Growing up in southeast Tennessee, Randy’s early musical interests covered many styles of music including traditional, folk, pop, rock, jazz, funk (yes, funk) and bluegrass.  Early influences ranged from Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin to the guitar styles of Crosby Stills and Nash, Dan Fogelberg, and James Taylor.  After moving to Ohio in his early twenties, Randy’s interest in traditional music peaked when on a trip home he discovered the hammered dulcimer.   Many festivals later, Randy became a fixture on the hammered dulcimer, encouraged by friends and players Ken Kolodner, Karen Ashbrook and Randy Marchany  (No Strings Attached).  Developing a particular interest in traditional Irish music, with renewed vigor he returned to the guitar to play fingerstyle Irish arrangements in alternate tunings, influenced by the playing of Martin Simpson, Pierre Bensusan, El McMeen, and Ohio-based guitarist John Sherman.   From there came Irish sessions and an interest in the bouzouki, where both his fingerstyle and flatpicking expertise transferred quickly from the guitar to his new primary instrument.

Randy has performed in traditional music and arts festivals in Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia and Tennessee as a solo performer and with the bands.  He has taught bouzouki, banjo, DADGAD guitar and hammered dulcimer workshops at festivals throughout the Midwest and eastern US.   He is an active player in the Columbus Irish music scene, and a junkie for Irish music seisiuns from San Francisco to Phoenix, St Louis to New York, Montreal, Galway to Tel Aviv.

Don Penzien has long been a top-flight performer of Irish traditional music. It was the never- ending traditional music playing at the Irish pub he frequented while earning his Ph.D. (clinical psychology) in Athens, Ohio that inspired Don to play and where he began his exclusive use of the “DADGAD” guitar tuning with tips from such notables as Zan McLeod and Daíthí Sproule. Frequently on the road playing concerts and festivals with his many projects including Gailfean (featuring Brian Conway, John Whelan & Máirtín de Cógáin), The Máirtín de Cógáin Project, and Shared Madness (featuring Haley Richardson & Megan Irby). Don is widely recognized for his reserved backing style and his dexterous work on DADGAD-tuned guitar provides solid, driving rhythms to traditional tunes as well as perceptive and sensitive accompaniments to songs and airs.

Don is a Michigan native with strong roots in Irish culture and an affinity for Celtic music. Upon relocating south, he found Mississippi sorely lacking as per it’s appreciation of the Irish and Scottish traditions native to many of the state’s citizens. So he founded and for 25 years directed what has evolved into a much-revered celebration of traditional Celtic music and dance—CelticFest Mississippi.  Don relocated to North Carolina in 2014 where he continues to work as a Professor of Psychiatry, Anesthesiology and Neurology at the Wake Forest School of Medicine.

Born in West Belfast, Northern Ireland, uilleann piper and whistle player Eamonn Dillon has toured and recorded both as a solo artist and with a varied group of performers, touring shows and bands. Working between the US, Canada and Europe, his music has been featured on several film and television programs around the world. He has performed and recorded as a featured artist in both traditional, theatrical, and mixed genre ensembles, including Needfire, John McDermott, (The Irish Tenors,) Celtic Bridge, King James, Sarah Packham, and Palmoa Faith, among others. He first learned the tin whistle from his father, and Tara Diamond, before getting his first set of uilleann pipes, made by the great master Sean McAloon, who mentored him while starting out.

A Brooklyn native of mixed Italian and Irish ancestry, Tony DeMarco is one of the finest fiddlers in North America. He is recognized on both sides of the Atlantic as a leading master of the celebrated County Sligo style made famous in the 78-rpm era by Michael Coleman and other emigrant Irish fiddlers in New York. As a young man, Tony learned directly from Sligo-style greats in New York who included Paddy Reynolds, Andy McGann, Martin Wynne, Vincent Harrison and the legendary James “Lad” O’Beirne. He also made many musical pilgrimages to Ireland, where he played with and absorbed influences from such revered Sligo musicians as Fred Finn, Peter Horan, Andy Davey, Johnny “Wat” Henry and Joe O’Dowd.

Tony’s recording career includes LPs with the group Flying Cloud and the original Celtic Thunder, and a duet disc with fellow New York fiddle standout Brian Conway. His first solo CD, The Sligo Indians, which included contributions from Irish musical luminaries Kevin Burke, Seamus Tansey and Charlie Lennon, was released to critical acclaim in 2008. He has performed at many of the top folk festivals in the U.S., including The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, the Smithsonian Institution’s American Folklife Festival and the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Tony has also been profiled in a cover article in Fiddler magazine.

Tony is the founding director of New York Trad Fest, an annual extravaganza of Irish and other traditional music that has been a feature of the Big Apple cultural calendar since 2013. If you’d like to hear the “Tradfather” in person, drop in on a Sunday night at the 11th Street Bar in New York’s East Village, where Tony has been leading an elite acoustic session for over twenty years.

Our First Dance teacher ever and our Ceili Dance Caller, Katelyn Dunn fell in love with the rich history, music, and movement of Irish Step Dance at the age of eleven.

She has since competed and performed throughout the US. Katelyn’s love for Irish dance and music only grew as she transitioned from competing to teaching. Now Katelyn shares her passion for dance to people of all ages and abilities through teaching both Step dancing and Ceili dance at workshops and events.

Katelyn is thrilled to be back for another great Tune Junkie Weekend and can’t wait to get your toes tapping at the Friday night Ceili.

Irish musicians often joke about finding the elusive lilt in their playing -- that special something that makes a tune sound truly Irish. Hannah will be the first to tell you that this lilt can always be developed further, but there is no question that she has found it in both her fiddling and singing.

While she has only called Michigan home since 2017, Harris has quickly made a name for herself in the Irish traditional music community both locally and further afield. She holds a Masters Degree in Ethnomusicology from University College of Cork, where she spent a year immersing herself in the music scene of Cork City, Ireland. 

Harris' debut solo album Tea for Tunes released in 2020, and has received international acclaim. According to Grainne McCool from Irish Music Magazine, "With a title fit for any Irish household, this is a winner from the outset.”

Hannah is no stranger to the Irish music scene: you'll regularly find her leading a traditional Irish music session, teaching or performing at live festivals and workshops, or sharing everything she knows about fiddling with her online students and audience.

Andy Kruspe is a freelance percussion instructor and bodhrán player from Huntsville, Alabama.

Andy has performed with several groups throughout the southeastern United States, including :

Black Market Haggis, Mithril, Candace Corrigan, the Liminal Duo, and 2nd Breakfast, Milltowne, The Ricky J. Taylor Combo, and The Cold Turkeys.

Andy is also active as a bodhrán teacher and clinician. He has taught at several workshops and clinics in the United States and Ireland, including The O'Flaherty's Irish Music Retreat (Midlothian, Texas, USA), The Fiddle and Pick Irish Music Weekend (Pegram, Tennessee, USA), Craiceann (Inis Oírr, Ireland), and Búla Buzz’s Bodhrán Buzz (Online from Portlaoise, Ireland).

You can find out more about him at www.andykruspebodhran.com.

Claire Shirey is a multi-instrumentalist and champion Irish dancer living in Cookeville, TN. She began her Irish music education within the Atlanta Irish Music School starting on fiddle then adding the concertina shortly after. While competing in the Midwest Fleadh, Claire studied under Alex Boatright qualifying for the All-Irelands multiple times. Claire began taking lessons from John Williams the past couple of years, being heavily influenced by his style of concertina playing.

Currently Claire is the Director of the Nashville Irish Music School and primary teacher. She began the program in 2019 and continues to teach the fundamentals and history of Irish Music in the Nashville Area. She is a graduate from the University of Georgia with a degree in Communications Studies and a certificate in Music Business.

London-born flute and whistle player John Skelton is probably best known to American audiences from his work with The House Band, with whom he recorded eight albums on the Green Linnet label.

He has also released a solo album, One At a Time, and Double Barrelled, a highly regarded album of flute duets with Kieran O’Hare, as well as a series of tune collection books, A Few Tunes, A Few More Tunes, Yet More Tunes and Some Breton Tunes.

John has performed at most of the major folk festivals in North America, Europe and Australia. He is an experienced teacher, and has taught at summer schools in the United States, Europe and Africa, In addition to his background in Irish music, John is also well-schooled in the music of Brittany. He also plays the ‘Piston’ (Low Bombarde), the ‘Veuze’ (the bagpipe of eastern Brittany) and the ‘Gaita Gallega’ (Galician pipes).

Jonathon Srour capped a successful competitive Irish dance career with a top 5 finish at the World Championships and also won the North American Senior Belt Championship 3 times, tying the all-time record. This competition was open to all men and women in North America, aged 17 and over. He has toured the world with Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flames, Magic of the Dance, and Echoes of Ireland including the countries of Taiwan, Israel, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. During the summers of 2010 and 2012, he performed in the Busch Gardens show, Celtic Fyre. He spent time in New York as a pivotal member of the Brooklyn-based fusion dance septet, Hammerstep, which received unprecedented reviews on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. Seeking to effectively and uniquely give back to the dance community, he is currently one of the only double fellowship-trained reconstructive foot and ankle surgeons in the country and has started building a private practice in the Nashville area. Jonathon is also an avid piano and wooden flute player, having qualified for the All-Ireland Fleadh several times and has performed with the John Whelan Band, The Green Fields of America, and Mother’s Pride, with Gabriel Donohue, Marian Makins, and Haley Richardson and was a member of the 2015 New York Ceili Band which performed in Sligo at the All-Ireland Fleadh. He now teaches with the Nashville Irish Music School.

Liz Hanley is a Brooklyn based singer and fiddle player across many genres.

Growing up in Boston into an Irish Hungarian American family, Liz Hanley learned traditional fiddle tunes from her father/fiddle player Andy Hanley, songs and stories from her grandparents Martin Hanley, Rita McNamara and Ray Nagy and family friends Brian and Lindsay O’Donovan. She attended the New England Conservatory Preparatory school where she studied under Blanka Bednarz and then Eric Rosenblith. She has toured globally with Mick Moloney and the Green Fields of America, as well as prog folk rock ensemble Frogbelly and Symphony and chamber rock band Emanuel and the Fear.

Hanley spent many years living between Brooklyn, NY and Sheffield, England, immersed in the both city’s rich folk music scenes and collecting songs and tunes. Today she can be found mostly playing around NYC in the Irish traditional seisiún scene.

Hanley’s debut album “The Ecstasy of St Cecilia” was hailed “a gentle work of beauty” by FolkWorld. Hanley’s sophomore album will be arriving in 2024. Both records feature long time collaborators and friends Jefferson Hamer and Eamon O’Leary of the Murphy Beds.