Matthew and I just got back from our trip up to Pocono, Pennsylvania for the Pocono Winter Dulcimer Fest. (The winter fest got postponed due to bad weather, so they pushed the date back to April and called it the Spring Out Of Winter Dulcimer Fest!)

On our way up, we stopped in at Washington, D.C for the day to tour the monuments and see the sights.

One of our favorite places we were able to visit was the U.S. National Arboretum. Everything was well taken care of and beautiful. The azaleas were in full bloom too, which made for a nice walk.

After spending one more day visiting with family in the area, Matthew and I headed on up to the Pocono area, where we met our wonderful hostess who put us up for the festival! (We greatly appreciate you, Joanne, for letting us stay at your place.)

Saturday started with workshops. Matthew was teaching 3 back to back Master Classes that built upon each other that were titled, "Weave Rhythmic Patterns into your Melodies". He had a good class of interested and skilled players. I had never heard him teach a workshop before, so I enjoyed sitting in on his class.

Here he is showing a technique...

Later on that evening, there was a concert open to the public. Matthew was one of the performers, along with Bill Collins (mountain dulcimer), Karen Ashbrook & Paul Oorts (hammered dulcimer), & Lois Hornbostel & Ehukai Teves (mountain dulcimer). Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of Matthew up on stage, but he played a lot of crowd pleasers off of his cd and put on a good show!

We had a wonderful weekend, met a lot of new folks, and we both had a great time at the fest.

Pictures from the Pocono Fest!