New Mandolindy video posted on YouTube - performing simon Mayer's "Buttermere Waltz" Click here!
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Allen Richmond's mandolin orchestra arrangements are available now! Click here for details!
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The James "Yank" Rachell Tribute CD is now available for sale. Click here!
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Mandolindy performed at the Ohio Valley Gathering, and Mandolindy members James Todd, Jerry Chapman, Steve Kessinger, amd Mario Joven conducted workshops. Here is a story published in the Owensboro Messinger-Inquirer newspaper:
String Ties
Instrument fans gather in Owensboro
By Joy Campbell
Messenger-Inquirer
About 500 people were teaching and learning, jamming and giving concerts -- all to promote and preserve traditional music -- on the second day of the Louisville Dulcimer Society's 21st annual Ohio Valley Gathering Saturday at the Executive Inn Rivermont.
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| Katy Kessinger, right,
and her father, Steve Kessinger, of Indianapolis watch and listen to mandolin
teacher James Todd, an Indianapolis police officer who volunteered to teach a
beginning class in Bill Monroe’s signature instrument, on Saturday at the 21st
Ohio Valley Gathering, sponsored by the Louisville Dulcimer Society in the
Executive Inn Rivermont. Photos by Gary Emord-Netzley, M-I |
 |
| Phyllis Brown of Knoxville, Tenn., right, notices onlookers watching a jam session from some upper floors Saturday in the lobby of the Executive Inn Rivermont. Playing with Brown and a dozen or more musicians is Owensboro’s Chuck Flaim on his mountain dulcimer. |
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| Gerald Young of Effingham, Ill., strums his autoharp while playing with other musicians during a jam session Saturday. |
Participants from 15 states took advantage of 43 workshops Saturday on instruments including guitar, dulcimer, mandolin, ukulele, fiddle banjo and juice harp.
"This is our first time to have the Gathering in Owensboro," said Maureen Sellers, who has organized the event for the last 17 years. "We love Owensboro, and the Executive Inn has been great."
On even-numbered years, the sessions are held in western Kentucky, and on odd-numbered years the event takes place in the eastern part of the state.
Admission was $5, and all teachers volunteered their time, Sellers said.
"We have past national champions here and just some great talent," she said.
Sellers, of New Albany, Ind., taught Appalachian dulcimer workshops at The Gathering. She said she has taught thousands of students in more than 20 states.
Lap dulcimer students got the chance to learn from national champion Gary Gallier, who taught a session from noon to 1 p.m.
James Todd of Indianapolis shared several lessons with about 13 students in his beginning mandolin class. He took his students through right and left hand techniques, using a metronome and designing a good practice routine.
Steve Kessinger and daughter Katy Kessinger of Indianapolis participated in Todd's class.
It was the first "gathering" for Katy Kessinger, who is a jazz musician. She is a music education major at DePauw University.
"I've always been around music; he plays anything he gets his hands on," Katy Kessinger said of her dad.
Steve Kessinger, attending his second Ohio Valley Gathering, said he usually plays guitar; mandolin is a second instrument for him.
The father-daughter duo said they enjoyed the mandolin lesson.
In one jam session in the hotel lobby, performers made music on the hammered dulcimer, mandolin, washtub bass, guitar, lap dulcimer, auto harp, recorder (flute), mouth harp and concertina.
"You just have to have an ear to listen to the music," said Steve Hale of Evansville, playing both the washtub bass and mouth harp.
The event schedule lists a hymn sing from 9 to 11 a.m. today in International Room A.
Next year's Ohio Valley Gathering will be March 27-29 at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, Lexington.
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