October 26-29, 2023
Join us for a long weekend of all things harmonica - great instructors, classes, jams, and a concert, too.
Artistic Director, Kim Field has been a professional harmonica player, singer, and songwriter for four decades. He's gathered a stellar group of players and teachers who will help you reach the next level in your harmonica playing and performing.
Come join us! We are thrilled to have this stellar group of instructors for 2023!
Joe Filisko, Ross Garren, Eric Noden, Andrew Alli, and Kim Field.
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Kim Field
Kim Field has been a professional harmonica player, singer, and songwriter for four decades. He has taught classes on the harmonica for the Seattle Folklore Society and the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. Kim has toured internationally and performed at such showcases as the San Francisco Blues Festival, the Bumbershoot Festival, and the Waterfront Blues Festival. Over the years he has appeared on bills with such rhythm and blues legends as Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Cray, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Gregg Allman, James Cotton, Otis Rush, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, the Righteous Brothers, Walter Horton, and Big Mama Thornton. Kim is the author of the book Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers: The History of the People’s Instrument, published by Cooper Square Press, and the co-author of the book The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold, published by the University of Chicago Press.
Joe Filisko
The Hohner harmonica company has described Joe Filisko as “the world’s foremost authority on the diatonic harmonica.”Joe is an American blues harmonica player and maker of customized harmonicas based in Chicago, Illinois. Joe records extensively and performs internationally in a celebrated duo with Eric Noden. In 2001 he was named "Harmonica Player of the Year" by the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica. In addition to performing, building customized harmonicas, and working as a consultant for the Hohner company, Filisko has been teaching the harmonica since 1990, most frequently at Chicago’s fabled Old Town School of Folk Music. in Chicago. Joe has conducted harmonica teaching workshops on five different continents and has developed a rigorous yet accessible method. He also teaches each year at the annual convention of SPAH (Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica), the world’s largest harmonica organization, and has also given workshops at Centrum’s Country Blues Workshop in Port Townsend, Washington; the Euro Blues Northhamptom teaching festival in the United Kingdom; the Paramount Blues Festival in Grafton, Wisconsin; the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas, Les Harmonicales Condat in France, the Hawaiian Harmonica retreat; the Blast Furnace Blues Festival in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; the World Harmonica Festival in Trossingen, Germany; and Augusta Blues Week in West Virginia.
Eric Noden
Eric Noden is an award-winning acoustic blues and roots guitarist, harmonica player, singer and producer based in Chicago, Illinois. Eric has been featured on music festivals in over 15 countries and three continents and has released nine albums. He has taught the guitar and the harmonica at workshops around the world, including at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, the Harmonica Masters workshops in Germany, and at the Augusta Heritage Festival in West Virginia.
Andrew Alli
A native of Richmond, Virginia, Andrew Alli began playing the harmonica at the age of 20. He quickly became a passionate student of the instrument, learning from the classic sounds of the legendary blues harmonica players and establishing a notable style of his own. Alli has toured with dozens of musicians, both domestically and abroad. For years, Andrew led the band "Andrew Alli and the Mainline." He currently plays in duos with either local musician Josh Small and Georgia-based musician Jontavious Willis. Alli has taught the harmonical for many years, at convocations like the Richmond Folk Festival, Centrum’s Acoustic Blues Workshop in Port Townsend, Washington; and at the Augusta Heritage Center. Living Blues magazine has noted that "When Alli sings in a deep, rich tenor and plays his fierce harp that cuts straight back to the golden era, everybody looks up at amazement. It is clear that great things are coming for this talented singer and harmonica player.”
Ross Garren
Ross Garren is a harmonica player, keyboardist, composer and record producer living in Los Angeles, California. He plays many different models of harmonica, including the diatonic, chromatic, chord, and bass harmonicas. Garren’s distinctive harmonica playing has made him an in-demand musician in the recording studios in Los Angeles. His playing has been featured on recordings by, among others, Bon Iver, Kesha, Ben Folds, Bruce Hornsby, Brad Mehldau, Lupe Fiasco, Moses Sumney, Rita Coolidge, Keb' Mo', Jim Keltner, Marco Beltrami, Bear McCreary, Lyle Workman and Alf Clausen. Garren performs regularly in the Los Angeles area with the Sheriffs of Schroedingham and Vignes Rooftop Revival, and tours occasionally with Ben Folds, Marc Cohn and Chelsea Williams. Garren’s outstanding harmonica instruction videos as some of the most popular on harmonica.com, the world’s most popular harmonica instruction web site.