SARA MILONOVICH (Composer/ Musician) Sara is the founder of indie roots-rock band, Daisycutter and is a successful singer, fiddler, composer, and bandleader in her own right, while at the same time a sought-after accompanist for a number of other artists in many musical genres. She has performed throughout the US and Europe in Americana roots, folk-rock, bluegrass, Celtic, and Appalachian music, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with artists such as Richard Shindell, Pete Seeger (on his Grammy-winning album “At 89”), The McKrells, Cathie Ryan, Eliza Gilkyson, Anne Hills, and Antje Duvekot, among others. In 2011, as part of the group Mountain Quickstep, Sara toured Kosovo, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Turkey as part of The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad, presented by the US Department of State and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Her latest CD, “Daisycutter”, released in 2009, was a nominated Grammy semifinalist, as was her debut CD, “Miss Ippy Fiddle”, released in 1998. Her first CD with guitarist and producer Greg Anderson, “Forward In All Directions!”, made the Top Ten World Music list in the Village Voice ‘Pazz & Jop’ Critic’s Poll of 2004. Sara has composed music for Voice Theatre’s 2012 production of Lovers and 2013 production of Birds on a Wire.
MARGOT LEVERET (Composer / Musician) Margot Leverett is one of the foremost of the new generation of klezmer clarinetists. Classically trained at Indiana University School of Music, she was involved in avant-garde music when she first heard klezmer, the dynamic East European music traditionally played at Jewish weddings. Leverett was a founding member of the Klezmatics in 1985 and Mikveh in 1999. Her solo CD, “The Art of Klezmer Clarinet,” was released in 2001 on Traditional Crossroads (CD4296) to glowing reviews. Her new band, Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys, has just released a CD by the same name, a startling fusion of klezmer and bluegrass.
LAURA LIBEN (Composer / Musician) Laura Liben plays with and composes for Gamelan Son of Lion, a new music percussion ensemble based in NYC, with whom she went on tour to Estonia this summer. She is also a musician with The Actor’s Shakespeare Company in Hoboken, NJ. Her piece “She Herself Alone” written for toy piano and psaltery was performed in 2003 by Margaret Leng Tan at music festivals in France, Australia and Woodstock, NY. Laura is a long time music teacher and teaching artist with children in both public and private school settings.