I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and have been around music all my life. Both of my grandmothers sang and played the piano, as did my mom and dad. I started with piano lessons at age six and played the violin in grade school and the flute in grade school and high school. I learned the guitar in high school as well.

I was introduced to contradancing and contradance music in the 1980’s when I lived in Alaska. I learned some bluegrass banjo and played in a folk trio there in the late 80’s. I returned to Portland in 1989 to go Portland State University, and became involved with both the Portland Folkmusic Society (PFS) and the Portland Country Dance Community (PCDC). I picked up the fiddle again in the ‘90’s. I met Jonathan Lay through PFS, and we began performing as Shanghaied on the Willamette in 1993. I began writing fiddle tunes in 1992 and published After Midnite, a book of 55 original tunes in 2005. To date, I’ve written more than 380 tunes.

In 2000, after a number of years of workshops and festivals, I started calling contradances, and have been calling in Oregon and Washington. I’ve written several contradances which I’d be happy to share with you. In addition to playing in two contradance bands, I am also co-conductor for the Portland Megaband and do the booking for PCDC dances.