Irma Reeder Irma on Celtic harp Celtic harp, mountain dulcimer, bowed psaltery, electric and acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo, bodhran (Irish frame drum), tongue drum, Latin percussion, drum kit, piano, synth, marimbula (giant thumb piano bass), fiddle, ukulele. I was born in Texas, but grew up in Germany, the youngest child of a career Army officer (WWII, Korea, and Vietnam). My family provided a strong early music influence, coming from generations of Ozark mountain musicians including several fiddle makers. Mom taught me to sing melody and harmony with the family long before grade school, and how to tune a guitar to open-G and play using a pencil as a noter before my hand was big enough to reach around the neck. My first guitar student was my best friend, Joanne, in 5th grade. That was a lot of fun, so I started teaching regularly as a teen, as well as directing vocal and instrumental ensembles. I had the opportunity to study vocal performance for over 3 decades with some amazing instructors, and also studied conducting. When I hit college, I fell in love with Broadway musicals, performing in college and local theater groups. I was a soprano soloist with the local symphony, the Michael Iatauro Jazz Quartet, and performed with chorales and light opera and opera companies, including Ensemble Pro Musica, the Celebration Chorale, the Albuquerque Civic Light Opera and the Opera Theater Southwest. After learning to play the delightful mountain dulcimer, I began competing and won the 2009 Colorado State and 2011 Texas State Championships, the 2016 Southern Regional Championship in Mountain View, Arkansas at the Ozark Folk Center. At the National Mountain Dulcimer Championship at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, I tied for fourth place in 2018 and placed third in 2021. I was an instructor at the inaugural Jemez Mountains Dulcimer Festival (Los Alamos, NM), and have taught at the Red River (Red River, NM), Colorado State (Fort Collins, CO; now held in Littleton), Lone Star State (Glen Rose, TX), Winter Festival of Acoustic Music (Irving, TX), and Winter Creek Reunion (Bennington, OK) Dulcimer Festivals as well as at Western Carolina University's Dulcimer U (Cullowhee, NC) and virtually through the New Mexico Dulcimer Festival, Dulcimer U, the QuaranTUNE Virtual Dulcimer Fest, and the North Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Association. Because mountain and hammered dulcimers are so unfamiliar in the western US, I co-founded the non-profit New Mexico Dulcimer Association which produces the annual New Mexico Dulcimer Festival (Albuquerque, NM) where I joyfully slave as Association President, Festival Director, and one of the local instructors/performers. We bring in nationally/internationally-recognized headliners to NM and attendees have come from Maine to Alaska, Florida to California, plus Saskatchewan, Canada. For our 2020 and 2021 online festivals, we added many previously unrepreseted US states, two Canadian Provinces, plus Belgium.
I'm an ongoing manager and past Board of Director for the Albuquerque Folk Festival where I've taught mountain dulcimer, Celtic harp, and led a Country Gospel/Cowboy sing along. I teach individual and group music classes privately and through the University of New Mexico Contiuing Education (see Teaching). Church music has been a central part of my life, and I was honored to serve as Music Administrator and Choir Director in various churches for 35 years. I currently direct of the Albuquerque Oasis Show Tune Choir with jazz pianist accompanist, Scott Hooker. I've had a long succession of bands and ensembles I've started, to include an old-time/Cowboy/country Gospel band, and perform with Scott in our business where we sometimes collaborate with treasured music colleagues. |
Scott Reeder Scott on hammered dulcimer Hammered dulcimer, bowed psaltery, electric and acoustic guitar, mandolin, octave mandolin, Irish tin whistle, low whistle, Baroque recorder, piano, synth, melodica ("half" an accordion), concertina (Victorian-age squeezebox), marimbula, electric bass. I'm a native of Albuquerque. My great great grandfather on my mom's side played fiddle for dances. His wife was a fantastic multi-instrumentalist (reed organ, accordion, concertina, perhaps other things). Family said she always had a song in her heart, was always singing. One of their sons, Joseph M. Baugh (1872-1918) was a career multi-instrumentalist (see photo below). My grandmother said he was a music professor at Texas A&M, but we haven't been able to confirm that. One of Joseph's sons was Gene Baugh who played horns and conducted the WBAP staff radio orchestra in Fort Worth, TX. A daughter was a cathedral organist in New York city. My great grandfather on my mom's side, C.T. Turney, led one of the first large cattle drives from Texas to New Mexico in 1904, settling in Dona Ana county. My mom was born in Mesilla Park outside of Las Cruces, and lived 75 of her almost 90 years in New Mexico. Mom's mother was a concert pianist.  Scott's great-great uncle, Joseph M. Baugh My dad was born and raised in Missouri. He came out to Albuquerque just after high school to work for an uncle before he joined the Navy where he was a radio operator on flying boats. After the Pacific war, he returned to Albuquerque where he became a sound technician with KOB radio in the early days before TV. Dad did studio and offsite venue programs with many early area performers, including a teenage Glen Campbell in his uncle's band, Dick Bills and the Sandia Mountain Boys. Dad told stories of building an early TV out of a surplus military radar scope when TV transmissions first began. Before leaving KOB radio to be an instrumentation engineer with Sandia National Laboratories, dad had became KOB's Chief Radio Engineer. Dad had two sisters. One had a career with the Saint Louis Metropolitan Opera, the other was a professional night club singer. My dad's dad played the Vaudeville circuit, reportedly on any instrument with a keyboard or strings. Mom and dad saw something in me early on, so I started organ lessons at age 4, performing on organ throughout my youth. With both parents from the World War II big band era (mom got her R.N. degree through the Army Cadet Nurse Corps) and lots of that music in the home, I started exploring jazz in my early teens, performing on piano and guitar. I also started playing recorder in high school. I've taken up many additional instruments over the years. I was always singing, even before grade school, and had the opportunity to study voice for 15 years as an adult. I've been in numerous bands, ensembles and chorales, and have performed as tenor soloist in churches, weddings, and the Celebration Chorale. I led weekly church music with Irma for 35 years, and perform with her DBA Scott and Irma Music. We had a Cowboy/country Gospel/old-time fiddle band for 13 years, as well as many other groups, plus Irma's choirs. With Irma, we won the 2016 Southern Regional Ensemble Championship in Mountain View, Arkansas. I've taught acoustic and electric guitar, electric bass, hammered dulcimer, bowed psaltery, Irish penny whistle, Baroque recorder in traditional and Irish styles, as well as instrument amplification and sound system design and operation. I'm an ongoing manager and past Board of Director for the Albuquerque Folk Festival where I've scheduled instrument workshops since 2006, and lead workshops myself. I'm a founding member, Board of Director, and instructor/performer at the New Mexico Dulcimer Festival, and have taught at the Red River (Red River, NM), Colorado State (Fort Collins, CO; now held in Littleton) and Lone Star State (Glen Rose, TX) Dulcimer Festivals, the Winter Festival of Acoustic Music (Irving, TX), the Winter Creek Reunion and Acoustic Music Festival (Bennington, OK), the international QuaranTUNE Virtual Dulcimer Fest and the North Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Association, as well as through the University of New Mexico Contiuing Education. I've scheduled musicians for other various events in Albuquerque including the music stage at Weem's International Artfest. Check out our Store for albums and books. |
Through the years, we've complimented our duet music with many other musicians we've enjoyed. Below are three accomplished friends that we want you to know about. Jane Ellen Jane Ellen Jane Ellen is an active composer, performer (piano, keyboard), and recording artist, with four CDs and over 50 print publications to her credit. Her catalogue to date includes works for chamber ensemble, solo instruments, choir and keyboard, school, and church. Jane's film credits include the theme for the film documentary The Man Who Lost the Civil War (2002), the soundtrack to the German film Ekkelins Knecht (2008), and works in the soundtrack to the HS Maju Productions film Lukisan Hati (2010). Her radio work includes the soundtrack for two radio productions written and produced by Chris Dale; and for six years Jane collaborated on scripts for the national award-winning children's radio program Boombox Classroom. Passionate about theatre, Jane has collaborated with playwrights Christina Hamlett and Kathleen Matthews on several projects and works frequently in collaboration with lyricist Claire Roth. She has lectured on music, history, and entertainment to numerous communities decades. (Irma) We have been friends with Jane since the 1980s. We have performed together in many different contexts and treasured countless music collaborations. My church choirs performed many of Jane's compositions, and on numerous occasions, we even got to hire her as accompaniest. Jane directed the Oasis Singing the Show Tunes choir for 12 years ending with the Spring 2021 semester. I took over from Jane as Director July of 2021. |
Scott Hooker Scott Hooker Paul Scott Hooker was born in Ashland, KY in 1954 and became blind at age ten months due to a premature birth. He studied music formally from age seven through high school. His career as a professional jazz pianist began after he moved to Atlanta in 1976. Some of his early musical influences include Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, Oscar Peterson and “other exemplars of the ‘good left hand.’ He has performed as a duo with his spouse Janna Nelson for the past 35 years - first in Atlanta and now in Albuquerque where they relocated in 2014. Scott's jazz ensemble, Entourage Jazz (or EJAZZ) has been a favorite of New Mexico jazz enthusiasts since 2009. EJAZZ took top Weekly Alibi honors for “Best Performance” for their 2018 Jazz Under the Stars Tribute to Bobby Darin & Frank Sinatra and “Best Album” for their recording, Entourage Jazz Wishes You a Cool Yule. Led by vocalist Emerson Corley, the band specializes in standards from the Great American Songbook and features pianist/arranger, Roger Baker; Lee Taylor, sax; Brad Dubbs, trumpet; Maren Hatch, bass; and John Bartlit, drums. They were also named “Albuquerque’s Best Jazz Band” by the Alibi Best of Burque Music Showcase 2019. EJAAZ's fifth album, Oh, You Crazy Moon, and all things lunar, features ‘moon tunes’ by Henry Mancini, Jimmy Van Heusen, Van Morrison and Harold Arlen. EJAZZ took top honors at the 2021 New Mexico Music Awards for “Best Instrumental Performance” for the album’s recording of Old Devil Moon. (Irma) I've directed the Albuquerque Oasis Singing the Show Tunes tri-semester class chorus since Summer of 2021 with Scott Hooker as rehearsal/performance pianist where we collaborate new arrangements each semester. The chorus performs as the Oasis Entertainers. Scott Hooker and I also lead scheduled Sing Along events at Oasis. |
Gretchen Van Houten Gretchen Van Houten Gretchen Van Houten started playing harmonica and guitar when she was 4. Between the ages of 8 and 17, she had 9 years of classical piano training and 5 years of classical violin. Starting at age 14, Gretchen competed on fiddle for 15 years. She won her first New Mexico State Championship when she was 17, captured that title 6 more times, became the National Fiddle Champion at the Walnut Valley Festival (Winfield, Kansas) in 1992, and later won the prestigious Western Music Association’s fiddle contest at Old Tucson. She is a studio musician, and has radio, TV, movie soundtrack and on-film credits. Gretchen teaches fiddle, flatpick guitar, banjo, mandolin, bass, and piano, with an emphasis on improvisation in Western Swing, Cajun, Irish, Country, Bluegrass, and Texas styles. (Scott) We had Gretchen perform with us as a trio or in various band contexts for many years, and I scheduled Gretchen for performances and workshops at different events and music festivals. Irma studied fiddle with Gretchen and picked her brain when Irma was competing nationally on mountain dulcimer. |