Touring Group
The Touring Group is an auditioned ensemble of teenage musicians who rehearse from September to April, ahead of a cultural tour to another country or region. This Vermont Folklife program nurtures youth involvement in traditional music and dance, providing opportunities to learn from tradition bearers and each other, to build connections with artists and communities from Vermont and beyond, and to perform traditional repertoire in a variety of locations and settings. Music connects people and brings joy, enriching communities as it strengthens ties between generations and offers opportunities to share memories and be inspired.
The 2025-2026 Touring Group is focusing on Scandinavian music ahead of a tour to Sweden in April 2026, where they will also share tunes and songs from in and around New England. This year’s Artist Leaders are Alex Kehler and Ethan Tischler.
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To receive more information about this year’s group email Christina Kennedy
Touring Group originated as a program of Young Tradition Vermont. Learn more about YTV here
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Touring Group members are teenage musicians, singers, and dancers who are proficient in performing traditional* music and dance repertoire. Members are mostly from Vermont, but has also included members from Quebec, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Maine. Information about the online audition process, which takes place in July and August, will be available in early summer. To receive more information about this year’s group contact Christina Kennedy: touringgroup@vtfolklife.org
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Group members meet for once a month rehearsals on Saturdays starting in the fall (no December rehearsal) and continuing through May. Performances are in Vermont with a cultural tour, which is often international, this year in April.
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Group members learn from and are supported by artist leaders, guest/master musicians and dancers/dance leaders, in addition to musical exchanges with master artists, young musicians and dancers while on cultural/performance tours.
The Touring Group’s repertoire is ‘traditional’* and is coordinated by artist leaders.
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The 2025-2026 Touring Group will be traveling to Sweden. Previous groups have traveled to Québec, Cape Breton, Scotland, Northumberland (England), the West Coast of Ireland, metropolitan New York and New Jersey, and around New England.
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In this context, traditional means songs, dances and other material that has most often evolved through a process of unwritten, oral transmission and is most often performed by in a particular cultural group in a particular place over a long period of time. The emphasis tends to be on participation rather than performance. Most often what is produced, whether a song, a tune, a dance, or a quilt has a functional purpose. It is something that can be used, that has and tells a story, that carries the tradition forward in the absence of or as a supplement to a written narrative or system. Instrumentally, traditional music is often associated with social dance. At its core, it is an attempt to reproduce what came from a previous generation, and the generation before that, and the generation before that, but each attempt at reproduction inevitably, intentionally or unintentionally, adds to or takes away elements so that it fits an individual’s current experience and circumstances.
2025-26 Artist Leaders
Expert musicians and tradition bearers Ethan Tischler and Alex Kehler will be the Artist Leaders this season. Ethan Tischler is a Maine-based musician/educator with roots in the Champlain Valley of Vermont where he grew up; he performs with Elsie & Ethan and the trio Springtide as well as the Gawler Family Band. Fiddle and nyckelharpa player Alex Kehler has been pursuing his passion for Scandinavian music for well over a decade. He is a mainstay of the Québécois and New England traditional music scene, touring with Skye Consort, Kehler-Williams Duo, and Triton.
Alex Kehler
Alex Kehler is an American born musician playing violin, nyckelharpa, cittern and hurdy gurdy. Growing up in Nova Scotia, he now lives in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and enjoys a busy career somewhere between the folk and classical worlds. He is best known for his work as a versatile crossover specialist with La Nef and Skye Consort. He has toured with these ensembles in Canada, The USA and in Europe. Alex studied baroque violin with Chantal Rémillard in the late 1990s at McGill University and has played with Early music groups such as Toronto’s Aradia Ensemble and Montreal’s Studio de musique ancienne under the late Christopher Jackson. He is also a mainstay of the Québecois and New England traditional music and dance scene, touring with bands Kehler-Williams Duo, Andrew Wells-Oberegger, Skye Consort & Emma Björling and Triton (Jeremiah McLane & Timothy Cummings). He has also been on staff at the following music camps: North East Heritage Music Camp VT, Acadia Trad School ME, Ashokan Northern Week NY. Since 2011 he has been pursuing his passion for Scandinavian music, playing nyckelharpa and studying with renowned Swedish teachers, Torbjörn Näsböm, Magnus Holmström and David Eriksson.
Ethan Tischler
Ethan Tischler says: “I am a Maine-based musician/educator with roots in the Champlain Valley of Vermont. For the last many years, I've been teaching, performing, and recording music, mainly in Burlington Vermont and Mid-Coast Maine. Alongside my own solo projects, I delight in playing with Elsie Gawler as Elsie & Ethan, and with the Gawler Sisters and Gawler Family as a whole.
As a teacher, I've worked in groups and one-on-one with students in Vermont and Maine, in the Music for Sprouts and Village School programs at Bread & Butter Farm, and the Belfast Adventure Education Program and Sweetland School here in Mid-Coast. I appreciate working with music learners of all ages, and strive to pass along key foundations and theoretical concepts in music alongside a genuine joy and lightness in music-making as a whole.”
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2025-26 Youth Artist Leaders
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Beck Welling
Beck Welling has been playing violin and fiddle since he was four years old, beginning under the tutelage of Ellen Gawler, and more recently with mentor and renowned fiddler Seán Heely. Beck was winner of the 2023 Northeast regional Junior National fiddling championships, and runner up in the 2024 Junior National Scottish Fiddling Championships, where he will again compete in the fall of 2025. Beck loves all types of fiddling, including Irish, Quebecois, Maritime, Scottish and, more recently, bluegrass. He's also learning banjo and guitar, and loves playing with others at contra dances and jam sessions more than anything!
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Elle Freebern
Elle Freebern is a 19 year old harper, fiddler, and composer from Richmond, Vermont. They first joined the Touring Group in 2022, travelling to Cape Breton with their long-time mentor, Dominique Dodge. An independently schooled musician, Elle has spent the past half decade focusing on Scottish and Irish music, working with arrangement, balance, and contemporary language on the celtic harp. They discovered their love of the stage when they were very young, learning piano and violin, and now perform alongside Touring Group alum Fern Tamagini O’Donnell in the duo In Given Time. Featured in such performances as the Youth Artist’s Showcase Recital at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Burlington, VT, they garnered acclaim for their authenticity and consistency as a performer. They have also composed works for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, which blend traditional-style phrasing with orchestral voicings. Passionate about all kinds of music, Elle has served as Concertmaster for the Green Mountain Youth Orchestra, and Principal Harpist for the Vermont Youth Orchestra. They are looking forward to reprising their role as Youth Artist Leader and bringing the spirit and soul of the traditional harp to the Touring Group once again.
Quotes from group members