Guest Artists ’23

The 2023 Harvest Moon Dance Weekend’s guest artists were musicians Jacqueline Schwab and Mara Shea, and caller Gene Murrow.

Jacqueline Schwab

Pianist Jacqueline Schwab’s musical sensibilities arose from her time immersed in the rich classical and folk music scenes of Pittsburgh’s “melting pot” and later in Boston, where she graduated from the New England Conservatory. From the soundtracks of Ken Burns’s Grammy award-winning Civil War, Baseball, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin and many other PBS documentaries, to the White House, to the 2021 PBS American Roots special with the American Pops Orchestra, pianist Jacqueline Schwab has evoked the American musical past, but in a fresh, personal way. She spins musical stories, connecting listeners to the many strands woven into our American musical quilt. Pinewoods Camp strongly influenced Jacqueline’s music making, starting with her first camper year in 1971. She is well known in the traditional dance world for her groundbreaking playing with the Bare Necessities English quartet and others. She was an English dance leader for decades, and she continues to encourage dance musician students to play with lilt, ease and passion. She has performed Celtic and vintage American music in almost every state of the Union and has released five solo recordings, including her newly-released album I Lift My Lamp—Illuminations from Immigrant America. She lives on Cape Cod.

Learn more about Jacqueline from her website, jacquelineschwab.com, and/or sign up for her mailing list, at jaspianist@gmail.com, for news of her dances, concerts, and other events.

 

Mara Shea

Mara Shea has been happily playing for dancers since the 1990s—mostly English, Scottish, and contra—and is frequently heard at balls, dance weekends and concerts in the US, Scotland, and Canada. She has been on the music staff at Pinewoods, TAC Summer School, Blue Ridge, Pawling, Scottish Weekend, among others, and has played for many Regency and English country dance workshops and balls. With pianist Dean Herington, Mara led musicians’ workshops for the Scottish country dance group in Lisbon, Portugal. She has many recordings with her contra dance band, The Elftones, as well as with other wonderful musicians such as Dave Wiesler (Heather Hills), Rhiannon Giddens (All the Pretty Horses), and Julie Gorka (In 3⁄4 Time, and several Scottish dance recordings). Mara decided to take a year off from teaching in 2018-19 and earned an MLitt in ethnology and folklore at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
Mara lives in Elon, North Carolina, where she teaches Celtic fiddle online, and works as an occasional freelance writer and editor.

For more on Mara, and to listen to some of her music, visit her website, marashea.com. Her solo English country dance music recorded during the pandemic is available on her website and also at marashea.bandcamp.com.

 

Gene Murrow

Gene has been an English country dancer and musician since 1965, and has taught and called at clubs, workshops, festivals, and balls throughout the United States as well as England, Europe, Canada, and Japan. He has attended Pinewoods Camp as a CDSS staff member almost every year since 1965, and has chaired Early Music Week, English Dance Week, and English/American Dance weeks several times each.

In 1996 Gene created the Amherst Assembly (now New London Assembly) in connection with the Amherst Early Music Festival, a week-long conference devoted to a scholarly and practical look at the English country dance. He presented a paper at the 2001 EFDSS/Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society conference in London marking the 350th anniversary of Playford’s English Dancing Master, and in 2004 he was honored as the featured country dance caller and teacher at the gala 50th anniversary of England’s Sidmouth International Festival. He has toured England several times for calling engagements, and has appeared at the Eastbourne, Lichfield, Whitby, and Southam Festivals. In the fall of 2006, he toured Japan for two weeks teaching English dance workshops, where he returned in 2011 and again in 2019 to lead the Folk Dance Federation of Japan national teacher workshops.

He is author of a resource guide and training curriculum on musicianship for English country dance teachers—the basis of a course offered at the Pinewoods, Mendocino, and Berea country dance workshops in the United States.

As a dance musician, he has made four recordings music for dances of Fried Herman and Gary Roodman, and he is the producer of the 15-disc series of English dance recordings featuring the Boston-based band Bare Necessities. A classically-trained musician, Gene has coached recorder ensembles throughout the United States, and was President of the American Recorder Society for six years. He is the founder and Chairman of the Board of Gotham Early Music Scene, a service and advocacy organization for early music in New York City.