Instructors August 2023

Jarred Albright has played the violin since he was seven years old and music has been his focus ever since. He started off playing classical music but switched to the fiddle style learning Celtic, folk, old-tyme, and bluegrass before entering post-secondary to pursue jazz performance there. Since then he has endeavoured to teach himself to sing and play mandolin, guitar, and banjo. Music has taken him around the world including the United States, South Korea, Scotland, England, and Ireland. These days Jarred keeps himself busy performing with many diverse local acts around Alberta, as well as writing, recording, producing, filming, and of course sharing his love of music with his students.

Website:  Jarred Albright

After receiving a crystal radio kit about age eight Doug Leece became fascinated with two things, electronics and the music that can come out of them. Several decades later Doug has collected a hybrid of experience performing, recording, writing, producing and teaching but the fascination has not diminished.

Somewhere along the path Doug discovered the joy of helping others bring their musical expression to life and giving them a chance to shine. The roots likely germinated over many years and many bands, teaching others their parts and imparting a little music theory along the way. Things took a little more formal form when he began an adult only 8 week guitar class night school called CampFire guitar. The five year run as guitar teacher morphed into some opportunities to make things a little bigger.

Somewhere during a three year stint as jam session host at the Chestermere Golf & Country club it seemed like a good idea start producing the Summer Music Showcase stage for the Chestermere Water Festival. For three years with the Water Festival, whether he was the roadie, booking agent, sound engineer, performer or side man the priority was always the artist(s), the music and their chance to shine.

After a ten year and two record run with his rock band One Foot Party, Doug began experimenting with combining electronic music, looping and crunchy guitars. He is currently focused on composition, recording other artists and internet collaboration.

Rick Moore is excited to be returning to instruct at FAMI. Rick was an educator in the Red Deer School District and has taught music in many other settings as well.

Over a long musical career he has played many styles of music and studied with some fine North American players including Radim Zenkl, John Reichman, Mike Dowling, and Ralf Buschmeyer. His training includes classical guitar studies and music theory with the Royal Conservatory of Music. In addition, Rick has received training as a Clinical Musician from the Harp for Healing group in the US.

In recent years Rick has played with several accomplished bands including Morningside Bluegrass, Canyon Mountain Boys, Burnt Timber Swing, and the Swing Shifters.

Rick Moore is passionate about the value of music as medicine and always looks forward to passing musical knowledge on to others!

Dana Sipos is an acclaimed Canadian songwriter who invites the listener beneath the surface through a nuanced lens that isn't afraid to be out of focus at times. Sipos’ talent for earthen imagery, rich spiralling vocals, and textured finger-picked instrumentation sets the stage for a deeply moving performance. Described as "one of the greatest songwriters out there" (Gold Flake Paint UK) Sipos is a consummate performer and has toured extensively through North America, Europe, the UK and Australia.

Dana has facilitated youth songwriting workshops in remote communities in northern Canada and worked as a facilitating artist at Learning Through the Arts, an outreach and education program of the Royal Conservatory of Music and at festivals across north America. She is a particpaing Songwriter and Victoria Project Lead for Carnegie Hall's education program, The Lullaby Project.  She was invited to participate in the inaugural Songwriter Residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts and has enjoyed the collaborative environment of many arts residencies across North America.

Written partly in residence at the Banff Centre and partly in the early weeks of the pandemic, her 2021 release The Astral Plane, explores imprints of memory, cycles of grief, loss and renewal and the deep connections between inherited trauma and the ecological crisis of our time. It was lauded as a " mesmerizing jewel of an album" (No Depression) and garnered Sipos a Solo Artist of the Year nomination at the 2022 Canadian Folk Music Awards. Dana now resides on traditional Lekwungen Territory among the redwoods and wilds of Vancouver Island, British Columbia and is very excited to be teaching at FAMI for the first time.

Website:  Tenderly Skewed Folk

Barry Truter lives in Vancouver, BC, and has been a traveller for much of his life. His music and songwriting are influenced by the places he has lived and worked including India, Fiji, USA, England, Canada, and a spell at sea working on a tramp freighter.

Barry is a co-founder of the Georgia Strait Guitar Workshop (GSGW). He teaches guitar privately, and for music institutions in the Pacific Northwest including GSGW, Rossland Acoustic Music Camp, Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Vancouver Island Music Workshop, and Vancouver’s Moveable Music School. He performs solo, and with folk group Fraser Union, and blues duo Jook Joint Jokers.

Website:  Fraser Union

Brian Volke has been playing guitar since the age of nine. Inspired by the Monkees he wrote his first song in Grade Three. Since then his musical wanderings have led him through rock and country and into Celtic folk and back to rock again. He is the lead singer and main guitarist for the roots band My Son Ted, Their most recent CD is entitled “Carmel’s Parlour”.

Brian also likes to play solo and has found his songwriting to be going in all sorts of different directions. He’s been practicing to be a good flatpicker and writes quirky songs about who and what he knows.

In his musical lifetime Brian has performed at the Regina Folk Festival, opened for the Irish Descendents and the Chieftains, and best of all, has been backed up by Rik Emmett of Triumph. Ask him about that experience.

Website:  BV Tunes