2026 Hindman Dulcimer Homecoming

Don Pedi is a Traditional Mountain Musician who started playing the dulcimer in 1968. He shares songs, tunes, and stories in a warm, often humorous, and always entertaining manner.

Don is known for developing a playing style for the fretted mountain dulcimer that can match a fiddle, note for note, while maintaining the rhythms and characteristics of traditional music. In 1974, he won first place in the first contest he ever entered, at Fiddler’s Grove, in Union Grove, N.C. In 1979, Don was declared “Master Dulcimer Player” and removed from future competitions at Fiddler’s Grove. Before retiring from competition in 1984, Don had amassed over forty first place ribbons in contests throughout the south east, both in solo competitions and as a key band member.

Over the decades, he’s been recognized and honored for collecting, preserving and performing Traditional Appalachian music. Since 1985 Don has championed folk music as an on air host at NPR affiliate Blue Ridge Public Radio, WCQS 88.1 in Asheville, NC. His weekly show “Close to Home” airs on Saturdays, locally from 8:00-10:00pm (Eastern Time) and simultaneously streams on the web. Don has also appeared in the motion pictures “The Song Catcher” and “The Journey of August King”, as well as a number of documentaries and music specials.

Inspired by a dulcimer built by her grandfather, Tennessee-born Sarah Kate Morgan has been playing dulcimer since she was 7 years old. She went on to place 1st at the 2012 National Mountain Dulcimer Championships at Winfield, Kansas at the age of 18. Morgan is also a talented singer and songwriter whose style reflects and honors life in southern Appalachia. She has performed and/or recorded with roots music giants such as Tyler Childers, Alice Gerrard, and Erynn Marshall & Carl Jones. Having achieved degrees in Traditional Music, Appalachian Studies, and Arts Administration from Morehead State University, her work centers on a lived belief that art and tradition are living, breathing tools that foster hope, build community, and create change. Visit Sara Kate’s website at SarahKateMorgan.com

Ken’s interest in Appalachian dulcimers began early in his life. He built his first dulcimer in 1974 which continued with instruments made for family and friends. In 1987 he started writing articles about dulcimer builders for Dulcimer Players News. His interest in making dulcimers led him to explore their history. He assisted Ralph Lee Smith in teaching Appalachian dulcimer history at Shenandoah University’s Dulcimer Week and contributed to a few of Ralph’s articles in DPN. In 2005 friends gifted Ken with a dulcimer made by James Edward Thomas.

Karly Dawn Milner is a traditional Appalachian musician, singer, and songwriter. She was born into a musical family from eastern Kentucky and plays guitar, banjo, fiddle, cello and mountain dulcimer.

She learned to sing and sight read at a young age next to her grandmother at church. Karly Dawn was instructed to sing melody loudly as her grandmother would sing harmony directly into her ear, pointing her notes out in the hymnal. Her mother taught her traditional folk songs of Kentucky, instilling a love of songs of home. Karly Dawn also studied voice and cello at an early age and performed in musical theater.

In her adult life, Karly Dawn spent many years traveling and performing with The Clack Mountain String Band as well as other traditional mountain musicians. She developed a special interest in the dulcimer, inspired by recordings of ID Stamper and Jean Ritchie. Karly Dawn learned to play the dulcimer from Cari Norris and Randy Wilson, and from Don Pedi through the Hindman Dulcimer Gathering. She has been graciously gifted dulcimers built by ID Stamper, Homer Ledford, and others, and has vowed that she would, in turn, share them in performance and teaching.

Karly Dawn enjoys sharing Kentucky’s traditional music with the younger generations, teaching in person and often employing the oral tradition of old. She has taught at Cowan Creek Mountain Music School for most of the last 18 years and also leads the Ballad Singing at the JP Fraley Festival. She has spent many years presenting programs on traditional music of Kentucky in schools and for the Kentucky Folk Art Center in Morehead.

Karly Dawn has won many awards as a traditional singer and dulcimer player and has enjoyed performing at festivals such as Merlefest, Seedtime on the Cumberland, Chicago’s Old Time School Of Folk, ROMP Music Festival and many community square dances.

Hailing from the flatlands of east-central Florida. Willow Cartier has been playing music for the majority of her life. Starting with ukulele, and soon joining the Space coast Homeschool band with clarinet at the age of 8. Over the years, she has acquired more instruments from a wide variety of origins. She started playing banjo at age 13, with a primary focus on Clawhammer style in an Old-Time fashion (think Rhiannon Giddens and Walt Koken.) This style of Banjo playing hails from the Appalachian Mountains and is older than the three-finger Scruggs style that is often heard in bluegrass music.

Willow has traveled the east coast with her family band Boylston Fish to festivals and events to better study and connect with the Old-Time folk tradition. She regularly attends local music jams, festivals, and classes whenever possible. She has also released a few solo projects under the stage name Windybug. She can often be found busking downtown or roaming the local festivals.

In the festival circuit, Willow is a two-time state champion banjo player, Winning 1st place in the novice category at the Florida state banjo competition in 2018, and winning 1st place in the journeyman category in 2022. She has also gone on to win 1st place in the Elliot County fiddlers convention old-time dance competition in 2023, along with placing in several other contests throughout the years.

Randy Wilson is a fifth generation eastern Kentuckian who worked for the Hindman Settlement School for 30 years doing songs, stories, and dances in the elementary schools. He plays traditional and original tunes on banjo, guitar, autoharp, and mountain dulcimer. Mr. Wilson has played in many festivals across the country- Appalshop’s Seedtime on the Cumberland, Hindman Settlement School’s Family Folk Week, The Great American Dulcimer Festival at Pine Mountain State Park, The Smithsonian Festival of Folk Music on the national mall, cultural exchange festivals with native peoples of Alaska and Puerto Rican folks in the Bronx, NYC. Included are concerts and cultural exchanges at the University of Rome, Rome, Italy and a recent tour of music in Japan. For twenty years Mr. Wilson produced Kid’s Radio for WMMT at the Appalshop in Whitesburg, Ky, airing children’s voices and oral histories from across the region. He made numerous recordings with students in addition to his own recordings- albums from children’s music to blues to Christmas songs.

Doug Naselroad is a Master Luthier from Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. He is a former employee of Collings Guitars in Austin, Texas and owner of Naselroad Guitars, including the “Our Harps” brand of door harps. Doug began building instruments in 1969 with the help of Homer Ledford and is founder of the Hindman Dulcimer Homecoming, the Appalachian School of Luthiery, the Museum of the Mountain Dulcimer, co-author of the Culture of Recovery, Director of the Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company and host of the Knott Downtown Radio Hour, all in Hindman, Kentucky. He has constructed more than 10,000 instruments to date, some of which were pretty good.

Carla Gover is an 8th-generation Kentuckian, whose art and work celebrate the best of what the state has to offer. She shares flatfooting, ballads, and banjo through her performances, recordings, collaborations, and online courses. She’s released seven albums of music, with a new one coming in July 2025. Her most recent two recordings (with Zoe Speaks & CornMaiz String Band), have made it to #1 on the Folk Radio Charts.

She’s won a slew of awards, including the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest and the Kerrville New Folk Award. She was also recognized as a Master Dancer by the Kentucky Folklife Program, and recently won the “Appy” for Best Dance Educator from the Appalachian Arts & Entertainment Awards. She is the founder of the groundbreaking online Appalachian Flatfooting & Clogging Academy.

With her partner Yani Vozos, she also coordinates the Cornbread & Tortillas Artist Collective, whose mission is to build community by sharing art, music, dance, and cultural heritage.