In recent years, musician, artist, and collaborator, Nokosee Fields, has proven himself to be one of the most provocative, significant, and capable voices in the North American traditional music scene. As a musician and artist, Nokosee seeks to restore balance to the unbalanced. In seeking balance, he creates work that is as provocative as it is beautiful. The great nephew of celebrated Cherokee fiddler Sam O’Fields, Nokosee carries a longstanding Cherokee fiddling tradition into the present. He’s won some of the most prestigious contests in the United States and has performed and taught at flagship festivals and workshops. His presence at the Music Camp is a great opportunity for local fiddle as well as those travelling from far and wide. Read more about Nokosee here:  <https://www.nokoseefieldsmusic.com/>

Ryan Nickerson, is performing at the Festival with Nokosee Fields—as part of the The Nokosee Fields Trio. Ryan will be tutoring guitar in a range of styles— including back up, rhythm, early blues. He has has devoted many years to the old-time musical traditions of southern Appalachia and the Midwest, inspired particularly by the sounds and rhythms of the music’s earliest recordings. As such, he brings an exciting wealth of knowledge to the Music Camp and to other guitar-playing folk.

Chris Waite is offering bass tutoring at the Music Camp this year. Chris a former pianist/bass player, now involved in a lot of ukulele and bass teaching through ukulele and music teacher/community music circles. His workshops will be aimed at earlier stage bass players, covering fundamentals of what people need to know with country/folk/ bluegrass and some rock type patterns and rhythms. He will cover how to implement these and work in with jam group scenarios.

Josh Bennett is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, and performer with a love of music from all over the world. His ability to attain such expertise across so many instruments and to blend his music into so many genres is astonishing. Equally at home on guitar, sitar, dilruba (bowed sitar), fiddle, mandolin and tabla, he’s one of Australia’s most versatile musicians. He’s performed around the world, on guitar at guitar festivals, on mandolin at Bluegrass festivals, and on sitar for Pandit Ravi Shankar at his home in Delhi. Josh cut his musical teeth in the Adelaide Blues scene and has played on stages since the age of 15.  At the 2022 Wirrina Bluegrass Festival, Josh played with his partner, Parvin, and Andrew Clermont in their trio ‘Blu Guru’. We are very lucky to have Josh teaching guitar and Mandolin this year. Read more about Josh here: https://joshbennett.com.au/

Paul Cooper is the Banjo player for long-time festival darlings, The Cherry Pickers! The band appears regularly around Adelaide and have played at many festivals around the country including the National Bluegrass Festival, Mountain Grass, the Kelly Country Pick, JamGrass , the Fleurieu Folk Festival, Healesville Festival, Cullulleraine, Groundwater, Dorrigo Folk Festival as well as our very own Wirrina Bluegrass Festival. In 2016, the Cherry Pickers toured the US including playing at AmericaFest in Nashville Tennessee. We received great feedback about Paul’s workshops at the music camp in 2023 and so we’ve asked him back this year.

Sally Carter has a classical music background and has performed in string quartets and a chamber orchestra on violin and viola. However, her first love has been to perform on fiddle and ukulele in bands and duos. She taught piano and violin privately for 12 years in Launceston, Tasmania.  These days, based in Victoria, Australia, Sally performs solo as Sally’s Ukulele, as well as in her duo, Green Fieldz. She regularly provides tuition for ukulele groups interested in ensemble playing, as well as teaching individually. Sally has also written four ukulele books for ensemble and solo playing. As a talented and respected musician in Australian ukulele circles  (and beyond) we are delighted for Sally to be with us again in 2024.  Read more about Sally here: https://www.sallycartermusic.com/ 

BOOK TICKETS for Sally’s ukulele workshop separately —see button above.