The Entertainers

From the 2009 World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest, meet The Entertainers, who keep the spirit and style of old-time piano alive by mixing diverse backgrounds, styles, smiles, ages, races, sexes, creeds and pun-soaked wits.

Adam Swanson
Ethan Uslan
Faye Ballard
Jim Boston
Four Arrows
“Perfessor” Bill Edwards

Ted Lemen
Russell Wilson
William McNally
Brett Youens
Joe Mankowski
John Remmers

	ADAM SWANSON heils from the small town of Shenandoah, Iowa, and is rapidly becoming known as one of the world’s foremost performers and historians of ragtime and early American popular music. He discovered ragtime on his grandparents’ “Web-TV” and has played the piano for eight years. Adam has studied piano with Waleed Howrani of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a graduate of the Moscow State Conservatory. Although he is only eighteen years old, he has been a featured performer at ragtime and jazz festivals across the United States. In 2007, Adam appeared alongside John Arpin at the Bohem Ragtime and Jazz Festival in the Republic of Hungary. Recently, Adam recorded a duet album with ragtime legend Johnny Maddox. They perform together in the Diamond Belle Saloon at the Strater Hotel in Durango, Colorado. Adam is also an avid rail-fan, collects antique sheet music, records, and piano rolls. His CDs are available at CDBaby.com. You can find more on Adam and his appearances at www.adamgswanson.com. Adam began competing at the World Championship in 2003 in the Junior Division, winning in 2003, 2004, and 2006. He place second in 2005. He was moved up to the Regular Division in 2007, placing 5th, and he become the youngest to ever win the contest in 2008. -
	ETHAN USLAN (pronounced “Yoo-slin”) is one of the hottest names on the ragtime/traditional jazz scene today. The first place winner of the 2007 World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest (Peoria, IL), Uslan has performed on NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion as well as various concerts and festivals nationwide. Uslan studied classical piano as a child in South Orange, N.J. and later majored in classical piano performance at Indiana University. All the while, Uslan secretly harbored a ragtime addiction and complimented his classical piano studies by learning to play like Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, and George Gershwin. After college, Uslan found his way to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he has enjoyed playing all over town, including with the Charlotte Symphony. In addition to giving concerts and accompanying silent movie screenings, Ethan has served as adjunct visiting lecturer of music at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. He has recorded three CDs as well several silent film scores on DVD. He is also being featured in the upcoming ragtime documentary The Entertainers. When not playing piano, Ethan enjoys reading mystery novels and spending time with his wife and two sons. Ethan has competed in the World Championship since 2005, winning in 2007 and advancing to the finals six times. -
	FAYE BALLARD first became interested in ragtime music when she heard Les Cripe (piano player for the Harry James band) play at a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in Decatur, Illinois. Les was kind enough to take her under his wing and taught her how to play “Maple Leaf Rag” and showed her a few of his other numerous piano tricks. Faye first competed in the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest, at age 12, in their very second contest in 1976, where she had the honor to compete against the contest’s first champion, Joybelle Squibb. While Faye came in second to Joybelle, she loved the contest and competition and kept coming back. There was no Junior Division in the contest at the time, so Faye got to compete against other great champions like Dorothy Herald and took advantage of the learning opportunity to perfect her craft. Faye has been a five-time finalist in the competition and finished as high as 2nd place in 2007. Faye elected to retire from the competition part of the contest after the 2010 contest in order to take over as the contest coordinator starting in 2011. When not playing her piano, Faye enjoys her full-time job as an Office Support Specialist for the University of Illinois College of Nursing and spending time with her cat, Cora. She also enjoys performing at festivals, such as the Scott Jopllin Festival in Sedalia, Missouri and doing performances at various functions at the University of Illinois and for Champaign, Illinois’s Mayor, Jerry Schweigheart. -

	JIM BOSTON was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1955 and spent all of his childhood in the Hawkeye State. After an elementary school Suzuki-method “false start” on the piano he didn’t touch one again until he attended Iowa State University. In 1976, after an attempt to enter that school’s talent show failed, he wandered inside Lord of Life Lutheran Church on the edge of campus…and found a Haddorff upright from the early 20th Century. He figured since it was an old piano, why not learn some old songs? He started messing around, and in no time at all, he was hooked. For the next 17 years, he went to different churches in Ames, Des Moines, and the next two cities he’d call home — Omaha, Nebraska, and Sioux City, Iowa — seeking practice time on older uprights in church basements. He had no real musical direction until he found out that the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest was very much alive. (He had remembered that in college he’d seen a news report about the contest’s reigning champ, Dorothy Herrold.) So, in 1993, Jim started competing at the contest. He finished dead last. But other contestants encouraged him to stick with it. He did and became a Regular Division finalist in 1994. When he moved to Omaha in 1997, he began performing at one of the city’s nursing homes, ran off a nine-year stint playing at the Omaha Children’s Museum, and regularly competed in Iowa’s Old-Time Country Music Festival, becoming a seven-time finalist, most recently in 2007. In 2005, Jim helped organize the Ragtime to Riches Festival, held at first in Council Bluffs, Iowa, but now at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The next year, he founded the Great Plains Ragtime Society. When he’s not into music, Jim is a machine operator at an Omaha plastics factory. His hobbies include sports, computers, history, trivia, and reading…to say nothing of blogging. (You can find his musings at bostonsblog.freeblogit.com.) Jim’s one of the most enthusiastic supporters of ragtime and old-time piano around…and he’d love to come to your town and demonstrate why. -

	FOUR ARROWS, also known as Don Trent Jacobs, was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1946, continuing a Scot-Irish, English and Cherokee lineage. He learned his style of music from his grandparents and uncle and from the bars of Gaslight Square. If you could believe the late Becky London, author Jack London’s daughter, Four Arrows learned the old songs as a reincarnation phenomenon. Apparently Jack told her when she was fourteen that “when he came back” he would want to play the old songs — songs that happen to be the same favorites Four Arrows learned. Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) is a name give to him by the Oglala Lakota People in a sacred relative-making ceremony. Four Arrows is a Lakota Sun Dancer and former Dean of Education at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Four Arrows (aka Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D.) is also the author of twenty acclaimed books, an equal number of chapters, and more than a hundred articles on topics ranging from wellness and critical thinking to Indigenous worldview and education. He was an alternate for the U.S. Gold Medal Olympic Equestrian Endurance Event, and he is the recipient of the Martin Springer Institute Moral Courage Award for his activism. He lives in a remote fishing village in Mexico. -

	“PERFESSOR” BILL EDWARDS learned half the Scott Joplin catalog and most of Elton John’s by the age of 15 and spent the majority of his secondary school years in front of a piano. After college, Bill moved to Durango, Colorado, and had a six-year career at the Diamond Belle that helped shape his style and repertoire. There the nickname “Perfessor” was given to him one night in reference to early ragtime piano players. (The spelling reflected the often-modified pronunciation of their official title “Professor”.) The name stuck instantly. Bill earned a music degree in Durango from Fort Lewis College and then moved east to the Washington D.C. area in 1986. He played eight years at the Fish Market restaurant and has worked with or opened for many well-known artists, including Dave Brubeck, Al Hirt, Mel Tillis, and Jo-Ann Castle. In the mid-1980’s, the “Perfessor” began appearing at the World Championship. He has consistently placed in the top five, winning the title in 1991. His continued enthusiasm for this great forum for performers of all ages and abilities has kept him involved in many facets of the contest, including providing some of the definitions used in the rules and conducting seminars on history and craft. Bill has also made appearances at dozens of other traditional jazz and ragtime events around the country. Since 1984, Bill has amassed an impressive repertoire of recordings, most of which are still currently available. They cover everything from traditional classic ragtime to early popular song, and even a blues collection. He has also amassed a collection of original ragtime compositions, including an award-winning rag in 2001 titled The Necromancer (used with other pieces of Bill’s in the 2004 feature Ghosts of Edendale), his 2002 award winner “The Wiener Schnitzel Rag”, and his first original syncopated piece from 1985, “The Hanon Rag”. The future holds more ragtime for the “Perfessor” and his fans! Visit his website at www.perfessorbill.com. -

	RUSSELL WILSON grew up in Clinton, Maryland, with two older sisters and began taking classical piano lessons in the second grade with Dr. Gail McDonald. In 1999, he graduated from Surrattsville High School as valedictorian and began college at the University of Maryland majoring in classical piano, studying with Dr. Cleveland Page. He also studied jazz with Ron Elliston. While in school, Russell played in master classes with Andre Watts in over ten musical theater pits and in many student recitals as an accompanist. He spent one summer working at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg playing in an Italian music group and one summer working for Norwegian Cruise Lines playing in a showband and performing solo classical recitals. In his junior year, he won a position as pianist in the President’s Own US Marine Band where his duties include playing the piano, keyboard, harpsichord, and accordion in public performances around the Washington, D.C. Area with the concert band, the string orchestra, and small chamber groups, as well as solo background music at the White House. Since joining the band, Russell finished his Bachelor’s degree in Classical Piano and his Master’s in Jazz. In November 2005, Russell married Elizabeth Streetman, and in May 2009, they had a son, Barnabas. Russell has competed in the World Championship since 2005 He’s advanced to the finals three times and would have a fourth time his first year competing if he hadn’t penciled in a flight home, thinking he wasn’t good enough to advance. (The President probably should have intervened on that decision.) -

	TED LEMEN is the founder and emcee of the World Championship Old-time Piano Playing Contest. He attended Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, where he majored in English and journalism. A retired railroader, he founded Illinois’ Monticello Railway Museum in 1966. Lemen started the contest as a promotion for the museum in 1975, hoping to attract visitors to the museum’s train ride and displays. Through the years, thousands of people came to Monticello for that old-time feeling, but when the crowds got bigger than the town and its one motel could accomodate, the contest was moved to Decatur for over a decade until it moved once more to the Hotel Pere Marquette in Peoria. The Old-time Music Preservation Association (OMPA) was organized in 1990 to oversee the event, and Ted served as OMPA’s original president, as well as several terms on the board of directors. On stage Ted has joked, kidded, and interviewed hundreds of ragtime and honky-tonk piano players, who have competed for thousands of dollars in prize money. 2010 marked his 36th year as face of the World Championship. -

	WILLIAM MCNALLY is a native of Pittsburgh has been playing music since the age of three and studying piano since age seven. At nine, he performed for the first time in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as a winner of the AMSA World Piano Competition. He has since played there two more times, as principal bassist of the Mt. Lebanon H.S. Orchestra in Stern Auditorium and again in Weill Hall in a solo piano recital as winner of the Artists International competition. A multifaceted musician, Bill has been widely recognized as a ragtime pianist and composer. While still a high school student, a newly written rag garnered him a first prize in Pennsylvania and finalist placement in the PTSA national arts competition, where there were nearly 30,000 contestants in the musical composition field alone. More recently, he was the winner of both the 2008 and 2009 World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest’ New Rag Contest, as well as a Regular Division Finalist in 2009. His first ragtime CD, Chickens N’ Kittens: A Ragtime Coup, is available from Rivermont Records. In the spring of 2008, Bill inaugurated the Music4MS concert series, in an effort to raise funds and awareness for Multiple Sclerosis. He produced, directed, performed on, and wrote program notes for the series, which featured some of the brightest rising stars on the classical scene. He is a veteran of numerous summer festivals, including Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood Institute, and Mannes’ International Keyboard Institute and Festival, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. For four years, he was a student and served as house manager at Pianofest in the Hamptons. While there, he received nearly as much acclaim for his roast chickens as his playing. This summer, he has received a fellowship to attend the Tanglewood Music Center. With his wife, fellow pianist Daria Rabotkina, Bill studied at the Mannes College of Music, receiving Bachelors and Masters of Music degrees in piano performance. Following Mannes, he received a second Masters degree from Temple University, this time with a double major in piano pedagogy and chamber music. Recently, Bill served as Adjunct Professor of Piano and Artist-in-Residence at Temple University, as well as Associate Staff at the Settlement Music School. Currently he is in pursuit of a Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center as a recipient of an Enhanced Chancellor’s Fellowship. He also serves as Adjunct faculty at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. -

	BRETT YOUENS has performed annually since 2003 at the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, where he is active as a composer, pianist, and master of ceremonies. He has given numerous ragtime recitals in Germany — in Kalkum Castle, the U.S. Consulate’s 4^th of July ceremonies, Tübinger Jazz and Classic Days — incorporating not only his own ragtime compositions and those from the composers of the Ragtime Era, but also compositions by their contemporaries (e.g. Schönberg, Debussy). He holds bi-annual seminars in Piano through Jazz Burghausen, in Burghausen, Germany. A native of Texas, Brett now lives in Tübingen, Germany, where he makes his living as a piano teacher and composer of pedagogical works. Brett has been competing at the World Championship since 2005 and has twice advanced to the finals, as well as having twice placed second in the New Rag Competition. -

	JOE MANKOWSKI complete biography coming soon. -

	JOHN REMMERS has been playing classical piano from early childhood and ragtime since the early 1970s, when he became entranced by the musical form upon hearing Joshua Rifkin’s recordings of Scott Joplin’s piano rags. After a swing into harpsichord playing and early music in the 1980s, John’s musical focus returned to ragtime in the 1990s, and he became a frequent after-hours performer at ragtime festivals around the country. Since retiring from his day job teaching computer science,John’s involvement with ragtime has intensified. He has beenfeatured on the programs of the Scott Joplin Festival, the WestCoast Ragtime Festival, the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival, the Lake Superior Ragtime Festival, the Blind Boone Festival, and the Ragtime-Jasstime Festival. He has appeared as guest soloist for the Classic Ragtime Society of Indiana and has competed in the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest in Peoria, Illinois, advancing to the semi-finals six times. His CD Hand-Played Rags is available for purchase on CDBaby.com. -