Album Notes

Gladly Playe boasts excellent musicianship and careful crafting of unique medleys of folk and adapted classical music.We perform on instruments that are less common and that promote a good deal of public interest, such as: hammered dulcimers, bowed psaltrys and various whistles. We sing a bit too, and perform a number of specific Celtic tunes.

We have performed for venues like Main Street Concert series, First Nights, arts and crafts shows, private and public concerts in communities like Harrisburg, Lancaster, York, Wilmington, DE, Newport, Gettysburg, and Mechanicsburg.

We can craft a performance tailored to your particular interests and needs.We like to perform acoustically but also have sound reinforcement and our own engineering capacity, if needed.
Together since early 1998, this group performs music that is centered around melodies on twinned hammer dulcimers and occasionally, violin. Much of the repertoire has origins in the British Isles, particularly Scotland and Ireland and is often hundreds of years old. Most of the tunes are from within the folk idiom.
But Gladly Playe also performs adapted classics and new music written specifically for the hammer dulcimer in the folk idiom.

Gladly Playe springs from previous efforts of the duo, Fret Free comprised of Bill Stine on hammer dulcimer and Eric Muench on Double Bass.

Bill is a music educator, choral director and long time performer on a number of instruments including keyboards.
Eric has performed in rock, jazz folk music groups on both east and west coasts and is proficient in arco and other styles. A young protegee named Megan Bartges joined on dulcimer and bowed psaltry.She brings high energy, enthusiasm and spunk to the group. Craig Zumbrun plays 6 and 12 string guitars, bouzouki, (the octave mandolin), bodhran (Irish frame drum) and sings. He has helped to found a number of central Pennsylvania Celtic bands and sings with the York Chamber Singers and York Oratorio Society. Betsy Swartz is a professional violinist with many area orchestras, including the American Music Theatre. She has adapted her classical style to the group's repertoire and adds dramatic descants and melodies. Erin Flynn has recently joined the group and performs both on the Hammer Dulcimer as well as violin and Irish whistle!
Not to be confused with your run of the mill folk revival band, Gladly Playe approaches each set of tunes with a plan and arrangement prepared by Bill Stine and then abruptly spiced by Eric and Craig, further ornamented by Betsy and polished off by Megan and Erin. The tunes are often taken from the area of Ireland and Scotland and are in the folk idiom or they are modern compositions of folks like Karen Askbrook and Dougie MacLean.Or they might hail from Appalachia, Russia, or the Iberian Peninsula.
Each one brings a voice and a musical sketch from some place unique in this quickly franchising world, and to that extent you can call Gladly Playe radical folkies! The band has performed for folk events, winery fairs, concerts, weddings, festivals and the like. They thrive on audience participation. We tender here for your consideration Gladlye Playe and we hope gladly heard.

We welcome your ideas and interest and would be happy to play for you --because we gladly do play. This Christmas CD was released October of 2001. It follows our first CD entitled "228" which was released in the Summer of 2000 and is also available thru this website!

To sample our music, check out our web site www.gladlyplaye.com and let us know what you think.