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Links to Special and Favorite Artists

Anna Sue Courtney,  multi-talented Huntsville puppeteer, gardener, modern dancer, swing teacher, contact improviser, and, unexpectedly to her, vegetarian chef extraordinaire, graced Split Tree as our first artist-in-residence from April '98 to  May' 99.  Named "Fool of the Year" at the annual Fool's Fest, Anna Sue returned this summer to her first love, her eclectic Huntsville studio known simply as 1210 Meridian...a scene not to be missed.
       She taught us much with her heart and her hands and her feet and her love of the garden weeds along with the wild flowers and vegetables she and other dancers planted.  Her spirit will long linger as visitors enjoy her many small touches to studio, house and gardens.   We look forward to her continued laughter in the kitchen and frequent returns as "keeper of the hearth."  Thank you, Anna Sue, for the many beautiful pathways you made for us and for those new paths yet to be made.   Click here to email Anna Sue. (Sid)

The Nudes--Walter Parks and Stephanie Winters (she named the farm "Split Tree"): Folk singers/songwriters/guitar and cello instrumentalists

Amy Fradon, Shokan, NY:  Folk singer/songwriter/vocal workshop leader

Elise Witt, Atlanta, GA:  Folk singer/songwriter/vocal workshop leader (see her workshop date above)

Gwendolyn Watson, Rome GA:   cellist/composer/improvisor--Split Tree resident artist, Fall 1996
Click above to buy Gwendolyn's latest CD, "Love Letters" at House of EM. 
Or for sale in person at Split Tree Bookstore, $15.00.
Fereshteh Rahbari - flutes
Maria Steinkogler - viola
Gwendolyn Watson - cello
About the Music:
Comments by the Composer Gwendolyn Watson

"Some of the music motifs in each of these "Love Letters" first appeared through improvisation with cello and voice in a previous CD named "Wings for the Spirit - Part I" (1992). Time between then and now has allowed me to refashion those ideas adding more lines so that a richer texture and more clearly established intimate chamber music context could be achieved.

My friends and colleagues, flautist Fereshteh Rahbari and violist Maria Steinkogler are, along with myself, regular faculty members of the "Allegro Vivo International Chamber Music Festival" held yearly in August in the Waldviertel area of Austria just outside of Vienna."