Staff

Executive Director & Teaching staff 

Bennett Konesni

Musician Bennett Konesni has studied and practiced worksongs such as sea shanties, farmer’s hollers, and lumbercamp ballads since he was a teenager working aboard schooners on the coast of Maine. He has been featured by the Library of Congress for his Mighty Worksong Community Chorus, and has been a Special Envoy in Traditional Music to Ukraine and Mongolia for the US Department of State. 
 
He performs with such classic Maine bands as Old Gray Goose and The Gawler Family, and can be found singing on his garlic farm in Belfast when not running Bagaduce Music, and plays for festivals around the US with his bluegrass-inspired dance band Drive Train.  He studied Music, Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and has his MBA from Antioch New England University. 

Collections Manager

Jeremy Gibson

Jeremy Gibson manages the 250,000+ works held in the library collection of Bagaduce Music. A native of the Great Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee, Jeremy taught courses in band, orchestra, percussion ensemble, and music theory in Atlanta and Knoxville for nearly 20 years before moving to Maine in 2019. Jeremy’s listening habits range from Doc Watson country ballads to the avant-garde chamber works of Edgard Varèse. He and his wife Katherine live on a blueberry farm in north Blue Hill.

Executive Assistant

Lydia Reifsnyder

 
Lydia Reifsnyder is the Administration & Outreach Assistant at Bagaduce Music. After receiving her Masters in Choral Conducting from Westminster Choir College this Spring, she returns to her home state of Maine to start her music career. She has performed with a variety of choirs, including the Westminster Choir, Westminster Jubilee Singers, and Westminster Symphonic Choir, and locally with the Bagaduce Chorale, Mount Desert Summer Chorale, and the Gilbert & Sullivan Society. In her spare time, Lydia enjoys bike rides in the summer and sitting by the fire with her cats in the winter.

BAGADUCE EDUCATION FACULTY

Benjamin Foss

Benjamin Foss is a musician and luthier based in Brooks Maine. Benjamin grew up in southern New England attending and playing for contra dances and building fiddles and banjos out of everything he could find. He is passionate about continuing the traditions of New England tunes, songs and dances and is always excited to share tunes and knowledge with the people around him. Benjamin plays in several contra dance combinations on fiddle, guitar, tenor banjo, and occasionally other stringed instruments. On rare occasions can be found calling dances. Benjamin has taught at music camps, festivals and dance weekends around New England and beyond and also teaches private lessons, both in person and online. When he’s not playing, he’s building and restoring guitars, banjos and mandolins and organizing the Brooks Contra Dance.

Ellen Gawler

Ellen Gawler is a celebrated fiddler, masterful in many styles, including Irish, French-Canadian, Maritime, Shetland and New England. Her fiddling possesses sparkling clarity, authentically rooted in tradition while at the same time inventive and playful. Her lively delivery of traditional fiddling has sent many a contra dance hall into whirling delight with soaring melodies and driving rhythms.
 
She has been an original member of the acclaimed group Childsplay appearing in concert with them for over 2 decades. She performs with the fun-loving Gawler Family, playing folk music from Maine and beyond, warming the hearts of audiences wherever they go.
 
Ellen has been a Suzuki teacher since 1983, and has brought many children to music playing maturity through her skillful guidance and fun filled teaching style. In 1992, with her colleague, Betsy Kobayashi, she co-founded the Pineland Suzuki School, now in its 24th year. You can contact Ellen at ellengawler@gmail.com.
 

Elsie Gawler

Elsie Gawler is a multi-instrumentalist and songster rooted in Maine’s traditional folk music and culture. With her family, the Gawler Family Band, she has played throughout the state and beyond, sharing traditional fiddle tunes, songs, and original works. At Bagaduce Music, Elsie shares her talent as a teaching artist, leading classes and workshops in traditional folk music.

Molly Gawler

Molly Gawler is a mother, dancer, musician in the local Downeast Maine area. She grew up with traditional roots music learning fiddle, banjo and many songs from her mom and dad; Ellen and John Gawler. Alongside her sisters, Edith and Elsie Gawler, they form a trio called the Gawler Sisters performing and offering music bringing joy to all occasions. Molly Gawler went to school for ballet and modern dance earning a BFA at SUNY Purchase and danced professionally with Pilobolus Dance Theater touring the world. She has her own one woman show of original choreography called Droplet Dance. In the realm of singing, Molly has had the pleasure of entering in to various circles: Village Harmony, Gawler Family Band, Childsplay, Circle Songs and Lullabies (at Bagaduce Music) Bennett Konesni Worksong Chorus, Misty Mountain Singers, Bay School, Georgian Music, Kirtan with Shepsi Eaton, Schootic Arts for All, Maine Fiddle Camp, and good old bingbongers in the kitchen. She is mother to Mica (age 2) and Caspian (age 6) and lives in a wooden yurt in Orland, Maine with her beloved husband Lao and their dog named Acadia. www.dropletdance.com
 

Ethan Tischler

Ethan Tischler is a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist from just outside of Burlington, Vermont. Though his principal focus in music has been singing and songwriting, Ethan plays concerts and dances on guitar (standard / DADGAD), fiddle, mandolin, and banjo. His present projects include leading the Youth Choir at the Belfast UU Church, teaching guitar and sound recording at the Bagaduce Music Library in Blue Hill, and teaching participatory song and dance residencies with Belfast Flying Shoes. Outside of teaching music, he records and performs with the Gawler Family Band, the dance trio Springtide, and his partner Elsie Gawler as Elsie & Ethan.
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