JANUARY
Amber Rogers (of Scenic Roots)
www.scenicroots.com

Amber Rogers is a talented multi-instrumentalist and band leader for Scenic Roots. She has been immersed in bluegrass and old-time American music since she was a little girl, beginning her music training with fiddle and piano at age four. By high school, she had learned to play most stringed instruments, and even tried her hand at bagpipes for a few weeks. She now commonly performs on fiddle, claw-hammer banjo, and hammered dulcimer; but can be found playing bass, guitar, or mandolin at bluegrass jams across the country. In addition to her instrumental mastery, Amber’s voice is a driving force in Scenic Roots’ sound, with a rawness reminiscent of the old Appalachian hills. Indeed, her voice has an innocence and purity that makes it instantly accessible and likeable.

FEBRUARY
Emily Dowden

Emily Dowden is an old time/folk/bluegrass musician who was first intrigued with the banjo as a little kid watching Grandpa Jones on "Hee-Haw" re-runs. She started playing clawhammer styled banjo at age 10. Her two older sisters were already playing fiddle and guitar, so it was a perfect fit. They formed a band called the “Dowden Sisters” and played music together for the next 15 years, touring for most of those years. They lived in Mountain View, Arkansas - the Folk Music Capital of the World - and Asheville, North Carolina. After they disbanded, Dowden moved back to home state of Missouri, where she pursued education, worked in radio and other jobs, and began married life. She currently works at Palen Music Center giving banjo, guitar, and ukulele lessons, as well as in Branson at the Vacation Channel as their “Watch Us First” coordinator and on-air talent. She plays music with “The Emily Dowden Band” part-time, and also does some modeling and acting on the side. She writes music and is also writing a novel and children’s book.

MARCH
Hannah Shira Naiman

Hannah Shira Naiman’s banjo-grounded songs dance the listener into the Appalachian mountains and eras back in time, drawing on her roots in Toronto’s ‘old time’ folk music community to share powerful tales of hope and loss. With a sound that’s been described as a cross between Gillian Welch and Sarah Harmer, Naiman crafts original songs that ring with influences of Ola Belle Reed, The Carter Family, American oldtime, and traditional English ballads. 

Interest in Naiman’s acclaimed debut record Tether My Heart led to a top 10 spot in the Folk DJ list, and play across CBC Radio. With her new record Know the Mountain, due October 6, Naiman charms the listener with an even more bold, layered, and mature set of songs -- including some original fiddle tunes. Naiman will release Know the Mountain in October at the Tranzac in Toronto, touring Ontario and Quebec through the fall, and the US midwest and northeast in spring 2017.

APRIL
Liat Tova Lis (of Lake Toba)

Liat Tova Lis is an old-time banjo player and singer based in Eugene, Oregon, who plays original and traditional music with the duo, Lake Toba. Her banjo playing is predominately clawhammer, and instrumentals are heavily influenced by the old time style of playing, with much drop thumbing, droning, and following of the melody. She enjoys using the banjo as a voice in itself, and as an accompaniment for her own voice.

Lake Toba is an old-timey duo with rich harmonies over beautiful instrumentation on guitar, banjo and mandolin (no, not all three at the same time), and haunting original songwriting by Kyle McGonegle and Liat Tova. They unravel a new story in each song with clear and heartfelt singing that exposes the emotion hidden in the verse. Their tight instrumentation brings each song to another level, as the pair breathes together, not just in their harmonies, but also through their instruments. Don't miss a chance to see Lake Toba live; the pair invites listeners into their world with warm conversation like old friends.

MAY
Kate Lissauer
www.katelissauer.com

Kate Lissauer of the United Kingdom has been playing banjo, both clawhammer and finger-picking styles, since being introduced by her Kentucky native banjo-playing father when she was 12. Old-time country music has been a key part of her life ever since. 

Although banjo was her first instrument, she also plays fiddle and guitar, sings, and composes songs and tunes within the genre. Lissauer has played in numerous bands, including the Baltimore based Rev. Chip and the Moon Brides, the Scottish fusion Caledonia Ramblers, and her own long-standing project 'Buffalo Gals'. She also worka as a solo performer, teacher and dance caller. 

Lissauer's most recent new project is in writing and performing old-time scores for silent films from the early 1900s. Her band and film show tour with the support of the Arts Council of England and its affiliated county branches, and she perform at many of the country's folk, bluegrass and old-time festivals.

JUNE
Chloe Blayne

Professional banjo player and lead singer of the all-female bluegrass band Blue Belles, Chloe Blayne has been playing banjo for 20 years now. She cannot remember much of her life without a banjo in her hands. Playing both Bluegrass and Old-time styles, Chloe also studied opera/vocal performance at University of Louisville and now continues to sing opera every week at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Chloe Blayne is a school teacher, mother, and wife.

Blue Belles is an all-girl band from Northern Kentucky. Their creative and subtle style comes from countless hours spent in jam sessions, festival performances and professional seminars. More importantly they carry an unusual respect for the authors of bluegrass music.   When you hear this band you will recognize the Eastern Kentucky slant on the fiddle. You will hear hard-driving three-finger on the banjo. You will hear confident and articulate flat-picking on the guitar. You will hear every beat of the bass. You will hear vocal harmonies unlike any other. Above all else, you will hear phenomenal music. 

JULY
Megan McKamey
www.meganmckamey.com

Megan McKamey might be young, but she’s no stranger to bluegrass music. The Blountville, TN native first picked up the banjo at age nine after her Papa Conner told her she could have his old banjo if she’d learn to play it. In July 2014, she released her debut album, Here’s Your Goodbye.  This brand-new collection of all-original music that was produced by Steve Gulley at his Curve Studio in Cumberland Gap, TN  features several of today's top bluegrass musicians, including Gulley, Tim Stafford, Jason Burleson, Ron Stewart, and Dale Ann Bradley.  Not only does it showcase Megan’s banjo picking on the album, but it is also the very first time she is featured as a singer and a songwriter, as she wrote all 12 tracks on the album.  

In the past several years, Megan has begun to make a mark on the East Tennessee bluegrass scene. She performed in the 2011, 2012 & 2014 seasons at the popular Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Show in Pigeon Forge, and at the Ole Smokey Moonshine Holler in Gatlinburg, TN. She has been featured as the 2014“Miss September” and the 2015 "Miss February" in the Banjo Babes Calendar and Compilation Album project.  She was also featured on the first episode of Tim Farmer’s Homemade Jam, playing banjo alongside one of her musical heroes, J.D. Crowe. Now at the young age of 22, Megan is taking her music career one step further by fronting her very first band.  

AUGUST
Dani Aubert (of Fellow Pynins and Patchy Sanders) 
www.fellowpynins.com

Dani Aubert found her first banjo hanging a small music shop wall in the Adirondack wilderness. Her first banjo songs were crafted in a plywood shack, whilst studying herbal medicine in upstate New York. As her music evolved so did her life, traveling to the west coast to farm, raise a child, tend goats, and wildcraft in the high mountains of Southern Oregon. Pastoral life gave way to a six piece band, Patchy Sanders that naturally took to the road, evolving her music ever more. Yearning to come back to her roots, Dani began her duo Fellow Pynins with her companion Ian Van Ornum. Now these two (with their daughter) are traveling through Europe, sharing their new music, collecting old world songs and planning to come back to homesteading the land back in Oregon.

SEPTEMBER
Eliza Mary Doyle
www.elizamarydoyle.wix.com

As one of Saskatchewan’s most respected and highly regarded banjo players, this young lady entered the music scene in 2001 and has not skipped a beat since. The level of professional musicianship she has exhibited over the years speaks volumes, and one only has to hear her perform to appreciate the originality and style her instrumentation and songwriting writing has to offer. Over the past 14 years she has recorded and released 9 full length albums, won numerous SCMA Awards, and toured Canada, the United States, Europe and the UK. She is currently releasing her latest album, Nothin’ To Lose this coming October with excited anticipation. Doyle’s innovative and unique songwriting has impressed audiences around the world, and with her charismatic high energy performance, combined with outstanding clawhammer banjo, she will captivate you and leave you wanting more.

OCTOBER
Mary Z. Cox
www.maryzcox.com

Two Time Florida & North Carolina Banjo Champion, Mary Z. Cox, has recorded banjos since 1999 and currently has available nine banjo CD's and instruction books. Her music has played on National Public Radio’s, “Thistle & Shamrock”, “All Songs Considered,” Pandora World Music Genome, Smithsonian Folkways & the BBC. Her video interview appears in the DVD series “Conversations With Old Time Performers.” Mary Z. is also featured in the 2016 Banjo Babes Calendar & Album, anticipating a second appearance with the project in 2017! 

Mary Z. & her banjos have played the Earl Scruggs Center, Florida Folk Festival, Monticello Opera House, Cal Tech, John C Campbell Folk School, New Posh, NC Cradle of Forestry Songcatcher series, Cashiers NC Library, the Phoenix and many local and national venues. She has also brought North American clawhammer banjo tunes in mini cultural concerts to the Osaka ferry terminal, Shanghai ferry, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Mongolian Dining Car on the Tran Siberian Railway, Vancouver, BC club car, Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, Abby Road in London & on deck on the Queen Mary II in the harbor with the Statue of Liberty.