Patrick Aranda is one of ragtime's most entertaining and talented performers. He plays a mean piano, sings, performs on trombone, tuba, and who knows what all (not necessarily all at once), and has a huge ragtime repertoire, including the most difficult and flashy novelty-style rags, plus classic rags, Harlem stride compositions, and favorite tunes from the Tin Pan Alley era.

Fans can currently see him perform at Disneyland as main Street's Ragtime pianist on Fridays and Saturdays. He also plays piano with various traditional jazz groups including Auntie Skinners Lucky Winners Jazz Band, and The Burgundy Street Jazz Band.

He is a Music Professor at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, where he directs the Jazz Band and Concert Band, as well as teaching classes ranging from theory and musicianship to History of Jazz. He also stays busy directing at least three musicals a year.

He made his Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival debut in 2002 and has been invited back by popular demand ever since. In 2003 he was among the modern ragtime composers we honored at our Festival, having created several of his own ragtime pieces, including one inspired by his Sutter Creek debut. Patrick is a favorite headliner at Orange County's annual RagFest and The Ragtime Corner of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. He has also been featured at the West Coast Ragtime Festival in Sacramento.

In his spare time, Patrick plays trombone in his brother's Salsa band; performs with several Southern California Dixieland groups, and, has finally recorded his own solo CD.

Andrew Barrett was born in New York City in 1987 to a musical family. As a toddler, frequent trips to the Central Park Carousel led to an interest in band organs and later orchestrions and other automatic musical instruments and a taste for the turn-of-the-century tunes they played.

Like many toddlers, Andrew began playing on pots and pans at home until his parents mercifully bought him his first drum set. He discovered the washboard as a musical instrument soon after this.

His family moved to Costa Mesa, California, in 1996. At the age of 11, Andrew began weekly piano lessons with a local instructor, Anita Gillett. During his first year of study, he began to play the ragtime music that he enjoys so much. This led to an interest in novelty, stride, and rhythm piano and works by such composers and performers as Paul Pratt, Harry C. Thompson, Albert Gumble, Jean Schwartz, Les Copeland, Charley Straight, Roy Bargy, Eastwood Lane, Clarence Johnson, and Donald Lambert.

Andrew continues to play the drums and washboard with his mentor, soprano saxophonist George Probert. He attends Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. He has composed several pieces, among which Frequent Flyer Rag, Cantering Along, and Flying Rhino are particularly notable.

Andrew began attending the Rose Leaf Ragtime Club in Pasadena a few years ago, and is now a regular performer/attendee. He also attends the Orange County Ragtime Society in Fullerton. He says that he enjoys going to the clubs because he “can try out pieces I’ve been working on in front of an audience; I get to hear other performers; I have fun, and mostly, I can hear my favorite music!”

In addition to all of this, Andrew has also been featured the past several years as a performer in such annual California events as the West Coast Ragtime Festival in Sacramento, Ragfest in Fullerton, and the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival in Sutter Creek.

He recently competed in the 2008 World Championship Old-Time Piano-Playing Contest in Peoria, Illinois, where he placed sixth in the Adult Division. In their “new rag” contest, he got second place (by one point!) for “Humanitaur Rag” (a remarkable drag).

Jack and Chris Bradshaw, ragtime piano duo artists from Gilroy, Calif., are bringing their unique sound to Sutter Creek again this year.  Jack's four-hand arrangements of popular rags, cakewalks, marches and novelty numbers are played with a sparkle reminiscent of old-time piano rolls. This lively pair has also appeared at the West Coast, Scott Joplin, Blind Boone, RagFest, Shaniko, Cascade, and the Fresno Flats Ragtime Festivals, The Ragtime Corners of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, and Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo. The rollicking road to ragtime thus far has taken them to 11 states and Canada.

Jack also plays classic and new ragtime solos to round out their programs. Jack and Chris each hold advanced degrees in music and perform regularly at Sacramento Ragtime Society and South Valley Music Makers meetings.

Tom Brier, affectionately dubbed "Hot Rod Tommy," used to be California’s greatest ragtime secret until the summer of 2001, when he made his debut to tremendous applause (and much jaw-dropping) at the Scott Joplin Festival in Sedalia, MO and the Blind Boone Festival in Columbia, MO. In his early thirties, this composing genius and pianist extraordinaire, hails from Oakdale, a Central Valley farming community south of Sacramento. He currently lives in Sacramento where he works as a programmer/analyst for the County of Sacramento. Tom caught the ragtime bug when his parents purchased a Schubert mechanical player. He was only 4, but when he started picking out tunes he heard on the piano rolls, his parents immediately found him a piano teacher. Soon Tom was notating his own music and by age 11, he had composed nearly a dozen rags. Today he has well over 160 ragtime compositions to his name (more than 200 if collaborations with other composers are counted), all remarkably original but clearly demonstrating his depth of understanding of early ragtime subtleties. In 1985, at age 14, Brier made his first appearance at the Sacramento Ragtime Society meeting, blowing everyone away with his signature rapid-fire left hand runs. Since that time, Brier has been a mainstay at the Ragtime Corner of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, the West Coast Ragtime Festival, and recently our Mother Lode Ragtime Society gatherings. He has recorded six CDs, has a vast ragtime sheet music collection, is noted for performing and popularizing extremely rare but wonderful rags, and for inspiring pianists to attempt to keep up with him.

The Drivons became part of the West Coast ragtime movement in 2003 when Robyn was approached by Petra and Bub Sullivan to begin performing with the Porcupine Ragtime Ensemble. Soon after, Steve joined in playing trombone, and their new love for ragtime was born. A couple of years ago, Steve started showing up with his snare drum, which fostered the Sullivans & Drivons quartet. The Drivons have since become known to many ragtime fans and musicians as familiar and welcomed performers in a number of festivals and concerts in California.

The 2009 Sutter Creek Festival will establish another milestone for the Drivons, as they will be featured exclusively as a duo. With Robyn on tuba, Steve will sing some of their favorite ragtime era songs while adding rhythm and chords on tenor guitar. The Drivons can also be heard with Chris and Jack Bradshaw as the Ragnolia Ragtette.

Robyn Drivon has played the tuba since she was 10 years old, and has now oompahed with orchestras, symphonic bands, and brass ensembles in California and the Midwest, including several European tours. An accomplished tubist, Robyn relinquished her position with the Stockton Symphony in 1986 to begin law school. In 2006 she and hubby Steve moved to Woodland, Calif., where she is County Counsel for Yolo County. Since entering the Ragtime scene, Robyn has started studying the piano, and loves it! The grand kids call her "Nama".

Steve "Pops" Drivon has enjoyed a career's worth of traditional jazz, early American pop, and band music accomplishments. He now spends much of the year on the road singing and playing washboard and slidewhistle. Steve has toured since the 1970s with the Port City Jazz Band as well as the last 11 years with the Washboard Wizardz. Having also toured previously with his one-man show, Stevie the Musical Clown, and as crooner/lead trombonist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Steve is now working on a trio project combining hillbilly, bluegrass and rock 'n' roll, called Prairie Rock. Pops is a proud grampa.

Marty Eggers is well known on the West Coast as a top-notch ragtime pianist and bassist. Marty's music career began in Sacramento where as a teenager he helped found the Sacramento Ragtime Society in 1982. He has played with numerous San Francisco Bay Area jazz and ragtime groups, most notably John Gill's San Francisco JazzBand and the Black Diamond Jazz Band. His talent and versatility have led him into several varied and prestigious engagements, from recording with traditional jazz legend Bob Helm to touring Germany with Hal Smith's Rhythm Cats to playing in backup bands for both Leon Redbone and Butch Thompson. Marty is also a skilled composer and arranger of ragtime and traditional jazz.

He also appears with the Tichenor Family Trio (Trebor Tichenor, Virginia Tichenor, and Marty) and performs as a soloist at least once a month on Tuesday evenings at Pier 23 in San Francisco and Wednesday evenings at the Straw Hat Pizza Parlor in Rancho Cordova, CA.

Terry Waldo describes Marty as having "..an encyclopedic knowledge of the ragtime and early jazz repertoire ..."

Marty is married to ragtime pianist Virginia Tichenor (see below) and is a past president of the West Coast Ragtime Society.

Frederick Hodges, of Berkeley, CA was groomed for a career as a concert pianist but was happily lured away from his path after he found a stack of turn-of-the-century sheet music in his grandmother’s piano bench.  Repeated exposure to the rollicking ragtime rhythms of player pianos and 78 rpm phonograph records sealed his fate and he set out to master the ragtime playing styles that had captivated him.

While still an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, he was hired as pianist for the Royal Society Jazz Orchestra, for which he has played for 20 years. He also performs with the Peter Mintun Orchestra, with jazz ensembles, and as a soloist. He appears at least once a month on Tuesday evenings at Pier 23 in San Francisco and Wednesday evenings at the Straw Hat Pizza Parlor in Rancho Cordova, CA and he is a much applauded featured performer at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee's Ragtime Corner and West Coast Ragtime Festival.

Vincent Johnson, a ragtime composer, pianist, researcher, and enthusiast, was first attracted to ragtime music at age 12, after hearing his friends play Scott Joplin rags. He began learning "The Entertainer" and "Maple Leaf Rag" by watching and listening to the pieces being played by others. He began attending Rose Leaf Ragtime Club gatherings in order to learn more about this musical genre and listen to live performers play rags. Piano lessons soon followed, and soon he was learning pieces of varying ragtime styles, from classic ragtime to novelty piano.

In 2007, Vincent began to compose ragtime music as a hobby and has turned out over a dozen compositions to date. While his pieces are composed in various ragtime era styles, including foxtrots, cakewalks, classic rags, and stride piano, most of his pieces are composed in the novelty style popular during the 1920s. These pieces are influenced by his favorite composers: Arthur Schutt, Zez Confrey, Roy Bargy, Charley Straight, Max Kortlander, Les Copeland, Billy Mayerl and Joseph Lamb.

Carl Sonny Leyland blew everyone’s socks off at our 4th Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival (when he was lesser known) and has subsequently done the same at just about all the prestigious festivals in the country, including the Scott Joplin and Blind Boone Festivals in Missouri, the West Coast Ragtime Festival in Sacramento, Orange County’s RagFest, plus the Sacramento and San Diego Jazz Jubilees.  We’re lucky he loves us and agreed to thrill us with a return appearance this year. His ability to recreate obscure and primitive styles in the genre of barrelhouse, blues, and boogie woogie, combined with the originality and soulfulness of his own music, makes him one of today’s most exciting pianists. Plus he sings!

Born in the south of England in 1965, Sonny took up piano at age 15.  His inspiration was the boogie woogie music of Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson & Meade Lux Lewis. Fascinated by this style, Sonny traced it back to its Barrelhouse roots, incorporating the stylings of Jimmy Yancey, Cow Cow Davenport, Little Brother Montgomery and other notables into his own playing. In 1988, Sonny headed for New Orleans, where he lived for 10 years, appeared at the world-renowned New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and furthered his exploration of piano genres, including Blues, country, R&B, rockabilly, Rock and Roll, and, of course, traditional jazz and ragtime. He has toured in Europe and the United States as a solo act and with bands such as Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets and Big Sandy and His Flyrite Boys. Following a trip out west in 1995, Sonny relocated to California. He now resides with his wife in New Cuyama, CA. Sonny has several CDs to his name, his most recent with the Carl Sonny Leyland Trio, featuring Carl, Hal Smith on drums, and Marty Eggers on bass.

Larisa Migachyov has played the piano all her life and discovered ragtime in 2005, when she joined the San Antonio Ragtime Society. She has composed more than 20 rags and performed at various festivals around the country. Her latest CD, Oh, that Ragtime Chick!, features all her own compositions (it is available at www.larisamigachyov.com). She is studying for the California Bar Exam and fervently hopes to pass it before the festival.

Will Perkins is a teenage pianist from a small town in the Central Valley of California called Riverbank. At age 11, Will began taking piano lessons. While he quickly started down the path of classical piano, his mother suggested learning The Entertainer. His piano teacher got a book with several ragtime pieces in it, and soon Will was learning a simplified version of Maple Leaf Rag. Full of ambition, he went to a local music store and picked up a book with several Scott Joplin pieces, and quickly learned the original version. And as they say, the rest is history.

Will also enjoys baseball, football, and is an avid Boy Scout. Will has played just about every instrument in the brass section, but has recently decided to focus solely on the piano. His love of all types of piano music can be seen by the venues at which he chooses to share his talent -- whether it be at church or as the pianist for a recent High School Drama production of “Alice in Wonderland”.

In November of 2007, he placed 1st in the West Coast Ragtime Festival Youth Competition for his division playing Joseph F. Lamb's Cottontail Rag.

Stevens Price, owner of the Sutter Creek Ice Cream Emporium, is the founder, director, and producer of the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival, greatly assisted by the creative genius of his talented wife, Jan ("Ah Sweet Sue") Price, reigning star of the Dill Pickle Ranch Ragtime Melodrama. After hearing his dad perform "boogie woogie" on the family piano, Stevens began picking out music by age 12 and was soon playing boogie and other styles as a self-taught artist. Then he went to college as a music and drama major, where he decided to take piano lessons. Needless to say, he had to unlearn certain techniques. When he discovered ragtime, Stevens became a regular at the Maple Leaf Club meetings in Los Angeles. He still remembers playing Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" with six other club members on six pianos. At the Ice Cream Emporium, Stevens plays whenever possible for the enjoyment of the customers, and due to the success of the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival, his ice cream parlor has become the ragtime center of the Mother Lode and home of the Mother Lode Ragtime Society.  Recently Stevens has taken to composing ragtime and has at least seven ice-cream flavored toe-tappers to his credit. Stevens is active with the Sacramento Ragtime Society, has performed at the Ragtime Corner at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, and is the pianist and chief shtick artist of the Dill Pickle Ranch Ragtime Melodrama crew.

The Ragnolia Ragtette is a pair of husband & wife teams, combining the four-handed piano duo of Jack & Chris Bradshaw with Robyn Drivon's tuba and her husband Steve Drivon on percussion. This ensemble made its debut at the 2008 Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival.

John Remmers, from Ann Arbor, Mich., is a retired professor of computer science with a serious addiction to playing ragtime piano. He is seen and heard frequently at ragtime festivals around the U.S., whether it be in open-piano after-hours sessions or as a billed performer. In addition, he dabbles in creative writing and has an interest in web design and programming.

Tim Rotolo made a splash as a walk-on performer during Open Piano sets at the 2008 Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival. A student at Upland High school in Southern California, Tim participated in the nationally recognized Highlander Marching Band for two years. He plays piano for two hours most Saturday nights at the Mt Baldy Lodge (and restaurant) and occasionally at Galli's Restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga. For three years, Tim studied with Johnny Hodges, who was a featured pianist on Main Street at Disneyland for 25 years.

Keith Taylor began playing ragtime in 1972. Until that time, his musical background was classically oriented. Earning a Bachelor of Music degree in piano and a Masters in composition, including studying composition in Paris, France, he continues to perform and compose both types of music. For many years he taught instrumental music in the Los Angeles Public Schools. He currently lives with his wife in Azalea, Oregon where he freelances as a composer and a pianist. Since boyhood, Keith has traveled twice a year to the Mother Lode to photograph the historic towns and to play every saloon piano he finds — tuning and repairing them while he's at it — a very popular fellow! In 1998 he dropped by the Sutter Creek Ice Cream Emporium, where he discovered another piano and Stevens Price, someone he hadn't seen since the two met at The Maple Leaf Club in Los Angeles 20 years earlier. Keith was the inspiration behind Stevens' decision to organize the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival of 1999, and that was such a success, Keith returned home and re-organized the Cascade Ragtime Society which now sponsors an early April Ragtime Festival in Roseberg, Oregon. Keith, along with Tom Bopp, is also responsible for initiating the Fresno Flats Vintage Music Festival held each February in Oakhurst, CA. Keith’s latest undertaking is the Annual Shaniko Ragtime and Vintage Music Festival held in a wonderful ghost town in Oregon each September.

Virginia Tichenor has been consumed by ragtime her entire life. She is the daughter of Trebor Tichenor, the noted ragtime scholar, pianist, collector and founder of  the St. Louis Ragtimers. She studied music at the St. Louis Community Association for the Arts and took advanced training from concert pianist, John Phillips. Always at the crossroads of the ragtime revival, her parental home houses the world's largest library of ragtime sheet music and piano rolls. Virginia grew up with legends like Eubie Blake, Max Morath and Butch Thompson chatting in her own living room. Her father is advisor-confidant for most of the ragtime community, so Virginia often heard new rags when they were forming in the minds of their composers. The topic of her college research project? The ragtime revival, of course!  In 1998, Virginia released her first solo recording, a CD entitled Virginia's Favorites. It includes four two-piano duets with her father, Trebor. It was so popular, the family has since released two other CDs, "The Tichenor Trio" which includes Virginia's father and her multi-talented husband, Marty Eggers, and most recently, "Ragtime Reunion - Tichenor Family Five" featuring Virginia, her dad, her husband, her brother, and her sister-in-law. She is the Vice President, and past President, of the West Coast Ragtime Society.