Lorinda Jones

Bio

​​​​​​​​Lorinda Jones grew up in the small town of Tompkinsville, Kentucky alongside the knobs of the Cumberland plateau. She was fortunate enough to be surrounded by old-time, gospel, shape-note and bluegrass music, and even classical music, which she pursued on piano and oboe. But it was when she met the “friendly cardboard dulcimer” as an adult music educator and began teaching and sharing the traditional music that she felt she had “come back home” to her roots. Lorinda has taught the dulcimer in schools, at festivals across the country and one of the few music therapists to have developed approaches to using the dulcimer in a therapeutic setting. 

She has been a pioneer for both the dulcimer and folk harp in Kentucky, having formed the Heartland Dulcimer Club, annual HDC Festival and the Heartland Harp Ensemble. Her current passion of sharing the ancient music of Ireland can be heard in the recordings and performances of na Skylark, an all-female trio specializing in the traditional music of Ireland performed on traditional instruments including harp, fiddle, pipes, voice, flutes and whistles. 

Lorinda was recently awarded an apprenticeship grant, learning fiddle tunes with Ron Pen. Together they are presenting how fiddle tunes important to Kentucky can be shared in the dulcimer community.

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