INSTRUCTOR BIOS 2026 DULCIMER WEEK:  

STEPHEN SEIFERT, KARA BARNARD, JAN HAMMOND, & BOB WEBB

Stephen Seifert’s teaching and playing has made him a favorite with dulcimer players all over the country since 1991. In that time, he’s been a featured performer at hundreds of dulcimer festivals and other music events including Kentucky Music Week in Bardstown, KY; Black Mountain Music Festival in Black Mountain, NC; Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, WV; John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC; Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, AR; Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, KS; Nonsuch in England, and the Tono American Music Festival, in Tono, Japan.

Stephen was dulcimer soloist with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra and was featured on their Warner Classical recording of Conni Ellisor and David Schnaufer’s Blackberry Winter, a concerto for mountain dulcimer and string orchestra. The piece continues to be in regular rotation on many classical stations around the U.S. (The recording album is titled “Conversations in Silence” and can be sampled and purchased on iTunes.) Stephen has performed this piece with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony, and many others. Conni wrote Stephen a second piece for dulcimer and full orchestra. Mark Steighner has also written two pieces for Stephen and full orchestra.

Stephen was Adjunct Instructor of Mountain Dulcimer with David Schnaufer at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music from 1997 to 2001. He also taught, performed, and recorded with Mr. Schnaufer as a duo throughout the country. 

Most recently he’s been one of the five coordinators of QuaranTune, a four-day festival that takes place entirely online three times a year featuring dozens of instructors and performers from all over the world. Stephen has authored ten books, four CDs, and hundreds of instructional videos. Learn more about him on www.stephenseifert.com and mountaindulcimeratoz.com.

Kara Barnard  has entertained audiences from coast to coast and internationally. She has 7 recordings, played countless studio sessions, appeared on national television programs, and has been featured in articles in publications including Guitar Player Magazine. 

Kara has spent the last few years focusing on teaching and creating events that would allow other musicians to grow and shine. She celebrated her successes by entering and becoming the 2022 National Mountain Dulcimer Champion, and is touring, performing and teaching at festivals across the country. Kara teaches guitar, mandolin, banjo and dulcimer and has a teaching roster of 48 private, in-person students each week plus group lessons at a local YMCA. She also created the Indiana State Fingerstyle Guitar Contest in 2010, bringing contestants from all over the world to compete each July in Nashville, Indiana. 

Over the past few years, Kara developed the Silver Strings program, teaching residents living in assisted living facilities how to play mountain dulcimer. The Silver Strings program includes curriculum she created specifically to serve a demographic often challenged by memory loss, hearing and vision loss, arthritis and paralysis due to strokes. The program currently serves campuses in Indiana and Kentucky and has placed over 220 dulcimers in the hands of their residents. Please visit www.karabarnard.net to learn more.

Bob Webb, from Joseph, OR, has played guitar and cello since childhood, and mandolin and mountain dulcimer for over 35 years. He has co-hosted Dulcimer Week in the Wallowas and taught its beginner class to rave reviews since 2011. A resident of Charleston, West Virginia before moving to Oregon, Bob was a member of National Public Radio’s Mountain Stage house band for its first nine years, where he accompanied artists such as Odetta, Tom Paxton, Shawn Colvin, Bill Staines, Peggy Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. He taught over 700 children and adults in summer camps, churches, schools and community centers to make his own design of cardboard box dulcimer. In 2005, he and Heidi Muller co-founded of the Music Mentors after-school instruction program in Charleston that is still continuing today. Bob has taught at festivals including Kentucky Music Week, Colorado Dulcimer Festival, Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering, Wallowa Fiddle Tunes Camp, Ohio Valley Gathering, Gebhard Woods and Dulcimer Chautauqua on the Wabash. He has published instruction and tune books for dulcimer, mandolin and fingerpicked guitar. He performs with Heidi Muller in a duo and they have recorded four CDs together. As a recording engineer with his own studio, Bob has co-produced dozens of CDs for old-time musicians, jazz players, songwriters and storytellers and helped create award-winning public radio documentaries.

Heidi Muller is the organizer of Dulcimer Week in the Wallowas.  She has played dulcimer for over 30 years and taught at dozens of dulcimer festivals across the country, including QuaranTune, North Georgia Foothills Virtual Fall Festival, Kentucky Music Week, Berkeley Dulcimer Gathering, Dulcimer Chautauqua on the Wabash, Augusta Spring Dulcimer Week, and Northeast Dulcimer Symposium. An award-winning songwriter and guitarist, she performs both solo and in a duo with Bob Webb. Her song, “Leaving the Methow,” was included on the Masters of the Mountain Dulcimer, Vol. II CD. She has recorded five solo CDs, four duo CDs with Bob Webb, and published nine dulcimer songbooks (including Duos, West Virginia Fiddle Tunes, and two volumes of Bill Staines songs for dulcimer) and one book of original songs arranged for guitar accompaniment. Please visit her website at heidimuller.com.