All Instruments | Ira Gitlin | Beginning/Intermediate | Period 3 | Week 2 (July 14-19, 2024)
Bring your instrument and jump into this fun and inclusive jam every afternoon. Students can bring tune and song ideas or just come along for the ride.
About the Instructor
Ira Gitlin, a native of New York City, is widely known and respected in Washington-Baltimore bluegrass, folk, and roots-music circles as a versatile multi-instrumentalist, teacher, and writer. A former National Bluegrass Banjo Champion and multiple Wammie award winner, Ira has backed up such nationally known performers as Bill Harrell, the Johnson Mountain Boys, Laurie Lewis, Peter Rowan, and Peter “P.D.Q. Bach” Schickele, and has played on dozens of recording projects. He can be seen performing frequently with a wide range of D.C.-area artists, including the bluegrass band Big Howdy.
In addition to Augusta Bluegrass Week, where he has been a coordinator since 2013, and an instructor and staff musician for nine years before that, Ira has taught at the Maryland Banjo Academy, the Swannanoa Gathering, Pete Wernick’s Bluegrass Camp, and the Midwest Banjo Camp, along with numerous festival workshops and private lessons. He has written about bluegrass music in the pages of Bluegrass Unlimited, Banjo NewsLetter, and Bluegrass Now, and has contributed liner notes to several commercial recordings. Ira has lectured on the history of bluegrass for the Smithsonian Associates, and he presented papers at the 2005 and 2017 Bluegrass Music Symposiums.
In 1993 Ira was a one-day winner on the television game show Jeopardy.