Titles by: RICHARD STILLMAN
RICHARD STILLMAN
Rich Stillman found the banjo - literally - in 1974 at a yard sale and has been teaching and playing professionally since 1977. He has appeared on over a dozen CDs and recording projects, has appeared onstage with some of the pioneers of bluegrass, and regularly plays shows and festivals as a member of the New England bluegrass band Southern Rail. Rich was the New Jersey Banjo Champion in 1984, the New England Banjo Champion in 2002 and 2003, and a six-time winner at the Lowell, MA Fiddle and Banjo Contest. In the 1990s, Rich founded WayStation, a band that combined folk and blues material with bluegrass instrumentation. WayStation toured for eight years and recorded one successful CD. Along the way, Rich found time to fill the banjo chair with local favorites Adam Dewey and Crazy Creek and The Bogus Family, recording two CDs with each, and played memorable sets with artists as diverse as Peter Rowan, James Monroe, the Tufts University Concert Choir and the Arlington, Massachusetts High School Orchestra. Rich has taught several hundred students in private lessons, and hundreds more in workshops, to play or improve their playing skills. He has been on the faculty of Banjo Camp North for ten of its eleven years, has taught at many music schools in northeastern Massachusetts, and internationally via Skype, and is currently on the applied faculty of the Music department at Tufts University.