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September 21-24 2023
About Us
Since 2009, the twin boroughs of Rockhill Furnace and Orbisonia, Pennsylvania have been filled with the strains of America's first popular music: Ragtime, brought to life by some of America's leading ragtime piano players.
Enjoy America's Original Music in one of its most historic towns!
Join us September 21-24 2023 for the 14th Annual Central Pennsylvania Ragtime & American Music Festival. Four fun-filled days of music, silent movies, lectures, open houses, and more. Hear Ragtime favorites, Jazz, Boogie-Woogie, Stride, Blues, and hits from the Great American Songbook, all performed by Grammy Award winning musicians. Plus, enjoy rides on the town's two signature attractions, the historic East Broad Top Railroad, and the neighboring Rockhill Trolley Museum!
Our festival is by far the most intimate of the ragtime gatherings - where else in America can you enjoy our nation's musical heritage in such a historic setting? Past performers include Adam Swanson, Frederick Hodges, Martin Spitznagel, Bryan & Yuko Wright, Brian Holland, Danny Coots, Domingo Mancuello, Joey Antico, Bill Edwards, Andrew Greene and the Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra, Ed Clute, Daniel Souvigny, Richard Dowling, and Joyce Richardson. Come join us for some great music!
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The festival is currently managed by Andrew Greene, founder and director of the Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra (www.peacherineragtime.com).
2023 Performer Lineup
Frederick Hodges
Hailed in the press as one of the top concert pianists in the world, Frederick Hodges has established a reputation specializing in late romantic music as well as Ragtime, Broadway, and Hollywood musicals of the first half of the twentieth century by America’s best composers, such as George Gershwin and Cole Porter. He maintains a busy concert schedule of stage, television, radio, and film appearances around the globe. He regularly performs as guest soloist with the California Pops Orchestra and the Pasadena Pops Orchestra, under the baton of Michael Feinstein. Additionally, he is a much sought-after silent film accompanist for both live performances and DVD. He performs regularly at the Hollywood Heritage Museum, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in California, the Cinecon Film Festival in Hollywood, The TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and at silent film festivals around the country. He also performs at music festivals around the country, such as the Sacramento Music Festival, the West Coast Ragtime Festival, and the Sedalia Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival. His website is: www.frederickhodges.com.
T.J. Muller
Multi-instrumentalist T.J. Muller is a bountiful resource of knowledge when it comes to Jazz, Blues Swing and Ragtime music of the early 20th Century. Based in St. Louis, he grew up in the south of England where he heard his father playing the music of the 1920s. He moved to St. Louis in 2013 to play with Pokey LaFarge, and has since formed his own group, The Arcadia Dance Orchestra. He has performed internationally on cornet, banjo, and other instruments. He has previously performed at the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival, the West Coast Ragtime Festival, and at other venues across the United States.
Adam Swanson
Adam Swanson is one of the world’s foremost performers of vintage American popular music, including ragtime, early jazz, the Great American Songbook, and more. He holds a bachelor’s in classical piano and a master’s in musicology from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Adam has been a featured performer and lecturer at ragtime and jazz festivals across the United States and abroad, and he is the only four-time winner of the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest. He made his New York debut in Carnegie Hall at the age of nineteen, where he performed with Michael Feinstein. Adam has performed at the Cinecon Classic Film Festival in Hollywood and the Kennedy Center, as well as in Hungary, Switzerland, and Australia. He has worked with such musicians as Toronto’s John Arpin, former rock star Ian Whitcomb, and legendary 1950s recording artist Johnny Maddox, who was one of Adam’s greatest influences. Adam frequently performs at the Historic Strater Hotel where he makes his home in Durango, Colorado. Visit Adam online: www.adamgswanson.com.
Charlie Judkins and Miss Maybell
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Miss Maybell is a one of a kind contralto singer, multi-intrumentalist, and band leader specializing in Early American Ragtime, Traditional Jazz and old Blues. Miss Maybell and her Band have played shows and Festivals throughout the US and in Europe and have been tremendously well received! Some venues worthy of note overseas are headlining The Sevilla Swing Festival in Spain and playing a week of shows at Marian's Jazz Room in Bern Switzerland. In the US Miss Maybell and her band have played and sold out every show of theirs at the legendary Birdland Theater (in NYC) they have also played at Club Passim (in Boston), Gotham Jazz Fest (NYC) Acoustic Artisans (Portland M.E.), Jug Band Jubilee Festival ( Louisville KY.) They have also had featured shows at The Tri State Jazz Society, Pennsylvania Jazz Society and The West Coast Ragtime Festival!
Miss Maybell's music has also been featured on NPR for the show Person Place, Thing, and on several TV and Radio stations like: 100.1 Radio Woodstock , WMWV, WMPG Portland, WNHN Concord. Miss Maybell and her band have also been been featured several times on WMUR-TV an affiliate of ABC. Miss Maybell’s music was also featured on Dan Aykroyd's Blues Radio Program "Blues Breaker". Miss Maybell was also awarded by New Hampshire Magazine “Best of N.H. 2016”, for Best Americana Music!
Dan Levinson
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The 2017 winner of Hot House Magazine's "NYC Jazz Fans Decision" award for Best Clarinetist, Dan Levinson is equally at home as both leader and sideman, fronting his own groups as well as performing with those led by others. His roster of musical associates includes such names as Mel Tormé, Wynton Marsalis and Dick Hyman. Originally from Los Angeles, Dan has been based in New York City since 1983, although his busy schedule often takes him across the continent and around the world. He has performed in Brazil with filmmaker Woody Allen's band, as well as in Japan, Iceland, Latvia, and 18 European countries. From 1990 to 2009 Dan toured with singer/guitarist Leon Redbone. Since 1993 he has been a member of Vince Giordano's Nighthawks, the country's preeminent 1920s-'30s hot jazz orchestra, with whom he has appeared at Carnegie Hall, on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion radio program. Dan's successful Benny Goodman tributes have been presented both in the U.S. with James Langton's New York All-Star Big Band and in Europe with the Berlin-based Swing Dance Orchestra. Dan has recorded over 150 CDs, including nine under his own name. He can be heard on the soundtracks of the films "The Cat's Meow", "Ghost World", "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond", and Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator", as well as on all five seasons of the Grammy Award-winning HBO television series "Boardwalk Empire" and all three seasons of the Amazon Prime Videoseries "The Marvelous Mrs.Maisel".
Visit Dan on the web at www.danlevinson.com.
Bryan Wright
Bryan S. Wright is a pianist and Grammy-nominated musicologist specializing in ragtime and early jazz piano styles. With his wife, Yuko, he has performed and lectured on ragtime across the United States and abroad, including featured appearances at the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival, the West Coast Ragtime Festival, the JVC Jazz Festival, the Buenos Aires Ragtime Festival, and the Tokyo Ragtime Festival. He has also released two full-length solo CDs, Syncopated Musings and Breakin’ Notes. He is founder and executive producer of Rivermont Records, an internationally-distributed label specializing in ragtime and early jazz. Bryan is also an avid collector of 78rpm records, and he hosts the acclaimed weekly podcast “The Shellac Stack.” Bryan holds degrees in historical musicology from the College of William and Mary and the University of Pittsburgh.
William (Bill) McNally
Called “a hot item” and “powerful,” by the New York Times, William McNally is a two–time winner of the World Championship Old–Time Piano Playing Contest, and three–time winner of their New Rag Contest. He serves as their Contest Coordinator, and he is also the Scott Joplin Foundation’s Ragtime Kid Program Director.
Recently, Dream Shadows was released to high acclaim: reviews in Fanfare Magazine called the recording “highly natural and persuasive…the disc is so good, from beginning to end, that it’s hard to know what to highlight…a treasure!” McNally’s “serious classical” CD with works by Brahms, Reger and Busoni was lauded by the New York Times as “effortless…fascinating…mercurial… and intelligently curious.” His album of the complete solo piano works of Arthur Schutt, paired with novelty works by Vincent Johnson and Art Tatum, and will be released this fall.
He completed his doctorate at CUNY’s Graduate Center, where he studied with Ursula Oppens and wrote a ragtime–focused dissertation. He currently serves on the faculty of Texas State University, and he has previously taught at Queens College and Temple University. He currently lives in Texas with his wife Dasha and eight–year–old son Nick. Both are “piano–friendly.” For more information, visit http://www.williammcnally.com.
Andrew Greene, Festival Director
Andrew Greene is a leading authority on orchestral ragtime and silent film accompaniment in the United States. He is the Founder, Conductor, and Director of the Peacherine Ragtime Society Orchestra, "the premier American Ragtime ensemble" as hailed by the Washington Post, dedicated to preserving and performing America's original popular music: Ragtime. He has appeared such prestigious venues as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution, The American Film Institute, and the Library of Congress, and frequently lectures and performs with his orchestra and in solo piano concerts across the United States. Most recently, he has appeared at the West Coast Ragtime Festival, The Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival, and at other events.​ Mr. Greene appeared as guest conductor for the South Dakota Symphony Chamber Orchestra in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in September of 2013, and the Fremont Symphony Orchestra in March of 2017.
