Teachers & Musicians 2022
Sharon Barker, Teacher
Sharon was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and moved to Calgary with her family when she was a young child. She started Scottish Country Dancing at the age of 7 and has been a part of many of the classes and demonstration teams in the Calgary area. She has over 40 years of dancing experience.
Sharon started teaching SCD to beginners at one of the local groups in Calgary in 1994. She received her Preliminary Certificate from the RSCDS in 1998 and her Full Certificate in 2002. Since then, she has been teaching classes in southern Alberta on a weekly basis. She has also taught at many day and weekend workshops across North America. Recently she has taken up tutoring and has now tutored all levels of the Teacher's Certificate and the intermediate level of the Dancing Achievement Award. In addition to teaching, Sharon has also held several board positions with both Calgary Branch and Teachers’ Association (Canada).
Sharon has interests in other forms of Scottish and Irish dance, as well. These include Irish Ceili Dancing, Highland Dancing, and Scottish Step Dancing.
Alan Twhigg, Teacher
With Scottish heritage on both sides of his family, Alan developed a love for the traditional music at an early age. His parents danced with the Reel & Strathspey Club that preceded formation of the San Francisco Branch of the RSCDS and often took him to Highland Games and pipe-band concerts as a child.
Alan himself discovered Scottish Country Dancing as a college student, amongst other dance forms such as ballroom and international folk. The music resonated with some early memories, and the intricate patterns of SCD stood out from the other styles. He soon sought out a weekly class, then two…
Alan passed both of the RSCDS teaching exams at St. Andrews in the 1980s, and has been teaching regular weekly classes at various levels ever since. He has served as a guest instructor at weekend workshops across North America and tutored candidates for teaching exams. He also continues to participate in SCD performances, chiefly with the Red Thistle Dancers. Favorite memories include choreographing and performing a sword dance for the San Francisco Opera as well as teaching and performing in Norway, the Czech Republic, and Russia.
To support his dance hobbies, Alan makes his living as a technical writer/editor in the computer industry. He shares a townhouse with two cats and too many books. Recent projects include expanding the audience for SCD among the international folk dance and contra dance communities.
Mara Shea, Fiddle
Mara Shea has been playing with violins since her mother decided her child had a really good sense of pitch and enrolled her in music schools in Westport and New Haven, CT. After studying classical violin for 10 years and then taking a 15-year break, she discovered folk and dance music. Mara has been happily playing for dancers since the 1990s— various styles of English, Scottish, contra, ceilidh—and is frequently heard at balls, dance weekends and concerts in the US, Scotland, and Canada. She has been on the music staff at Pinewoods, TAC Summer School, Ramblewood, Scottish Weekend, and at the John C. Campbell Folk School, in Brasstown, North Carolina. In 2014 and 2016, with Dean Herington, Mara led a three-day musicians’ workshop for the Scottish country dance group in Lisbon, Portugal. Mara has played regularly at English country dance weekends at John C. Campbell Folk School, and organizes the music for the Sun Assembly English country dance group in Durham, North Carolina. She has several recordings with her contra dance band, The Elftones, as well as with other wonderful musicians such as Dave Wiesler (Heather Hills), Rhiannon Giddens (All the Pretty Horses), and Julie Gorka (In 3⁄4 Time, plus several Scottish dance recordings). Mara decided to take a year off from teaching in 2018-19 and earned an MLitt in ethnology and folklore at the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Mara lives in Elon, North Carolina, where she teaches Celtic fiddle (online, these days), and works as an occasional freelance speaker, writer, and editor. For more on Mara, and to listen to some of her music, visit her website: marashea.com. Her solo English country dance music recorded during the pandemic is available on her website and also at marashea.bandcamp.com/.
Tom Pixton, Piano & Accordion
Tom Pixton is active as a Scottish, International, and Balkan folk dance musician. He has worked with many of today's most accomplished dance teachers and musicians as accordionist, pianist, band leader, music arranger, and CD producer. He has provided dance music for dance camps, workshops, and special events in the US, Canada, and Japan, and has provided music leadership for the Boston Branch of the Royal Scottish Dance Society, Cambridge Revels, June Camp, and the Folk Arts Center of New England.
Tom has been an active member of the Cambridge Class for more than twenty years, and has served as Music Director for the Pinewoods Scottish sessions on numerous occasions. His Scottish recordings include Scottish in Salem (with Lissa Schneckenberger), Saucy Bess: The Piper’s Weird and Live From C Sharp.