Type of Entertainment: Music/Vocal, Specialty, Folk, History Rating: Everyone
AWARDS
2007: Quality of Life Award for collecting hsitroic music and producing musical events reflelctive of the roots music of rural Illinois.
2001: Administrative Fellowship, Illinois Arts Council to conduct the Illinois Mississippi River Valley Project.
1998: National Federation of Community Broadcaster's Special Merit Award for National Music/Entertainment Series for the Rural Route 3 Radio Show.
1995: National Federation of Community Broadcaster's Bronze Reel Award for National Music/Entertainment Series for the Rural Route 3 Radio Show.
1987: Nominated for the Illinois Arts Council's Governor's Award for Individual Artist.
1986: Illinois Arts Council Artists Fellowship Award for Music Composition.
1985: Finalist at the Kerrville Folk Festival Songwriting Competition, Kerrville, Texas.
SPECIAL PROJECTS
2008: March 8th Abraham Lincoln in Song CD reaches #10 on the Billboard Bluegrass Album Charts
2008: Keynote Speaker, Conference of the Midwest Open Air Museum Coordinating Council, Using Music in a Museum Context
2006-2008:Illinois State Scholar for the Smithsonian Institution's traveling exhibition on Roots Music, New Harmonies.
2006: Host and performer on Chicago Public Television's Arts Across Illinois Centerstage, Live!
2003: Artistic producer and performer for the Illinois Mississippi River Valley Project Festival, a weekend of workshops and performances August 15th and 16th, in Galena, IL.
2003: Co-producing the Folk Songs of Illinois CD for the Illinois Humanities Council's Heritage Music Project CD series.
2001-2002: Carried out the field work for the Illinois Arts Council's Illinois Mississippi River Valley Project, designed to document the artists along the Mississippi River.
October 2000: Performer and Producer of the On the Farm Harvest Festival for the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, IL.
1990-1997: Host and co-producer of the award winning nationally syndicated public radio series Rural Route 3.
1993-1994: The Civil War and Reconstruction. 22 part public television series. Composed, performed and recorded the theme song, arranged, performed and recorded period music on vintage instruments for the sound track.
1993: Echoes Of A Country Schoolhouse. Commissioned by the Gardener Museum of Architecture, Quincy, IL to co-write and perform in a 2 person interactive play on the one room schoolhouse experience.
1992-1993: Illinois Historic Panorama. Composed, performed, and recorded the soundtrack for the 13 part public television series on the history of Illinois from the glaciers to the present.
1987: The Schuyler Arts Folk Music Collecting Project. Designed and carried out a music collecting project for the Illinois Arts Council and the Schuyler Arts Council in co-operation with the Library of Congress Folklife Center. The collection was accepted into the Library of Congress Folklife Archives in 1988.