workshop, you’ll get a chance to put your new tunes and skills into practice as a part of one big, awesome band.  Come join in the fun!
 
Pack a picnic lunch or visit a local eatery and come back for the concert!


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☼ ☼ ☼ Cosy Sheridan & Sloan Wainwright w/Charlie Koch & Glen Roethel | Nelson Town Hall | September 18, 2026

About, Concerts, Events, Songs, Workshops

 

Cosy Sheridan & Sloan Wainwright will appear in concert at the Nelson Town Hall on Friday, September 18 at 7:30 PM. ‘Pay what you can’, suggested Admission is $20 and children under 16 are admitted free with a paying adult.

 

Join two master performers, singers and songwriters Cosy Sheridan and Sloan Wainwright for the opening night concert for The Song Sessions workshops. Add in Charlie Koch on bass and Glen Roethel on lead guitar and you have a night of uplifting and joyous songs. They will each be performing separately and together as a quartet.

Sloan Wainwright has played the great concert halls, the most storied listening rooms and top music festivals while also teaching at the nation’s leading music retreats. As a member of an acclaimed family of artists (brother Loudon Wainwright, sister-in-law Kate McGarrigle, nephew Rufus Wainwright and nieces Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche), Wainwright has charted an artistic path all her own. A unique hybrid of pop, folk, jazz and blues, Sloan’s music is unified by her melodious tone and rich, powerful contralto. She will be backed up by Glen Roethel on guitar and harmonies.

Cosy Sheridan has been called “a buddhist monk in a twelve-step program trapped in the body of a singer-songwriter” and also one of the era’s finest and most thoughtful songwriters. She has performed at Carnegie Hall and The Cowgirl Hall of Fame, as well as coffeehouses, festivals and concerts throughout the country.* “*An unapologetically tuneful writer with sticky lyrics,*” *wrote* Sing Out Magazine. *Backed by the rhythms and harmonies of bass player Charlie Koch, she is a top shelf guitarist with
a distinctive percussive right hand technique* .“*You can’t make it into double digits, and continue touring for twenty or so years, unless you know what you’re doing, and do it well*,”* wrote *The Chicago Examiner. *Cosy is the founder and director of The Song Sessions, and also Moab Folk Camp in Moab, Utah.



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☼ ☼ ☼ Song Sessions Songwriting Workshop | September 19 & 20, 2026

Songs, Special Programs, Workshops

Come to The Song Sessions  – workshops in songwriting, voice and guitar. Join master teachers Sloan Wainwright and Cosy Sheridan for a weekend in beautiful Nelson, NH. The workshops are held at Nelson Town Hall on Saturday and Sunday, September 19 & 20.  The weekend will begin with a concert by the four teachers: Cosy Sheridan, Sloan Wainwright, Charlie Koch, and Glen Roethel.  Classes begin Saturday morning and run through 3 pm on Sunday afternoon.  There is a family-style dinner on Saturday night followed by a student coffeehouse performance where each student plays a song on the stage at Nelson Town Hall.  If you are looking for a boost for your creativity, in community with other songwriters and singers, come to The Song Sessions.  Tuition $325.  

Local host housing available for $60/night.

To register, or for more information, email Cosy Sheridan:  cosy sheridan (at) gmail.com

The Song Sessions: Workshops in Songwriting, VOICE, and Guitar | September 19-21, 2025

Songs, Workshops

Workshops in Songwriting, VOICE, and Guitar
DATES: Sept 19-21, 2025

Tuition $325

Tuition includes Friday night concert and pizza party on Saturday night. After dinner on Saturday, we will have Student Coffeehouse in Nelson Town Hall.

BASIC SCHEDULE

Friday night • Concert at Nelson Town Hall
Saturday and Sunday • Workshops
Saturday night • Student Coffeehouse

WORKSHOPS

Cosy Sheridan | Songwriting: Finding Creative Lift-Off
Sloan Wainwright | Voice: Sing Heart Body and Soul
Charlie Koch | Guitar
Glen Roethel | Harmony Singing
Join us for two days of creativity, fun and friendship at our 3rd year of The Song Sessions. Classes begin Saturday morning.

To register, or for more info, send an email to cosysheridan (at) gmail.com.

Local housing available: $60/room per night.

☼ ☼ ☼ The Song Sessions Workshop | September 27-29, 2024

Concerts, Special Programs, Workshops

Information about The Song Sessions in Nelson NH

WORKSHOPS IN SONGWRITING, VOICE, & GUITAR

DATES: Sept 27–29, 2024

Tuition $325

Tuition includes dinner on Saturday night in a local home. After dinner we will have Student Coffeehouse in Nelson Town Hall.

BASIC SCHEDULE

Friday night • Concert at Nelson Town Hall
Saturday and Sunday • Workshops
Saturday night • Student Coffeehouse

More information and registration at https://cosysheridan.com/the-song-sessions-music-and-song-workshops-in-nelson-nh

Kwackfest Logo showing photo of man wearing a hat and playing accordion

☼ ☼ ☼ KwackFest: A Celebration of the Bob McQuillen Centennial Saturday, July 1, 2023

About, Contra Dance, Events, Gathering, Special Programs, Workshops

Download the Schedule

Download the Map

Photo of Bob McQuillen writing tunes while holding a mandolin

The life of legendary New England contra dance musician and traditional music composer Bob McQuillen will be celebrated with a festival in Peterborough Saturday, July 1.

Running from 1 to 11 p.m., KwackFest commemorates the 100th birthday of the National Heritage Fellow who died in 2014. A longtime resident of Dublin and Peterborough in the Monadnock region and a fixture at contra dances throughout the Northeast and in Washington state, McQuillen drove to dances in a Jeep with a license plate reading “KWACK.”

Bob McQuillen was a contra dance musician, ConVal High School shop teacher and weightlifting coach, and, in his own way, a philosopher. He was a mentor to many, and his impact on the lives of his students and his fellow musicians was profound.

The event will be held in the Peterborough Town House and the adjacent grounds of the Guernsey Building. It will feature dancing, music, food trucks, and more. Admission is free.

KwackFest is sponsored by the Monadnock Folklore Society and supported in part by grants from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts & the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Country Dance and Song Society. An Indigogo campaign is raising additional funds for the event and also to cover costs of printing McQuillen’s 15th and final tunebook, which features tunes he wrote for each town in the state.

For more information on KwackFest, please visit HTTP://kwackfest100.com.

 

NH State Council on the Arts logo

Tim Eriksen Shape Note Singing School Winnepesaukee | May 29, 2023

Songs, Workshops

The New England Literature Program is sponsoring a Shape Note Singing School with Tim Eriksen at Camp Kabeyun on Monday, May 29, 2023.

The session will take place from 1 PM to 6 PM.  Singers are welcome to join the Literature Program for dinner after the session. 

Camp Kabeyun is located at 43 Camp Kabeyun Rd., Alton Bay, NH 03810; and there is ample parking for visitors. 

Note that the Monadnock Folklore Society will present Tim Eriksen in concert on Sunday, May 28, 2023.

Shape Note Singing Workshop with Tim Eriksen 

It’s been called “proto-Americana” and “America’s earliest music” but whatever you call it, shape note singing is one of America’s earliest and most vibrant roots music forms, and a critical, if underappreciated, influence on artists like Jean Ritchie, Doc Watson, Johnny Cash, and the Louvin Brothers. It is best known from the venerable Sacred Harp tunebook, where “Amazing Grace” and “Wayfaring Stranger” meet the blistering “fuguing tunes” of early New England, familiar folk melodies like “Old Lang Syne” and the African-tinged “camp meeting” choruses of the nineteenth century, all harmonized for social singing and written in a unique notation system developed in the northeast USA in 1800. 
 
Tim Eriksen is a three-time GRAMMY nominee, songwriter, and Hardcore Americana/world music artist who has helped bring the sounds of shape note music and traditional American folksong to the fore with his pioneering punk folk band Cordelia’s Dad, his courses at Dartmouth College and the University of Minnesota, and his shape note “singing schools” from the Newport Folk Festival to Singapore’s Tapestry of Sacred Music and Dance, where his students have ranged from inner city kindergarteners to the cast of the movie Cold Mountain. His Ph.D. research and published writing detail previously unreported connections between this repertoire, the 19th-century Abolitionist movement, and the birth of science fiction.
 
No one has done more to help revive Sacred Harp singing among a younger generation.
   -Josh Jackson, Paste Magazine
 
One of the best voices in music
– T Bone Burnett
 
Otherworldly harmonies
-Barbara Kingsolver
 
Apart from being the coolest-looking man in folk song, Eriksen is an uncompromising performer, ethnomusicologist, Sacred Harp singing master, musical adventurer and punk-folk pioneer, who seems to play every instrument under the sun and has shared a stage with both Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson.
-The Guardian, UK

Singing Workshop Weekend with Windborne | Ashfield, MA

Events, Songs, Workshops

Singing Workshop Weekend with Windborne
Jan 3-4, 2015
Hosted by Ricki Carroll in Ashfield, MA
For full details, prices, and registration, visit:
www.cheesemaking.com/shop/windborne-singers-01-31-2015.html or call Ricki at 413-628-4568
www.WindborneSingers.com
facebook.com/WindborneSingers

Join Windborne for two days of lively singing, good food, and delightful company in the beautiful home of Ricki Carroll in Ashfield, MA. Workshop participants will learn traditional and original folk songs from around the world, featuring music from Windborne’s recent American Music Abroad tour as well as old favorites. The weekend includes a concert on Saturday night (Jan 3, 7:30pm)–also open to the public!

Windborne is Lynn Rowan, Will Rowan, Lauren Breunig, and Jeremy Carter-Gordon. Specializing in close harmony singing, Windborne has sought out masters of traditional singing styles worldwide to study a large variety of vocal music, all the while remaining deeply rooted in American folk traditions. A quartet of seasoned teachers and performers, their repertoire includes songs from the US, Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, Central Asia, and southern Africa. In January 2014, Windborne was one of 10 groups selected by American Music Abroad, a program run by the US State Department that sends bands on month-long tours as cultural ambassadors through music. Their tour took them to Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Angola, where they gave concerts and workshops in theaters, schools, and community centers, and they are pleased to have added songs from those travels to their ever-expanding repertoire.

Ricki Carroll is an acclaimed cheese-maker who lives in Ashfield, MA. She regularly hosts musical concerts and workshops, creating a haven of beauty–visually, musically and culinarily. This weekend workshop will be a rejuvenating retreat from daily life in Ricki’s unique work-of-art home.

Workshop prices include meals and the concert, and lodging is available onsite.
Space is limited so register now–treat yourself to a weekend of musical adventure!

For more details, prices, and registration, go to www.cheesemaking.com/shop/windborne-singers-01-31-2015.html or call Ricki at 413-628-4568.
For more info about Windborne, go to www.WindborneSingers.com or facebook.com/WindborneSingers