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.
Auditions are Open!
The time to audition for the Young Tradition Touring Group is now! Please reach out to Touring Group Manager, Christina Kennedy, at touringgroup@vtfolklife.org for audition materials and . The deadline for submitting the Audition Materials is July 20th. Everyone who auditions will receive an email regarding their audition results by August 1st. Early auditions are appreciated. Please be in touch with any questions and we look forward to reviewing your submissions!
Touring Group Links
Touring Group Updates
YouTube Playlist
Support the Touring Group
Upcoming Touring Group Concerts
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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2024-25 Youth Artist Leaders
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Winslow Solomon
Winslow Solomon is a 16-year-old fiddler/banjoist who lives in Richmond, VT. He started learning classical violin at 5 years old and was introduced to traditional music and playing the banjo a few years later at Young Tradition Vermont’s Trad Camp. He started with Sarah Hotchkiss as his first teacher for banjo and traditional music and later started having lessons with his teacher and mentor Pete Sutherland. His first year in the Touring Group was the year of the NYC and New Jersey tour, and since then he has participated in a virtual tour with the group and the tours to Cape Breton and Quebec. Winslow loves the community that comes with traditional music in Vermont. He has been a part of the retired YTV Commission and enjoys busking with friends and playing gigs at local restaurants. In addition to traditional music, Winslow plays classical music and has been part of the Vermont Youth Orchestra for many years. Over the past summers, he has started exploring and enjoying chamber music as well. Winslow is looking forward to being a Youth Artist Leader and bringing some banjo tunes to this year’s Touring Group.
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Eleanor Freebern
Eleanor Freebern is an 18 year old harper 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, Eleanor has spent the past half decade untangling the idea of arrangement, exploring textures 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 performs 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. Passionate about all kinds of music, Eleanor has served as Concertmaster for the Green Mountain Youth Orchestra, and currently serves as the Principal Harpist for the Vermont Youth Orchestra. They are looking forward to bringing the spirit and soul of the traditional harp to the Touring Group this year.
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Emmett Stowell
Emmett Stowell is a fifteen year-old musician from Montpelier, Vermont. He plays a variety of instruments including banjo, piano, guitar, and voice. Emmett has been playing music since he was five years old when he told his mom he wanted to play the “rockstar banjo”. He loves all types of traditional music, but his heart will always be with New England and Appalachian Old Time music as taught to him by his mentor, Pete Sutherland. Emmett was lucky enough to spend 10 years learning banjo from Pete and 4 years participating in the Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program at Vermont Folklife studying New England Contradance Piano. He can be found performing with his sister as Fiona and Emmett, as well as with his new band, Sap Line. Emmett is super excited to be starting his fifth year with the Young Tradition Vermont Touring Group as a member of the Youth Artist Leadership team.
Quotes from group members