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Tom, Betty & Nathan Druckenmiller
Tom Druckenmiller has been playing music for longer than he might like to admit. A fine
clawhammer banjo player, Tom has been influenced by the West Virginia banjo master Dwight
Diller, and has studied guitar with Norman and Nancy Blake. He also plays music on the
radio for WDIY, 88.1 FM, the community public radio station for the Lehigh Valley. Tom's
Wednesday night show, "In the Tradition,"
features all varieties of American-made music, including old-time, blues, Cajun, bluegrass,
Celtic-based and Native American, from sources old and new. Tom also
reviews traditional music for Sing Out! Magazine, and
teaches banjo and guitar at Meadowood Music, in Blandon, PA. He has been on staff at the
Augusta Heritage Center, teaching guitar and production for old-time music radio programming.
Betty Druckenmiller began learning old-time fiddle tunes by ear about 15 years ago. Wilson
Douglas was the source of many of her favorite tunes, as well as important encouragement
in those early days when it might have been a better decision to leave her fiddle in the
case. She's also studied with other fiddlers, including Bill Hicks, Jimmy Triplett and
Bruce Molsky. Singing has also been her focus; the Carter Family, Kay Justice and Ginny
Hawker, the Blue Sky Boys and Ralph Stanley are frequently on the CD player in her car as
she sings to work. She is learning to play banjo, too.
Their son Nathan performs with Tom and Betty. He is twenty two, and has been a working
musician since the age of twelve. Starting with Suzuki violin at an early age, he now
plays guitar, mandolin, fiddle and banjo. Nathan has studied with fiddlers Dave Bing,
Jimmy Triplett and Bruce Molsky, banjo players Ron Mullenex and Joe Newberry, mandolinists
Jim Watson and Chirps Smith and flatpicker Steve Kilby. From 2000-2004 Nathan was awarded
Youth Scholarships to attend the Augusta Heritage Workshops in Elkins, WV to study fiddle,
banjo and guitar as an advanced student. Nathan will graduate from Kutztown University in
May '06 as a furniture design major, with plans to become a luthier. Nathan was the winner
of the Fall Fiddle Festival competition in Lyons, PA in September 2003, finished third the
next year and second in 2005. Tom and Nathan came in second in the Chicory House Duet
Competition in February 2004 in Wilkes Barre, PA. Nathan also performs in the house band
for shows at The Pines Theater, Slatington, PA.
Betty, Tom and Nathan perform regularly in Eastern Pennsylvania and beyond, including at
the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Mayfair, the Fall Fiddle Festival at Lyons, First Night
Bethlehem, Landhaven Bed & Breakfast, at and several regional dances. They are warmly
welcomed at Godfrey Daniels at least once a year. They've played at the Augusta Heritage
Festival in Elkins, West Virginia, the Park Slope Bluegrass and Old-Time Jamboree in
Brooklyn NY, the Mt. Airy Fiddlers Convention in North Carolina, the Mountain Moon
Coffeehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia, The Aerie Coffeehouse, the Cape Cod Fiddlefest,
and at the Autumn Leaves Festival and the Forksville Folk Festival in northern PA.
They've played live on the radio for Gene Shay, WXPN, in Philadelphia, on WCOJ AM , and
for "Heartlands Hayride," on WDVR in Sergeantsville NJ. Their four recordings
have been enjoyed by radio listeners throughout the United States and Canada, and as far
away as Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Their new recording, "Back Home," will feature live in-concert and live
in-studio recordings, and should be released in late Spring, 2006.
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