Matt Evans plays clawhammer and minstrel banjo, old-time fiddle, flatpick and fingerstyle guitar, mandolin, and the bones. Primarily interested in the music of the Cumberland Plateau and Southern Appalachians, he collects and plays tunes from these regions, and enjoys the opportunity to play and talk about the folk music and traditions he studies. Matt has studied banjo with Dwight Diller and fiddle with Bruce Greene.

Ask Christie Burns how she started playing the hammered dulcimer, and she’ll tell you it was love at first sight.  The instrument drew her into the world of folk music, and led her to pursue her B.A. in Ethnomusicology at UCLA.  During her senior year abroad in Ireland, Christie founded and directed the Cork Dulcimer Festival, and there began to network with musicians from all over the world.  Christie has taken her music to Sweden, England, Scotland, Belgium, Hungary, Switzerland, and Germany, as well as festivals all over the United States, and has collected music in every place she’s been.  Christie has her M.A. in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University, and moved to Chattanooga’s Southside in 2007 as part of the ArtsMove artist relocation program.

John Boulware’s musical heritage stretches back for generations. His great-great-grandfather Will McWatters played fiddle, as did his grandfather Brice Bagley. John was inspired to take up the instrument at the age of twelve, and has since learned a wide variety of styles ranging from Celtic to bluegrass to old time. He performs regularly at regional festivals and contests, and has been a featured soloist twice with the Murfreesboro Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. John holds a National Beginner Division Country Musician Guitar Championship, 2 consecutive age division titles at the Tennessee State Fiddle Championship, and recently became the 2006 overall State Fiddle Champion for Tennessee. John currently resides in Kimball, TN. He performs and teaches guitar and mandolin in addition to fiddle.

Randy Steele is no stranger to the Chattanooga Bluegrass community.  After moving from studying jazz guitar to taking up the 5-string banjo in 2001, he has since been a regular at jam circles and bluegrass festivals around he area.  Steele studied with Doc Cullis and Clyde Blaylock, both local bluegrass legends, then moved on to study and play with more notable musicians from Nashville, namely Todd Parks and Chad Melton from the Jerry Douglas Band.  In 2008 Steele took up residency as the banjo player in the band Slim Pickins and has since gone onto share the stage with bands such as IIIrd Tyme Out, Mountain Heart, Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, and The Sam Bush Band.  In 2009 the band was twice named Chattanooga’s Best Bluegrass Band and Steele was nominated by the Chattanooga Times Free Press as Chattanooga’s Best Bluegrass Instrumentalist.  When not playing the banjo, Steele spends his time working as a captain in the Chattanooga Fire Department.  He has been married for 10 years and enjoys teaching banjo and bluegrass music to friends, students, and to his 2 children.

Ken Doyle plays traditional Irish music on wooden flute and tin whistle. A native of Chattanooga, Ken was raised in a musical family and grew up listening to NPR’s The Thistle & Shamrock on Sunday evenings, beginning his love and fascination with traditional Celtic music. He began playing traditional Irish music on tin whistle after a brief visit to Ireland, however this turned out to be his “gateway drug,” leading him down a dark path of musical addiction leading inexorably to the Irish flute. Ken holds a degree in instrumental music performance from Samford University.  Ken performed throughout the Southeastern US as well as in England, Ireland, France, and Germany, including solo performances at the Paris Conservatory, and the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich. Ken is currently a member of the traditional Irish band Pay the Reckoning.