For about 20 years Mike Briggs (piano, accordion) has been class musician with the Madison Scottish Country Dancers, and with McDuff's Ceilidh Band played for dances and balls in Madison, Milwaukee and Racine, Wisconsin, Rockford and Chicago, Illinois, and Ames, Iowa. With Annie Grieshop, he has played for Welsh and Cornish dancing as Goglais a Gwasgu; with Danny Proud, he plays Welsh music as Squeeze and Wheeze. He sits in occasionally with Dark of the Moon. Mike has also provided music for English Country Dancing and New England contra dancing, and for Morris dancing with Oak Apple Morris.
Mike sings when he can with the First Friday folk song group in the Madison area.
Susan Conant (flutes, whistle and recorder) continues a multi-generational family tradition of English, Scottish and American dance music. She grew up at Pinewoods Camp dancing, playing music, and cleaning cabins. "The Scots always left the most interesting trash", she says. Susan relishes the challenge of playing for Scottish dancing which she calls the "extreme sport workout" of the dance music Besides enjoying the frenetically rhythmic pace of the Scottish, Susan loves playing for English dancing where she can continually reinvent melody and counterpoint. Susan dabbles in many things musical, always ready for a new challenge. Currently, she is a member of Musaica, a Latin/Celtic/Renaissance fusion band. As the occasional music director at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva, she assembles a wide variety of musical groups, arranges and composes, and has been developing a participatory musical worship format. As a founding member of James Street Players, a classical chamber ensemble, she has played in numerous venues throughout the Northern Illinois area. She served as performer, instrumental music director, and dance coordinator for four performances of the Christmas Revels in Evanston, IL. Her classical music training was from the New England Conservatory and the Longy School of Music.
A violinist since junior high school, Dave Mullen (fiddle, guitar, vocals) was introduced to Scottish fiddle music at the 1996 Milwaukee Highland Games. After attending a workshop with Barbara McOwen, Dave jumped in with both feet as fiddler for the weekly meetings and dances of the Milwaukee Scottish Country Dancers, and as class musician for beginners' classes at UW-Milwaukee. Also a singer and guitarist, Dave has played with ensembles ranging from pit orchestras to the Christian acoustic trio Tres Dias (unfortunately no longer together, but they still have CDs and tapes for sale). He attended the Boston Harbor Scottish Fiddle School in 2004 and 2005.
