Scott and his fiddle tune books have inspired and uncountable number of students all over the country. Originally a cellist and orchestra teacher, Scott began studying Irish music in the 90’s. He was Introduced to the Irish fiddle by Greensboro’s Fiddlin’ Fred Lail, studied with several great Irish fiddlers, including James Kelly, Seamus Connally, and Rose Connally. Over the years he has enjoyed playing with several Irish groups in the Greensboro/Chapel Hill North Carolina area, including “The New Potatoes”, “The So-Be-It-Union”, and “The Big Celtic Fun”. With these groups has played for many contra dances, weddings, parties and festivals. For 20 years he has directed a student fiddle group in Greensboro called “The Walker Street Fiddlers”. A regular on the Suzuki Institute circuit as a cello teacher, now he also offers classes in Irish Fiddle, as well as Irish Cello, basically his own invention. Since 2003, with his brother Landon and his daughter Jennie, The Walker Family Band performs and offers the delightful fiddle camp held in Blowing Rock, NC every summer.

Landon has a long history as a professional musician. After studying classical bass and composition at FSU, he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, and began a 40-year career as a successful jazz bassist. He became intimately familiar with the music, performing with many local musicians, and had the opportunity to play with some of the world’s foremost players, including Lionel Hampton and Marilyn McPartland. A musical pioneer in public radio in Jacksonville, he was well known on both fronts. Landon played bass (and tuba) in ensembles large and small, from big bands to opera. Since his brother Scott introduced him to Irish music, he has taken up the accordion and the banjo and has composed quite a number of tunes that are Irish in nature, with a twist that reveals his very rich musical past. He and his wife Linda Minke are founding members of Celtic Ring, a performing group in northeast Florida.

Scott’s daughter, Jennie Walker Brunner brightens up any room with her infectious dancing style as she plays her fiddle tunes, including some very fine ones of her own. Jennie is versed in classical playing, first as a Suzuki child, and with quite a number of fine teachers during her college years. She learned Irish fiddling from her Dad, and introduced to American Old Time from her friend, Caroline Pond in Boone, N.C. Her inspiration to write and perform her own fiddle tunes was the impetus for the birth of The Walker Family Band. After gaining a Degree in Music Education at Texas State University, and shortly after moving to Asheville, she served as the concertmaster of Western North Carolina’s own Blue Ridge Orchestra. She is very comfortable in this genre. Presently she is raising a family, teaching orchestra at the local Waldorf School, playing with The Walker Family Band, and has formed a student group of fiddlers who perform in the Asheville area.

Quiet by nature and content outside the spotlight, Scott cannot quite disguise the fact that he is nothing less than a musical force. He attracts other musicians like a magnet, from the Triad communities to well beyond. Scott elevates any band to an exponentially higher level. He was well known in his youth as a rock and roll guitar player, left that genre, traveled through a few others, and is now versed as a jazz guitarist. He is also an expert old time banjo player, plays lap steel, and slide guitar, and more. We are always surprised by the creativity and care Scott puts into his playing, and always look forward to his take on our tunes. It is never the same twice! For the last several years he has worked closely with Laurelyn Dossett, a grammy nominated composer from Stokes County, NC. Scott is fluent in so many styles and on so many instruments it is hard to think of a musical circle that would fall outside his comfort zone.

Aisha Ivey earned her doctorate in music education from Florida State university. A champion fiddler, Aisha has won the southeastern United States Scottish fiddle Championship for ten years in a row, and she has also won awards and ribbons for her Irish, Old-Time and Scandinavian fiddling. She even won the award for ‘Best march’ at the 2010 National Scottish Fiddle Competition in Williamsburg, Virginia. Several of Aisha’s fiddle students have won awards at state, regional and national fiddle contests as well.

Aisha has studied with some of the world’s best fiddlers including Mark O’Connor, Eileen Ivers, Bonnie Rideout, Laura Risk, Brian Conway, and James Kelly Elke Baker and many others. She has taught privately and with music schools in Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee and she also teaches workshops and clinics around the region. She currently directs AZIZA! (a Middle Easter music and dance group) and she started and teaches the Old Time Ensemble class at Florida State University. She has recorded several CD’s of traditional fiddle music with different musicians and she performs regularly at area festivals and concert venues. She served as the president of the Florida State Fiddlers Association from 2011-2015. “Aisha currently performs with the Celtic band, Cuttin’ Bracken, and an all-female Scandinavian string trio called Västra.

Fiddle!

Meghan graduated from the University of North Carolina – Greensboro with a degree in Anthropology and a minor in Human Development & Family Studies (HDFS). Afterward, she attended the Child & Family Studies graduate program at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, where she had the unique opportunity to conduct field research in Ethiopia. Meghan returned to the Greensboro, NC area where she is employed as a Research Associate on an exciting new study in the department of HDFS at her Alma Mater, UNCG.

Along with her mother Teresja Poole and stepdad Scott Walker, Meghan has been a member of the Walker Family Band Camp since its inception in 2002 — when she was about 15 years old – and has remained a member of the faculty since 2008. Meghan began teaching individual and small group violin lessons in 2007. Meghan is certified to work with individuals with developmental disabilities (the IDD population). She recently added an enthusiastic adult student within her local IDD population to her group of beginning students. 

Meghan is also conversationally “fluent” in American Sign Language (ASL), and enjoys spending time with her friends in the D/deaf and hard of hearing community (D/deaf/HH), and meeting new people at Deaf events in and around the Greensboro area.​ ​In her free time, Meghan also enjoys spending time with family and friends, singing, reading, volunteering, being outside, and traveling whenever possible.

Kim is an accomplished educator and coach with over twenty years of experience. He earned his BA from Pembroke State University and followed with an M.F.A. from UNCG. He has an extensive background in ceramics, photography and sculpture techniques as well as in teaching drawing, painting and printmaking. Kim’s significant experience with technology includes use of Adobe Photoshop Elements, print shop and more. He is presently teaching art and ceramices and is the head women’s soccer coach at the Greensboro Day School.

He is very active as a studio artist, producing and selling his pottery and photography at exhibits and workshops throughout the Southeast. He recently traveled to Wales and England for internships with several internationally known potters and is continually working to improve himself as an artist. In his tenure as soccer coach at the Greensboro Day School, he has had 3 nationally ranked teams and a overall record of 278 wins – 36 losses – 17 ties.

He usually begins the week helping the students to create pottery, and then, while those pieces are being fired, he gives students opportunities with photography, paper making, rubbings and more. His classes are very popular, for good reason. The huge amount and very high quality of art that our campers produce during the week is a testament to the work of this amazing teacher and artist, and to the creative campers that return to Blowing Rock, year after year!  We are honored to have such a fine teacher and artist return to The Walker Family Band Camp for his 6th year!

Ruth came to camp in 2014 to call our first ever camp wide contra dance. Before we were done, everyone at camp was begging for more! The entire WFB faculty and staff were thrilled when Ruth agreed to return in 2015 and she has returned every summer since. She is an experienced and delightful teacher of folk dance including clogging, flatfoot and contra. She is in demand as a caller in dance circles across the eastern seaboard and dances with the Cane Creek cloggers at venues far and wide. Ruth is gifted in her ability to take large group of inexperienced yet enthusiastic campers and have them dancing like veterans after the first few carefully selected dances. Fun, laughter, and a feeling of community prevail from youngster, to teen, to parents and grandparents in classes and on dance night!

In addition to directing all those dancing feet, Ruth shares the same energy that makes her dances so inclusive and fun with our teenage group at the Calvin Lodge! As the chaperon of this lively group, Ruth not only endears herself to the students, but also plans and coaches some amazing group performances. Ruth’s enthusiasm and energy evidently has no boundaries! Up early in the morning, Ruth insures the teens at Calvin Lodge are up and out for breakfast; she teaches dance classes during the day and leads a contra dance every afternoon after classes, and still organizes and strategizes with 20 or 30 kids of all ages as the referee for an afternoon game of Capture the Flag!