December 10, 2020
Winfield, Kansas—Officials at Walnut Valley Association (WVA) have announced that they will offer a weekend’s worth of online workshops in the spring of 2021. The workshop sessions will be held March 20-21, 2021 via Zoom. These workshops, taught by master musicians, will be hands-on sessions intended to help participants improve their skills on instruments of their choice. Almost 100 workshops will be offered by more than 20 workshop instructors, covering a wide variety of instruments, techniques and styles. A full listing with details of the workshops is available at wvfest.com/2021-spring-workshops. Registration is now open.
While most of the workshops are 90-minute sessions geared toward adults, there will also be offerings targeted at a younger audience. These sessions are shorter, and are intended for the specific needs of kids and young adults. They are also less expensive, offered at $30 rather than the $50 charge for the adult workshops. Several workshops will be family friendly, including various sing-a-longs and lessons for beginners, special interest workshops will focus on various themes and techniques.
The workshops will offer broad range of instruments, with some instructors offering the chance to gain proficiency on instruments rarely featured in WVA’s workshops, live or otherwise. The list of instructors taking part and their instruments or specialty includes:
Aubrey Atwater – Tin Whistle and Special Interests
Helen Avakian – Finger Style Guitar
Stephen Bennett – Finger Style Guitar
Ron Block – Finger Style Guitar
Greg Cahill – Bluegrass Banjo
Elaine & Larry Conger – Mountain Dulcimer and Bass Mountain Dulcimer
Elwood Donnelly – Harmonica and Special Interests
Betse Ellis – Fiddle
Steve Eulberg – Hammer Dulcimer
Cathy Fink – Clawhammer Banjo and Children’s workshops
Juni Fisher – Songwriting
Bing Futch – Mountain Dulcimer
Andrew Hatfield – Mandolin
Chris Jones – Songwriting
John McCutcheon – Songwriting
Marcy Marxer – Ukulele and Children’s workshops
Andy May – Beginner Guitar and Beginner Mandolin
Adam Miller – Chromatic Autoharp
Erin Mae Lewis – Chromatic Mountain Dulcimer & Children’s workshops
Jo Ann Smith – Diatonic Autoharp
Kenny Smith – Flat Pick Guitar
Linda Tilton – Ukulele
Pete Wernick – Jammin’
Jake Workman – Flat Pick Guitar
WVA offered a number of online instrument workshops as part of its virtual festival, WVF 48.5, in September. WVA Workshop Coordinator Karen Deal said, “We had such a positive response from both the instructors and the participants that we felt like this was something we could offer to support both groups. The instructors receive the lion’s share of the registration fees, which supports them at a time when they still have very few live gigs going. And the participants have a chance to, at least mentally, get out and take part in a group activity, even if it is still from their own living rooms! While we see some very positive signs that we will be able to offer these workshops live in September, it seems likely that folks still might not be able to take part in live workshops in late March.” WVA Executive Director Bart Redford: “We thought it would be nice to offer these just on the heels of the time when Greg Tucker and Gail Haywood-Tucker traditionally gather their friends and celebrate Greg’s birthday as well the fact that they have made it ‘Halfway to Winfield.’ John McCutcheon, who did such a great job with his celebration of Winfield during our virtual WVF 48.5, is also preparing an online concert to be held on the Friday of the that weekend as well.”