Executive Director & Teaching staff
Bennett Konesni
Collections Manager
Jeremy Gibson
Jeremy Gibson oversees the 250,000+ works held in the library collection of Bagaduce Music. A native of the Great Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee, Jeremy taught concert bands, symphony orchestras, percussion ensembles, as well as courses in music theory and music technology in Atlanta and Knoxville for nearly 20 years before moving to Maine in 2019. He holds advanced degrees in Music Education and Curricular & Instructional Design from the University of Tennessee. Jeremy’s listening habits range from Doc Watson country ballads to the avant-garde chamber works of Edgard Varèse. He and his wife Katherine live on a blueberry farm in north Blue Hill.
Executive Assistant
Lydia Reifsnyder
BAGADUCE EDUCATION FACULTY
Mia Bertelli
Mia Bertelli grew up in the mountains of New Mexico, singing at every chance she could get. Her love of song led her to Vermont at the age of fifteen, where she dove into the polyphonic singing camps of Village Harmony like a penguin into the sea. She has performed solo, toured with choral groups, small group ensembles, performing a wide variety of musical genres spanning traditional polyphonic singing and fiddling, solo ballads, country harmony, Swedish cattle-calling, pop, soul, and jazz. As a teacher, she aims to impart the tools to sing out confidently, listen closely, fearlessly navigate improvised harmony, and build a library of songs that you can’t help but want to sing.
Scott Cleveland
Scott Cleveland is a lifelong composer/singer/pianist/music educator/church musician/writer. He holds a B.M. in Music Education from Berklee College of Music, an M.M. in Music Theory/Composition from UMassLowell and a M.Div. from Boston University School of Theology. He has written and produced six independent solo albums: scottcleveland.bandcamp.com, and performs original and reinterpreted Jazz/ R&B/ Blues/ Fusion/Rock as a solo pianist and singer and in numerous duos/trios/quartets, in particular The University of Maine Jazz Faculty ensemble.
He is on the Jazz Faculty of the University of Maine at Orono, where he teaches Elementary Harmony I and II, Jazz Theory Fundamentals, coaches and coordinates the Jazz Combo program and teaches Jazz improvisation privately. He is a recording studio pianist on many projects and his solo docu-concert “The Blues Spectrum” has been performed at numerous venues in Maine, Massachusetts and Nova Scotia including Gloucester Stage Co., Colby College and Camden Opera House. His musical direction/pit band credits include: The Reach Performing Arts Center, Stonington Opera House, The Grand Theatre, New Surry Theatre and The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Maine. He also composed the choral overture and incidental music for Cabin Fever Theatre’s Almost, Maine, was commissioned to compose the piano score for the multimedia production of From Away to Here… which premiered at The Burnt Cove Church, Stonington in July 2015, and more recently received a commission to compose a movement from the suite “Putting a Groove on a Bad Situation” along with the UMaine Jazz Faculty.
He recently collaborated with former Maine Poet Laureate Stuart Kestenbaum and bassist John Gallagher on their third version of “Poetry and Jazz: Call and Response”. You can subscribe to Scott’s blog “A Spacious Place: music/poetry/theology” on scottcleveland.substack.com.
Benjamin Foss
Benjamin Foss is a musician and luthier based in Brooks Maine. Benjamin grew up in southern New England attending and playing for contra dances and building fiddles and banjos out of everything he could find. He is passionate about continuing the traditions of New England tunes, songs and dances and is always excited to share tunes and knowledge with the people around him. Benjamin plays in several contra dance combinations on fiddle, guitar, tenor banjo, and occasionally other stringed instruments. On rare occasions can be found calling dances. Benjamin has taught at music camps, festivals and dance weekends around New England and beyond and also teaches private lessons, both in person and online. When he’s not playing, he’s building and restoring guitars, banjos and mandolins and organizing the Brooks Contra Dance.
Elsie Gawler
Elsie Gawler is a multi-instrumentalist and songster rooted in Maine’s traditional folk music and culture. With her family, the Gawler Family Band, she has played throughout the state and beyond, sharing traditional fiddle tunes, songs, and original works. At Bagaduce Music, Elsie shares her talent as a teaching artist, leading classes and workshops in traditional folk music.
Molly Gawler
Anna Corinne Gentry
Anna Corinne’s childhood centered around a family homestead alive with music, in the Utah foothills. She grew up harmonizing with aunts and cousins, and playing with the Utah Youth Symphony throughout her teens. At age 16 she joined a touring celtic band, and has since spent the last two decades writing, singing, fiddling, recording and performing Americana music with several Utah-based bands.
Teaching at a Waldorf school (where kids sing, sing, sing!), Anna Corinne led the Redwing Chorale, which prepared many students for area choirs and high school music programs. A mother of two (12 and 4), and now teaching music here in Maine, Anna Corinne believes that the powerful force of music lives deeply in each of us—supporting that magic in children is one of her greatest joys.
Kate McCann
Kate McCann is a folk singer and banjo player based in Midcoast Maine. Rooted in old-time, Irish, and maritime folk traditions, her teaching and performances reflect a belief that traditional music is not static, but a living, participatory practice. Trained in classical voice during her teens, she discovered folk music as a student at Bennington College, where she concentrated in music and anthropology and completed a thesis on the contemporary practice of Irish ballad singing. Her debut EP, Sea Songs (2023), was inspired by her work as a chanteyman at the Mystic Seaport Museum, where she was deeply immersed in the research and scholarship of the sea shanty tradition. In fall 2025, Kate will begin a master’s program in ethnomusicology at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, where she plans to continue researching maritime music and ballad singing.
Robert McCormick
Robert’s career includes 20 plus years teaching and performing Cape Breton Stepdance and playing the bodhran. He has performed on stage many times for many groups-such as Boys of the Lough & numerous others. He received much of my training at the Gaelic College For Gaelic Arts & Crafts. He plays in several bands & jam sessions in Maine & provide workshops for all age groups in Cape Breton Stepdance & the bodhran.
Maisie Newell
