Mount Airy Old-Time Workshops
2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 25, 2023
The Surry Arts Council welcomes everyone interested in making time for old-time in Mount Airy during the Tommy Jarrell Festival. We celebrate the rich contribution of old-time music and dance, past and present. Learn from some of the most esteemed and respected musicians in the field through various workshops during the afternoon at the Historic Earle Theatre, including fiddle, banjo, guitar, bass, singing, and dancing.
The 202 workshop instructors are Martha Spencer and Emily Spencer.
Classes are small with attendance limited for safety.
The Annual Tommy Jarrell Celebration Youth Competition will be held on Saturday, February 25th at 4:00 pm and the Tommy Jarrell Celebration Birthday Concert will feature the Whitetop Mountain Band at 7:30 pm.
See photos and listen to recordings from the 2019 Retreat.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
The classes are held at the Old-Time Music Heritage Hall in the Historic Earle Theatre in downtown Mount Airy. Workshops include fiddle, banjo, guitar, bass, singing, and more.
INSTRUCTORS
Emily Spencer
Emily Spencer has been playing music since her childhood in Arlington, Virginia, where she started out on fiddle, piano, uke and guitar, as well as singing and song writing. She came to southwestern Virginia in the early 70’s as a college student at UVA-Wise (Clinch Valley College) in pursuit of traditional mountain music. She met Thornton Spencer in 1975, and began a new incarnation of the Whitetop Mountain Band, which continues to this day through many life changes. She began teaching Mountain music in 1980 in a community music program in Whitetop, Virginia. From that, she started working along with the late Albert Hash and late Thornton Spencer at Wilkes Community College teaching clawhammer Banjo in Jefferson, Sparta and Wilkesboro, NC. In 1982, a traditional music program was started at Mt. Rogers School. She has been involved teaching since its inception. The program is now in Grayson County Schools at Grayson Highlands and GCHS. Eddie Bond and Martha Spencer are also current instructors. She has taught fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, dulcimer and bass in the school system and is a certified PK-12 instrumental music teacher. She has also been teaching for the past few years through Wytheville Community College at their Crossroads location in Galax, Virginia.
Martha Spencer
Martha Spencer grew up on Whitetop Mountain in a musical family. Her uncle, Albert Hash, was a legendary fiddler and instrument maker who gained widespread attention for his music and craft. He had a great impact on old-time music and taught countless musicians and luthiers. Her parents, Emily and Thornton Spencer are the leaders of the Whitetop Mountain Band and are well-known and respected musicians and teachers of old-time music. Her great-grandfather, Bud Spencer, won many big dance competitions including the Whitetop Folk Festival in the 1930s. Martha began dancing and playing at a very young age. Martha currently plays fiddle, banjo, guitar, bass, dulcimer, and sings. She has won competitions on the banjo, fiddle, and vocals. She has been widely recognized for her Appalachian dancing. She has taken part in master dance workshops at the National Folk Festival (USA), Woodford Folk Festival (AU), and Lowell Folk Festival (USA) and has been a featured dancer at several other festivals and workshops. In 2006, Martha and her father took part in the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities Master Apprenticeship Program for the Old-Time Fiddling Tradition. Martha has been very active in passing on the music and dance traditions to youth in her county and neighboring county schools. Since graduating from high school, she has been an instructor in the Junior Appalachian Music (JAM) program in Ashe County, NC. Martha currently plays with Jackson Cunningham in the Whitetop Mountaineers, the Whitetop Mountain Band, and with Larry Sigmon in the Unique Sound of the Mountains duo.
