.Hi everyone. I’ve been doing a series of interviews for the Maine Fiddle Camp newsletter on young “up and coming” trad musicians. Here’s the latest one with Benjamin Foss a multi-instrumentalist, a luthier, a dance organizer who came to Camp first as a camper and now as a full time teaching staff member. You know how this works, here we go:

Bill: Hi Benjamin, You showed up several years ago at Maine Fiddle Camp as a camper. When was that? I know you lived on Cape Cod somewhere near the Rehoboth contra dance. I have these visions of you sneaking out of your parent’s house as a middle-schooler to go dance. I know you eventually became quite involved with that dance, but there must have been other early musical influences. Tell us about them.

Benjamin: Hey Bill! Yes, I first came to MFC in August 2012 thanks to Ken Fortier who I met through the Sunday Night Jammers, an open band which met at Goff Hall in Rehoboth. Family friend Bob Elliott was my earliest musical influence, he was an organizer of the Rehoboth Contra Dance and leader of the Sunday Night Jammers and ironically met my parents through a parents recreational volleyball league before I was born. He played the fiddle and mandolin (while biking around town) and was my earliest exposure to traditional dance music, and a big influence in a lot of my creative pursuits. I learned my first fiddle tunes from a book after a couple years of violin lessons, and after that discovery started going to the dance and the Sunday night jam. The first Friday night dance I attended in Rehoboth when I was 11 was Crowfoot with Nils Fredland calling (!) and I was hooked, although it took me a while to warm up to the dancing part. I grew up only a mile from the hall in Rehoboth, so I could walk or bike to the dance from a young age. Within the next year I saw Natalie MacMaster and Donel Leahy in concert which kickstarted my tune learning frenzy, picked up the mandolin for the first time, and got my first taste of Maine Fiddle Camp!

Bill: There are several videos of you as a teenager playing the Rehoboth dance with Dave Langford, Amy Richardson Larkin, others. That’s some “rare air” there! How did some of these long time dance musicians influence you? What about other more recent musical influences?

Benjamin: My way into the backstage corner of the Rehoboth Contra dance was volunteering on sound, and from there I could meet and work with many of my musical heroes. One evening Amy was playing the dance, and she and Linda Leslie asked me to join them to fill out a troupe of dancers they were recruiting to demonstrate contra dancing on a local access cable television show. I asked in my youthful overconfidence (I had been playing guitar for less than a year) if they needed a guitarist instead, and Amy and I played together for the first time on TV the next night. At that time Linda had inherited leadership of many of the small Cape Cod dances, and she booked Amy and I as a duo as often as we could play. I played dozens of those small time dances with Amy when I was 15/16, and she became my primary influence as a dance musician. I learned a ton about tune selection, working with callers, and the tricks and secrets behind playing an exciting dance in those early days. Jack O’Connor  was also an important influence, and he included me in his booking rotation for the Monday night dance at the Scout house in Concord when I was 16. That dance is unique in the modern scene in that Jack draws upon a large pool of great Boston area musicians to put together pick-up bands of his own invention, and through that dance I got to work with many of the great Southern New England fiddlers of the last 40 years.

Bill: You play a multitude of instruments, Guitar, Fiddle, mandolin, banjo, piano, accordion, probably more. My guess is you started on guitar and that’s what got you interested in actually building guitars. Straighten that all out for us and say a bit about how you got into luthiery, and what some of your latest (instrument building) projects are.

Benjamin: I actually played the violin/fiddle for six years before picking up the mandolin which was my first fretted instrument. I also borrowed a guitar from a friend around that same time, although I tuned it CGCGCD for the first couple years. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how I got into building instruments but I’ve always been building things and started out with some cookie tin banjos, cigar box fiddles and the like. My first serious build was a bouzouki because I really wanted to play the bouzouki but couldn’t find one. I saved up and ordered some nice wood and parts from StewMac, and it came out well enough that I just kept going. I built my first guitar a year later, and then some mandolins and bouzoukis before my first fanned fret guitar in 2017 which was certainly a turning point for me. That was a surprisingly good guitar, and a lot of people wanted it or one like it which pushed building into a profession of some kind for me. For the last few years I’ve been focusing on repair and restoration work as I restore my house, but I’m excited to kick off a batch of new builds patterned on a 1933 Gibson L00 this winter. Be in touch if that sounds up your alley!

Bill: After school, you moved from Massachusetts to Belfast, Maine, and then more recently to nearby Brooks, where you started the Brooks contra dance. Tell us about the journey and about the dance. It seems REALLY popular.

Benjamin: I moved to Brooks in 2020 at the very start of the pandemic, but immediately saw the opportunity in a great hall even closer to my house than the Rehoboth dance was growing up. The dance in Belfast just down the road had also exploded in popularity and there was clearly momentum for a second dance in Waldo county. I started the dance in 2023 with my then partner Addie who is now primarily organizing it. The secret to the success of the Brooks contra dance is accounting for as many aspects of the dancer experience as possible. Consistent pleasant lighting, high quality sound, the best bands on the scene from the start, and it’s welcoming to beginners without getting bogged down with the excessive teaching that plagues some modern dances. It feels like a real party, and as a result the hall is packed until the last waltz every time.

Bill: When did you actually start teaching at Maine Fiddle Camp (you know as a full-time staff member). Tell us about the experience of making that jump from camper to teacher.

Benjamin, first year on Staff at MFC

Ben: I was first an apprentice/assistant teacher in June 2018, and was full time staff in August of that year. Like many people, that experience was a bit weird for me because that line has been somewhat blurry. I helped out as much as I could in 2017 unoficially, looking to make that leap. I had been around MFC enough to very easily slot into all of the ancillary staff responsibilities, and although I didn’t have a lot of teaching experience in that group class format that first year I felt like I had a lot to offer and could take on that role. I wound up between mandolin and guitar because that’s where the need was then, and I’ve been on that end of things since save some emergency forays into Banjo and Accordion. Although fiddle has been my personal focus all along, I’ve yet to have a fiddle class at Maine Fiddle Camp!

Bill: What are some of your current musical projects?

Ben: Most of my work right now is teaching group classes and private lessons at Bagaduce music in Blue Hill ME alongside Bennett Konesni, Elsie and Molly Gawler, and Ethan Tishler. We have a little slice of fiddle camp going year round, and you should check it out if you’re anywhere nearby. I play dances most often in a pick up band sort of format with a number of different musicians. Bennett Konesni, Willy Clemetson, Elsie Gawler, Ed Howe, Julie Metcalf, Alden Robinson, Dave Langford, and Glen Loper are all occasional collaborators on the dance circuit. I also play dance weekends in a relatively new band, Thunderwing, with Cedar Stanistreet and Amy Englesberg. I play in a concert duo with Owen Kennedy, and love to collaborate with fiddle camp favorite Mia Bertelli as much as I can. I also have some exciting projects on the horizon, so stay tuned for some more new things soon!

Bill: Finally, what are your other interests besides music? This is the spot where you can say pretty much anything you want to the MFC “audience”.

Ben: For the last 4 years, my life has been dominated by a house restoration project, and I’m a big time historic architecture enthusiast. I spend most of my time these days up in my bucket truck repairing Italianate trim, or hanging out with my three perfect banjo themed cats, Little Wonder, Silver Bell, and Tubaphone. I’ve also been a firefighter here in Brooks for three years now, and I love the contrast that that work provides to my primarily creative and self guided projects. To the fiddle camp newsletter audience I would say, go to your nearest contra dance, and see you next June! Thanks Bill!

Here’s some videos that show Benjamin’s skill and versatility…

Actually, my band T-Acadie shared the stage with Benjamin and Willy Clemetson at the New Year’s Eve contradance in Topsham Maine

See you all next year! – bill