7th Annual New York Trad Fest

Tony Demarco is a world class Irish fiddler from Brooklyn, New York. Tony's fiddling has been featured in music programs at New York University organized by Mick Moloney, as well as the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick headed by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin. He has also been recorded on the Smithsonian folkways records. Tony has been performing and teaching Irish fiddle music for more than 30 years and is now one of leading living exponents of the New York/Sligo fiddle style. The late Paddy Reynolds, Andy McGann and Martin Wynne were very influential on Tony's playing, as was the music of New York/Sligo fiddlers of the generation prior, including Michael Coleman, James Morrison, Paddy Killoran, and James "Lad" O'Beirne. Tony's album The Sligo Indians, released in 2008 is tribute to this style and the musicians that shaped his music. His landmark The Apple in Winter album with Brian Conway is a highly regarded example of the old Sligo-style twin fiddle music from New York. 

Photo credit: Timmy Wheelan

Kelli Jones is a Louisiana transplant hailing originally from Raleigh, NC. During her twelve years in the Lafayette area she has quickly become a veritable force in the local music scene and today she is an internationally acclaimed fiddler, singer and songwriter, performing regularly with the Cajun trio T’Monde, and also as the fiddle player and songwriting force in the genre-bending, yet Cajun-rooted band, Feufollet. She has appeared on countless Louisiana recordings, including the 2016 Grammy-nominated I Wanna Sing Right: Rediscovering Lomax in the Evangeline Country, a collection of new versions of songs from the 1934 Alan Lomax recordings in Louisiana. Most recently Kelli has been touring as a a singer and fiddle player with the Alabama-based singer songwriter John Paul White (formerly of The Civil Wars). 

Son of Cajun music royalty Marc and Ann, Joel Savoy has been at the forefront of the Louisiana music revival of the last 20 years. As a result, he has become a highly visible figure in the American roots music community and he was recently named the new Artistic Director of the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington. The founder of the Louisiana-based label Valcour Records, Joel is a Grammy winner for his production work with The Band Courtbouillon and a ten-time Grammy nominee, as well as a two-time winner of the Cajun French Music Association’s Fiddler of the Year Award. Having grown up literally at the feet of the Cajun greats, he represents his culture with an authority that few people his age can and his playing leaves no doubt that Cajun music is still very much alive.