All Instruments | Joe Newberry | Intermediate/Advanced | Period 1 | Week 5 (August 3-7. 2026)
From the first and last notes of a tune or song, to the arc of a full performance, this session will offer tips and techniques on connecting with an audience and as performers. Topics include: dynamics, arrangements, beginnings and endings, and flow of a set. This workshop will be conducted master-class style, meaning that each student hears the feedback for their own performance and for everyone else’s, as the instructor works with each student or group in turn.
About the Instructor
Known around the world for his clawhammer banjo playing, Joe Newberry is also a powerful guitarist, singer and songwriter. The Gibson Brothers’ version of his song “Singing As We Rise,” featuring guest vocalist Ricky Skaggs, won the 2012 IBMA “Gospel Recorded Performance” Award. With Eric Gibson, he shared the 2013 IBMA “Song of the Year” Award for “They Called It Music.”
A longtime and frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion, he was a featured singer on the Transatlantic Sessions 2016 tour of the U.K. with fiddler Aly Bain and Dobro master Jerry Douglas, and at the Transatlantic Session’s debut at Merlefest in 2017 with fellow singers James Taylor, Sarah Jarosz, Declan O’Rourke, Karen Matheson, and Maura O’Connell. In addition to performing solo, Joe plays in a duo with mandolin icon Mike Compton, and also performs with the dynamic fiddler and step-dancer April Verch. Joe has taught banjo, guitar, singing, and songwriting at numerous camps and festivals, including Ashokan, Midwest Banjo Camp, American Banjo Camp, the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Targhee Music Camp, the Swannanoa Gathering, Centrum Voice Works, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Pinewoods Camp, the Australia National Folk Festival, the Blue Ridge Old-Time Music Week, Bluff Country Gathering, and Vocal Week, Bluegrass Week, and Old-Time Week at the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, WV,
Growing up in a family full of singers and dancers, Joe took up the guitar and banjo as a teenager and learned fiddle tunes from great Missouri fiddlers. he moved to North Carolina as a young man and quickly became an anchor of the incredible music scene in the state. He does solo and studio work, and plays and teaches at festivals and workshops in North America and abroad.