Student Outreach Program

Lindsay Straw – Montana-born guitarist, singer, and bouzouki player Lindsay Straw found her musical home in Boston’s vibrant local Celtic music scene while studying at Berklee, where she added the influence and music of the Irish session world to her folk revival inspirations (Renbourn, Jansch, Bensusan). While she continues to draw from the deep well of traditional Celtic music, in recent years she’s been embracing American roots music and blending style and songs from both sides of the Atlantic. She can be found playing all over New England and beyond, not only solo but with bands The New Grown-Ups (modern American roots) and The Ivy Leaf (Celtic). With four albums and countless festival, club, and private event gigs under her belt, Lindsay has been heralded as a reincarnation of the legendary trad singers of eras past.

Dustin Furlow – Dustin is an internationally-recognized singer/songwriter/instrumental-guitarist whose body of work occupies its own niche in the contemporary folk music scene. With comparisons to Ray LaMontagne and Gregory Alan Isakov, his voice is earthy and unassuming–conjuring subtle traces of soul and Americana, and supported by a well-informed background of guitar ranging from Celtic to Jazz. After recording 5 albums and playing over 1600 shows since pursuing music full-time in 2013, Furlow has carved out a sound distinguishable by its marriage of complex fingerstyle-guitar and warm, homespun lyrics. From the foot-tapping groove of “Cherokee Lake” to the haunting melodies in “Evergreen,” Dustin is an ambassador of dynamic control on stage. In both 2017 and 2023 he received the Veer Magazine Music Awards for “Best Acoustic/Folk Artist” and in 2021 was announced the winner of Scottish luthier Taran Guitars’ “Young Player Bursary” award. Today Dustin lives in Asheville, NC where he works at Dream Guitars and continues to share his music with the world via both live performance and online guitar demos supporting the world’s most talented guitarmakers.

Kinloch Nelson – Kinloch Nelson -Kinloch Nelson’s 50-year career has seen everything from folk, classical, ragtime, American primitive, Celtic, new-age, R & B, surf, rock, pop, country, jazz music and an extensive catalogue of original compositions in bands, ensembles and as a solo performer/composer. Nelson has contributed transcriptions and instruction videos to Acoustic Guitar Magazine, performed for NPR radio and TV, and released CDs/&vinyl on Tompkins Square, Heartland, BKNjr, and Sampler Records, and has received positive reviews in Just Jazz Guitar Magazine, Fretboard Journal, Rolling Stone and Mojo Magazine. Nelson studied classical guitar with British guitarist/composer Stanley Watson, jazz guitar with Gene Bertoncini at Eastman Music School, and music theory at the University of Rochester (NY). Teaching credits include 25 years at Hochstein Music School in Rochester, four years with Maryland Summer Center for the Arts in Baltimore, and numerous workshops and clinics at guitar festivals in the US and Canada since 2004. He is also an amateur luthier, and hang-glider pilot.