Evie Ladin

Banjo player, singer, songwriter, percussive-dancer, choreographer and square-dance caller, Evie Ladin grew up steeped in traditional folk music/dance on the East Coast, and brings a contemporary vision to her compositions and choreography while holding fast to the roots.  Evie’s performances, recordings and teaching reconnect Appalachian music/dance with other African-Diaspora traditions, and have been heard in countless venues, from A Prairie Home Companion to Lincoln Center, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass to Celtic Connections, and from Brazil to Bali.

She has shared the stage with innumerable luminaries, such as Alice Gerrard, Laurie Lewis, Ralph Stanley and John McKuen, and many contemporaries. Cutting her performance teeth on festival stages as a child with her sister Abby, she toured professionally first with music & dance ensemble Rhythm in Shoes, then for a decade with the all-gal stringband Stairwell Sisters. Evie launched her solo project in 2010, releasing five albums of original and traditional music to date, as well as two instructional DVDs. While not terribly focused on contests, each time she has entered she took home ribbons in folk song from Mt Airy, NC Fiddler’s Convention, and Neo-Trad Band from the Appalachian Stringband Festival, Clifftop, WV. “Think Rhiannon Giddens with less publicity” - fRoots

Based in Oakland, CA since 2000, Evie tours internationally with her Evie Ladin Band, and partner Keith Terry. In the trad world, Evie teaches clawhammer banjo and harmony singing at the infamous Freight & Salvage, online at Peghead Nation with over 350 students around the world, and numerous camps and festivals. She leads rowdy square dance parties, getting every body easily dancing. As a songwriter, Evie writes clever, poignant and funny songs, subtitling her band “neo-trad kinetic folk.” Most recently, she released two CDs, celebrating both of her musical sides: one totally trad fiddle/banjo duets with 17 different fiddlers, Riding the Rooster, and her fourth of adventurous originals. A highly entertaining performer, Evie enjoys facilitating arts learning in diverse communities, always connecting the music with the dance, and educating people about traditional Appalachian culture and history. “The best example I have seen of a Neo-Trad band's sound being authentically anchored in old time music but extending it into new and entertaining directions.”  —Founder, Clifftop Appalachian Stringband Festival