Teachers

Keith Berland

Keith Berland grew up in the Midwest, playing music from a young age. He started on piano, and played trombone in orchestras, wind ensembles, and jazz combos for almost 20 years, including semi-professionally during his college years. A college course in ethnomusicology led him to country dancing, which sparked an interest in string band music and a love for acoustic ensemble music. In exploring world music styles, he discovered Irish Traditional Music and immediately fell in love with the tunes and the culture. After playing Irish, old-time, and folk styles on guitar and mandolin for many years, he took the leap to pursue his dream of playing Irish fiddle, which has now been his passion for almost 20 years. His experiences as an adult learner give him unique insights into the challenges and opportunities adult learners often face.

Over the years, Keith has studied fiddle with many world-renowned Irish fiddlers including masters such as Rose Flanagan, Liz Carroll, Liz Knowles, Brian Conway, Martin Hayes, Gerry O’Connor, James Kelly, Kevin Burke, Dylan Foley, Finn Magill, and many others. He has also studied at over a dozen week-long music intensives at the Willie Clancy week in Miltown-Malbay, Ireland and at the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina.

Keith performs as a member of the Irish trio, Celtic Brew, and he also plays regularly at sessions around town. He has over 30 years of experience as an educator and is also a trained and certified life coach. His musical and professional experiences give him unique insights into how we learn and grow as musicians, and those insights inform his teaching at the Frank Hamilton School.

Louis Cayedito

Louie grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was surrounded by music in his home: his mom was an elementary vocal music teacher and his father was a gigging guitar player. Louie started his musical life as a trumpet player. He was a standout at Grandville High School, leading his school’s symphonic, jazz, and marching bands. Louie picked up the banjo in college, inspired by accompanying his late father.

Louie is passionate about traditional bluegrass banjo. He jams locally in the Decatur area and gigs whenever the opportunity arises. Louie is skilled at breaking down the process of achieving proficiency on an instrument. He is excited to teach advancing banjo players at Frank Hamilton School.

Chuck Cogliandro

Chuck Cogliandro is from Detroit, Michigan and has lived several places in the Atlanta area since 1992, currently making his home in Lithonia on the edge of Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area with his wife Kelly, their two cats, 18 chickens, and numerous garden beds. He has a degree in electrical engineering and has made his life in music and drumming since 1988.

With his first teacher, Brother Yusef Crowder, Chuck learned to carve the traditional West African drum called the djembe, and has gone on to study, teach, and perform polyrhythmic group drumming for more than 30 years. He has specialized in therapeutic drumming as well for populations that include students with learning differences and neurodiversity, as well as years of experience providing rhythm sessions for youth and adults in psychiatric care and addiction recovery.

Chuck also has a four-year degree from the Barbara Brennan School of Energy Healing, and with Kelly has a practice in the ancestral healing method of Family Constellations, serving individuals and groups in the Atlanta area and internationally.

Mozelle Cole

A DeKalb County native, Mozelle has taught K-8 music and chorus around Atlanta for nearly 40 years. She studied piano at UGA, where she also marched clarinet with the Redcoats, and completed a master’s in Music Ed at Georgia State.

Her folk music roots run deep: she grew up listening to her dad play guitar and jam with his friends, and her family often gathered on the back patio, singing and talking into the night. She says, “I had a good music education from so many teachers. Now I mesmerize my students regularly at Fernbank Elementary playing banjo, dulcimer and recorder, and am thrilled to be a part of the Frank Hamilton School.”

Dave Coons

Dave Coons, our song session leader, taught theater and directed productions in high school, college and community playhouses for over forty years.

While at NYU, he studied musical theater with Lehman Engel. With his wife, Karen, he wrote the musical Great Expectations! which is performed annually in schools and community theaters throughout the U.S.

Glen DeMeritt

Glen hails from Wichita, Ks where he studied with the great Craig Owens and other accomplished composers and teachers at Wichita State University. He started teaching in 2004 and quickly found joy in helping others find their musical voice. Whether he’s playing in his band, The Pour Downs, or helping someone else get it together, Glen is grateful to share a musical experience with you.

Vikki Ganger

After an early fascination with music making, beginning with a plastic recorder in fourth grade, a guitar during the Beatles era, and a largely unsuccessful stab at the autoharp (too many strings and a lack of electronic tuners), Vikki’s musical journey began in earnest when she found an Appalachian dulcimer in a Sears Surplus outlet in Houston, Texas. Priced at $12.00, the affordability of this treasure was likely based on the fact that no one in Texas, let alone Sears, knew what it was. Despite a broken scroll, missing strings, and a missing fret, the instrument was finally made playable and sparked a lifelong journey into traditional folk music.

Vikki helped found the first Dulcimer club in Houston, and later moved to East Tennessee where she played with the dulcimer trio Mountain Laurel. Along the way she picked up various other folk instruments, but her love of the dulcimer remained. After moving to Georgia, she became a member of the North Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Association, and has played with the Red Top Porch Pickers, presenting period music at living history events sponsored by the Georgia State Parks. Her dulcimer collection currently includes several Appalachian lap dulcimers, a hammered dulcimer, a banjo dulcimer, and a bowed dulcimer.

Brad Gilmer

Growing up in New Mexico, Brad picked up the classical Spanish Guitar, which he studied for over six years. During this time, he also played the harmonica, but never could figure out how to unlock the power of the instrument. After six years of effort, Brad was supremely frustrated. He could not play a note without sheet music. Like many would-be musicians, he quit playing music for the next twenty-five years.

Years later, Brad decided he wanted to play again, and concentrated on music that moved him, rather than the tunes he found in method books. The blues harmonica called out to him again after so many years. With the invention of the internet, he found online lessons and was able to learn by ear.

Brad finally discovered how to unlock the power of the harmonica, with techniques such as bending and overblowing, and he has never looked back. Brad has played in Savannah with several groups, but now in Atlanta, he enjoys playing with the Nitty Gritty Goat Band. He truly loves communicating with others through that special language called music.

Max Godfrey

Max’s first love is traditional American music. He has led workshops on worksongs and other call-and-response songs at colleges, farms, and community centers all over the northeast, including Sheepscot General, Whitefield ME; Williams College; Full Plate Farm Collective, Ithaca NY; Common Ground Farm, Beacon NY; Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation, Williamstown MA; SUNY New Paltz; and Billings Forge Community Works, Hartford CT. He has also taught worksongs and old-time fiddle at the Folk Music Society of New York Spring weekend 2014.

Max’s vision is to give his students the tools they need to play by ear, play with others, improvise, and teach themselves. He makes it fun and easy for people learn together by using a call-and-response teaching method that develops a strong connection between ear, voice, and instrument. Then it’s natural to learn new music and join in with any group, and to play or sing well, too!

Max regularly performs in Atlanta at Freedom Farmers Market at the Carter Center, Grant Park Farmers Market, East Atlanta Farmers Market, Root City Pop-up Markets, and The Pullman in Kirkwood. Max’s essays on worksongs have been published in Taproot (Issue 13) and on Bennett Konesni’s worksongs.org.

Facebook pages for Max’s current projects:

Max and Maggie
Max Godfrey (Solo performance, lessons, writing, and workshops)
The New Millennium Jelly Rollers
Sourwood Honey

Max teaches Old-time American fiddle styles, clawhammer banjo and country-blues and folk guitar privately. You can contact him about lessons at mgodfrey218@gmail.com, or 404 218 4707.

Frank Hamilton

Not that long ago, American folk songs were like copper or gold. Though you might discover a local musical gem crackling over the airwaves on late night radio, you had to mine the hills and valleys of this country to find the bulk of authentic American folk music. The general listening public had never heard the real stuff, the music made by real Americans, music with real American origins.

That is until people like Frank Hamilton came along. Like Alan Lomax, Peter Seeger, Jack Elliott and Guy Carawan, a man Frank hitchhiked clear across the lower 48 to meet, the young Frank Hamilton combed the country in the early 1950’s, finding and learning songs that remained unpretentious, songs that grew uncontaminated in pockets of expertise, music played by community folk with regional idiosyncrasies, music with deep roots and meaningful lyrics.

Andy Howard

Andy Howard is the Director of the clogging and string band performance troupe American Racket (a Georgia-chartered 501c3, @americanracket) and Sautee Stomp Clogging Weekend in North Georgia. He plays fiddle in Atlanta-based string band, The Sugar Gliders (@thesugarglidersot). In 2021, Andy and Maura Nicholson launched the Oldtime Jam Repertoire classes at the Frank Hamilton School for musicians interested in plugging into local and festival jamming opportunities.

He earned a Masters of Arts in American Dance Studies from Florida State University, authoring a thesis on the origins of American Team Clogging in North Carolina. He also earned a Masters of Arts in International Business from the University of Florida. He worked professionally in arts administration for Orlando Repertory Theatre, Orlando Opera Company, and the University of Florida College of the Arts. Currently, he manages two 501c3 organizations that support research at Georgia Tech.

He is a leader in the clogging community, a regular featured instructor at clogging events throughout North America and a clogging competition judge. His troupe, American Racket, has performed throughout the U.S. and in South Korea, Italy, Brazil, Canada and Costa Rica.

He has taught credit-earning dance courses in tap, clogging and world dance at Florida State University and Santa Fe College, worked as an entertainer at Walt Disney World Resort and past dance instructor for the University of Florida’s Dance for Life program for people with Parkinson’s Disease and their caregivers.

Bella Issakova

Bulgarian born, classically educated violinist Bella Issakova has spent the past 30 years performing and teaching. In the mid 1990’s, in addition to playing in orchestras and chamber groups, Bella began exploring other genres of music, bluegrass and jazz being the first forays outside of the classical structure. Eventually Bella discovered and fell in love with the Traditional music of Ireland, and has had the fortune and privilege to play and tour extensively in that field.

Among the various projects she is involved with, Bella was the musical director for Kerry Irish Productions’ “An Irish Christmas” tour from 2005 to 2018, which covered most of the continental US. Bella was a member of the Traditional Irish band The Red Wellies for a number of years between tours with Kerry Irish Productions.

Bella continues to play with several Irish music groups, as well as classical groups and orchestras, and enjoys this opportunity for crossover and bridge between her two favorite styles of music.

Her debut album “Come in From the Rain” with Irish Bouzouki player Randy Clepper was released in December of 2025.

Also a busy private lesson teacher, Bella enjoys passing her love and knowledge of both classical and Traditional Irish genres to a wide variety of musicians of different levels and ages.

Patrick Jackson

Patrick Jackson grew up in northwest Georgia and started playing guitar in his teens. He got into bluegrass in his early 30s, first playing the banjo, then mandolin, flatpicking guitar, bass, and dobro. He has played with several area bluegrass and old-time groups, but his greatest musical interest is in jamming informally with friends and strangers.

David Robert King

David Robert King is a singer-songwriter and musician known for his boneyard truth telling, worn and vulnerable voice, and his melodic and soulful guitar playing. His professional music career has seen him tour the world as a solo artist, as well as with the GRAMMY-nominated Mary Gauthier and NBC The Voice’s Sarah Potenza. King’s debut E.P., Take Me Home, was released in 2010 and reached the top 40 on the Folk Music Charts. In 2011, he released the full-length album, Midnight in Gloryland. In 2018, he released the album Idaho. He has performed on The Grand Ole Opry and at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe sharing the stage with notable artists such as Josh Ritter, Loudon Wainwright III, Darrell Scott, Over the Rhine, Don Henry, The Mark O’Connor Band, and Tim O’Brien, and has collaborated with Emily Saliers of The Indigo Girls and Jonatha Brooke.

Beyond performing, King is committed to the craft of songwriting. In 2017, he piloted the first songwriting class at the Frank Hamilton School. Today, he is based in Scottdale, where he owns and operates Hummingbird Recording Studio. He lives there with his 7-year-old daughter, Lucy.

Evan Kinney

Evan Kinney grew up in a family of old time music in his native Kennesaw, Georgia. He learned from his father at an early age and has continued to hone his skills by studying the eccentric playing of 20’s recording artists such as John Dilleshaw, The Skillet Lickers and Earl Johnson. Evan has performed with bands such as The Griddle Lickers, Georgia Crackers and Dixieland Squirrel Skinners and has taught and performed traditional music at The Blue Ridge Old Time Week in Mars Hill, John C. Campbell, The Alabama Folk School, Festival of American Fiddle Tunes and The Brooklyn Folk Fest.

Mick Kinney

Mick Kinney enjoys fiddling a variety of styles including Appalachian, Cajun, Celtic, Blues and Swing. A professional musician since 1978, he has played the 1982 World Fair, McCabe’s, House of Blues, Bluebird Cafe, Rendez vous des Cajuns, and NPR’s Mountain Stage. Mick has performed with John Hartford, Victoria Williams, Michelle Malone, Atlanta blues man Frank Edwards, and 1920s recording artist Stranger Malone. Recent collaborations as a folklorist have been with the Smithsonian New Harmonies exhibit, Georgia Humanities Council, Carpetbag Theater, Dust to Digital Records and Northwest Georgia Textile Heritage Trail. Currently, Mick appears often with Elise Witt, jazz clarinetist Dub Hudson, and the Kinney family old time dance band “The HickHoppers.” He has been an instructor at Swannanoa Gathering, John C. Campbell Folk School, Mars Hill College, Alabama Folk School, and Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. His class will focus on traditional fiddle technique and musical concepts such as scales, modes, and harmony.

Jordi Lara

Jordi Lara grew up just outside of Atlanta. He first picked up a guitar at age 9 which was overshadowed by the cello a year later – an instrument which he studied throughout his undergrad years at the University of Georgia.

Using the tools he’d learned from years of playing guitar and cello, Jordi picked up the electric bass to accompany college bands and play in jam sessions. He fell in love with the instrument and all of the harmonic and rhythmic capabilities he uncovered with it.

While in Athens, Jordi and two friends tried on various musical outfits before landing in bluegrass music and forming The Afternoon Raccoons. Not long after the music went acoustic, so did the bass – the electric bass and the upright position of the cello had prepared Jordi to swing right into playing upright bass.

Jordi continued to play bluegrass music with his friends and to study bass in the jazz program at UGA, giving him the opportunity to play upright in a wide variety of settings around Athens.

Now back in Atlanta, Jordi continues to learn and grow on both bass and cello, branching out to new styles and focusing primarily on developing his improvisational skills while maintaining his classical chops and technique.

John Maschinot

John put down guitar and took up penny whistle as a young lad in the 1970s after realizing there were just too many Jimmy Page, Ace Frehley and Doc Watson wannabes to compete with. After meeting the great Chicago uilleann piper Joe Shannon, he added the pipes and Irish wooden flute to his instrumental arsenal and set off on a lifelong musical journey. In the late ’70s/early ’80s John was keen to destroy a few good tunes with fellow beginners at whatever establishment or street corner would be fool enough to have them.

But by the mid ’80s he found his way and started The Buddy O’Reilly Band, for many years the big cheese of the Atlanta Irish/folk music scene. “The Buddies” have produced 3 albums and a whole lot of great music and fun!

John has since gone on to a solo career and participates in many bands and collaborations. His latest venture is with the music and dance trio, Ah Surely. And he’s been involved with productions big and small. He created and produces Atlanta’s annual Celtic Christmas concert, celebrating 27 years in 2018.

He’s a leader at The Marlay House Trad Tuesday night in Decatur – 10 years of trad music!

John’s been teaching Irish music workshops and privately for about half of his 58 years.

And he discovered, though he couldn’t quite match Jimi Hendrix’s guitar on uilleann pipes, he could at least come close to his soul!

Jenna Mobley

Jenna Shea Mobley is a touring and studio musician based out of Atlanta. She plays mostly fiddle and upright bass these days, though her first instruments were banjo, guitar, and piano. She has been a teacher of each of these instruments to students of all ages over the past 15 years, in both individual lessons and group classes and workshops.

While she was trained classically from middle school through college, she now plays more old time and folk styles and teaches primarily ear training, improvisation, and folk/popular repertoire. Her degree in Early Childhood Education and her career as an elementary school teacher strongly influence her pedagogical approach and her deep love for building a community of learners and creatives. Her goal is for her students to be life-long musicians with the skills to learn songs they love and connect with others through music.

Maura Nicholson

Maura grew up in a family inclined to musical talents, in a city inclined to supporting the arts. Piano, violin, and singing were her hobbies all through school. She majored in music at Emory with a vocal concentration. The years after college brought a family of five, all of whom participated in music of one kind or another. During that time, Maura’s love of the violin became a hobby, something she dabbled at periodically. But once she found the Frank Hamilton School, her love returned to a passion, and the school inspired her to switch from violin to fiddle, a change that has kept her playing almost every day, more for the enjoyment of playing than to perfect the music for performance. Maura retired from teaching high school and found herself returning to teaching, only this time, to share her love of fiddle playing for anyone who believes it’s too hard. She finds her motivation in the joy the students receive in learning to play.

Barbara Panter-Connah

Barbara grew up in Atlanta in a musical family from Copperhill, TN, a copper mining town on the GA/TN line. Her fiddling grandfather, John B. (“Uncle Bert”) Panter played for house dances, barn raisings, and other community gatherings, often alongside Fiddlin’ John Carson. After surviving a mine cave-in where his brother was killed, Barbara’s grandfather declared that no son of his would work in the mines. Thus the whole family including Barbara’s grandparents, parents, and all but two of her father’s siblings moved to Atlanta in the 1940s after WWII, providing a large extended family. Barbara’s father, John Panter Jr., one of 7 brothers and 2 sisters, was a fine singer with a beautiful tenor voice and a keen sense of harmony. Some of Barbara’s earliest memories are of falling to sleep at family gatherings listening to gospel singing with beautiful harmonies. At the age of 3 Barbara began playing piano and singing and strumming her little ukulele and sang her 1st solo in church at the age of 4. Her grandfather gave her his fiddle when she was 8 years old and told her he expected her to become a fiddler, further setting her on course for a lifetime of music.

Barbara has played with several bands and performed throughout the southeast, in the northeast, southwest, British Isles, and even Serbia. She played and sang for over 40 years with her late husband, Whit Connah, in the band, Hurt Dog, that began in the 70s as an acoustic hillbilly, honky tonk, old time, Cajun band that evolved into Hair of the Dog with drums, and electric guitar, bass, and pedal steel; and continues with her son and daughter-in-law John and Audrey Ferguson, among others. Barbara is currently a member of The Rosin Sisters with Ann Whitley and Jan Smith, three fiddling “sisters” who love playing fiddle tunes and singing early country songs, with close attention to harmony! Barbara loves teaching and facilitating others to find their way on fiddle or guitar, and delights in guiding harmony singing in a supportive fun environment. Barbara, with the Rosin Sisters, has had considerable experience leading harmony workshops at Blue Ridge Old Time Music Week at Mars Hill, NC; at Bear on the Square Festival in Dahlonega, GA, and the Dulcimer and Old Time Festival in Palestine, TX.

Jeff Pearlman

Jeff has been playing music since taking up the trumpet in middle school. Highlights of his four years in the high school marching band include a stint on tuba and meeting his wife. Jeff also began playing guitar in high school. When Jeff’s children were younger, neighbor Frank Hamilton recommended the ukulele for them. The kids didn’t learn the instrument, but Jeff did. The ukulele led to banjo and then a return to guitar. Over the years, Jeff has spent countless hours sharing music with school-aged children and adult peers.

Jeff approaches music lessons as a collaboration between teacher and student. By nurturing a rapport with his students, he can shape his classes to satisfy the individual tastes and goals of everyone in the group. In his class you’ll develop not just as an instrumentalist, but also as a musician; learning by ear will give you the the ability to play the songs you’ll learn from Jeff, and the capacity to play along with songs you don’t know!

Paul Shaw

Paul Shaw grew up in the Northeast and was exposed to rock and country music as a kid. He started playing drums at four years old and guitar at 3. His favorite percussion instruments, outside of the drum set, include cajon and doumbek. As a jazz drummer, Paul toured the US, Europe, and Asia during a 20-year career in the U.S. Air Force. He has taught undergraduate classes at several universities including Mercer and private drum lessons for the last twenty-five years.

On guitar, Paul is currently studying bluegrass flatpicking and loves hanging at the Wednesday jam at FHS! He is an active songwriter and plays duo shows with his wife, Melanie, as Acoustic Station. He also plays drums for Evan Stepp and the Piners, The Big Peach Swing Band, and various freelance projects.

Dave Soleil

Dave Soleil is a multi-instrumentalist from Decatur and organizes the FHS bluegrass jam along with FHS banjo instructor Louie Cayedito. Dave grew up in Chicago in a musical family. He started playing blues harmonica at age 16 studying under Joe Filisko, harmonica instructor at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Dave had the pleasure of being invited to play multiple times at the Mississippi Delta Blues & Heritage Festival as well as participating in Howard Levy’s first Harmonica Summit. Dave has also been a guitar and mandolin student at the Frank Hamilton School since the early days in Candler Park where he has learned to play across multiple genres. Bluegrass music is a passion for him and he’s excited to share his love for bluegrass with others.