Cajun and Creole Week / Augusta Heritage Center

Check out the details for Cajun and Creole Week 2015 at the Augusta Heritage Center!

Our staff of Cajun and Creole masters keeps students buzzing with excitement in the classrooms and pulsing with energy on the pavilion dance floor all week! Each day starts with a choice of jam sessions or a visit with special artists. Classes meet 10-11:45 a.m. and 2:30-3:45 p.m. After lunch, everyone gathers for special presentations on Cajun/ Creole music and culture. A fresh cup of Cajun coffee is always available. With mini-courses, jam sessions, concerts, dances and a party featuring Cajun gumbo, it’s a gala week of nonstop music and dancing.

Tuition is $450 plus room & board. Registration is now open! Specify Cajun/Creole Week and the class that you would like to attend.

Most classes (except Novice) are intended for those who can already play their instrument and are ready to start learning Cajun/Creole style, technique and repertoire.

Lynne Terr
(Coordinator)
has used her skills as a music events planner to bring together memorable gatherings of exemplary Cajun musicians to Augusta for well over a decade.

Sheryl Cormier
(Master Artist)
is sometimes referred to as “La Reine Cadjine” (The Cajun Queen) and was the first Cajun female artist to record playing the accordion. In 2002 she became a “Living Legend” at the Acadian Museum in Erath, Louisiana. In 2009 she was inducted into the Cajun French Music Association Hall of Fame and was honored by the Cajun Culture Association in recognition of a lifetime of playing Cajun music. In 2010 she was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Jason Frey
(Beginning Accordion)
Jason Frey’s accordion playing takes listeners back to the old style of front porch music. One of Dewey Balfa’s favorite accordion players, Jason played many festivals with him. In 2000 his band, Lagniappe, released a CD, à la vieille manière, which received the Cajun French Music Association’s Le Cajun Award as Best First Recording of the Year and Jason was nominated for the Best Accordionist of the Year. In 2011 Jason and Courtney Granger recorded a CD on which they performed both old favorites and newer songs that they wrote themselves. Since then Jason has teamed up with Al Berard, Charlie Terr and Joel Savoy for another CD of standards and originals.

Paul Daigle
(Intermediate Accordion)
is one of Acadiana’s most talented accordionists. He is a founding member of Cajun Gold, and has performed with renowned Cajun musicians including Shirley Bergeron, D.L. Menard and Ken Smith. Most recently Paul has had what he considers the grandest opportunity of all, the recurring of two CDs with his children, one of which won CD of the year from the Cajun French Music Association.

Jimmy Breaux
(Advanced Accordion)
Jimmy Breaux is acknowledged to be one of the best Cajun accordionists of the modern era. The accordion player for the Grammy Award-winning group Beausoleil for over 25 years, he is in the fourth generation of his family to play Cajun music. His great-grandfather was Auguste Breaux, and his great aunt, Cléoma Falcon Breaux, sang and played on the first Cajun recording, “Allons à Lafayette.” His grandfather, Amédée Breaux, made the first recording of “Jolie Blonde.”

Eric Frey
(Bass)
The son of a bluegrass bass player, Eric Frey grew up going from jam to jam and festival to festival around his hometown of Clay, Alabama. It was only natural for Eric to play bass and sing which led the Red Stick Ramblers to recruit him to Louisiana in 2003. He is now a member of The Revelers. He is not only a versatile bassist (both upright and electric), but also a brilliant lead and part singer. He is becoming well known for his record producing as well as his witty and meaningful songwriting. He also plays old-time banjo and loves to research old songs.

Michelle Kaminsky
(Fiddle from Scratch)
Michelle Kaminsky has been an Augusta regular since 1980, first as a student and then as an instructor, giving her the opportunity to learn from many Cajun and Creole musicians, including Dewey Balfa, Canray Fontenot, Danny and Ed Poullard, Mitch Reed, Al Berard, and many others. Her own early background in classical music combined with a flexible teaching style helps students learn how to produce a good sound. Michelle especially enjoys working with novices, inspiring them to move beyond ‘scratch’! Her high-energy fiddling has powered Magnolia since 1991, a band that is well known in the northeast as the mainstay of the Cajun dance scene.

Blake Miller
(Beginning Fiddle & Intermediate Fiddle)
Grandson of well-known accordion builder Larry Miller and hailing from the small town of Iota, Louisiana, Blake Miller has been surrounded by Cajun music and culture his entire life. A fluent French speaker and songwriter, Blake acquired a degree in Francophone studies from The University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He was a founding member of the popular young Cajun band The Pine Leaf Boys, became a member of the premiere Louisiana roots band The Red Stick Ramblers and now plays accordion and fiddle with The Revelers. He has also served stints in just about every other Cajun/Creole band of note including Balfa Toujours, Les Malfecteurs and Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole.

Joel Savoy
(Beginning Fiddle & Intermediate Fiddle)
The son of Cajun music royalty Marc and Ann Savoy, Joel grew up in the middle of a renaissance for the Cajun culture of southwest Louisiana. Well versed in music and a quick learner, he can be found playing with just about every band in SWLA at some time or other, though most often he’s seen with his brother Wilson and their parents in the Savoy Family Band or with the legendary Cajun powerhouse Jesse Lége. In 2006 Joel founded Valcour Records which has since developed into what many believe to be the number one music source for what’s happening in Acadiana today, garnering a Grammy in 2012 as well as 9 Grammy nominations to date.

Courtney Granger
(Advanced Fiddle)
was born in Eunice, Louisiana. Master fiddler and extraordinarily strong singer, Courtney hails from the Balfa family lineage, which is evident in his powerful vocals and heavily Balfa-influenced fiddling. Courtney produced his own solo CD in the mid-90s, which brought him praise from the Cajun music scene, landing him several CFMA awards. In 1999, Courtney joined Balfa Toujours on bass and fiddle, playing alongside the great Kevin Wimmer. Courtney’s endless repertoire of both Cajun and classic country tunes, as well his impeccable thoughtful fiddling and soulful singing, has made him one of the most sought-after Cajun fiddlers in the world, playing with legends Jason Frey, Dirk Powell, and Horace Trahan. Courtney has been a member of The Pine Leaf Boys since 2008.

Chris Segura
(Advanced Fiddle)
is one of the founding members of the band Feufollet and has also been with Randy Vidrine’s Lafayette Rhythm Devils since 2002. By day, Chris is the archivist at the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore – A division of the Center for Louisiana Studies. The archive holds some 20,000 hours of audio and video material as well as countless documents and photographs. There Chris heads a massive digitization effort to help preserve the quickly degrading analog material. His lifelong obsession with the violin led to a violin-making apprenticeship with Bonsoir, Catin’s Anya Burgess from 2008-2010. When not at work or gigging, he’s usually chipping away at a fiddle in his workshop.

Chas Justus
(Guitar / All levels)
Hailing from Memphis, Tennessee, Chas Justus was born to play the guitar. He plays with a confidence and diversity that belies his young age being able to seamlessly switch from any of the numerous blues styles he’s mastered to country jazz to the Southwest Louisiana guitar styles that he has fallen in love with. Not only has his guitar playing been featured on numerous albums to come out of the Louisiana music scene but also his songs have been on quite a few albums, including Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy’s Grammy Nominated Adieu False Heart. His individualistic guitar playing, singing, and songwriting mark Chas Justus as one of the next Southern troubadours with a new song that sounds refreshingly old. He currently tours with The Revelers.

David Greely
(Vocals)
spent 23 years playing and singing traditional Cajun music in Louisiana’s rural dance halls as well as concert halls worldwide with Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys. He now performs worldwide as a solo acoustic performer and in small acoustic groups. In intensively studying the rare home music of Dennis McGee, Varise Conner and many other accomplished old masters, he is actively exploring the full history of Cajun and Creole fiddle and vocals. His classes include instruction in all of these styles. He has received the Louisiana Artist Fellowship Award in Folklife, been nominated for four Grammy awards and teaches at universities, music camps and workshops.

Jackie Miller
(Cajun Cooking)
Jackie Miller from Iota, Louisiana, is a prizewinning cook and the author of two Cajun cookbooks. She teaches the secrets of authentic home-style Cajun cooking. Judie Smith will assist with the cooking class.

Ann Savoy
(Cajun History & Culture)
Four time Grammy nominee Ann Savoy has been performing and recording Cajun music the world over for four decades. Her bands are Savoy Doucet Cajun Band, Savoy Family Cajun Band, The Magnolia Sisters, and Ann Savoy and Her Sleepless Knights. She has recorded twenty CDs on the Vanguard, Rounder, Arhoolie, and Memphis International labels. Her book, Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People received the Botkin Book Award and is considered to be “The Cajun Bible”. At present she is working on volumes two and three of this history of Cajun music series. She continues to perform, produce, travel, write, do photography, and anything else this great world has to offer!

Russell Cormier
(Staff Musician)
is the featured vocalist and manager of Sheryl Cormier & the Cajun Sounds.

Glenn Fields
(Staff Musician)
Baton Rouge native Glenn Fields is the quintessential Louisiana drummer. He has also emerged as a fine singer, causing comparisons to be drawn to the late Levon Helm as well as Louisiana drummer/vocalists Warren Storm and Lil’ Bob. A capable bandleader and founder of The Red Stick Ramblers, Glenn is also the first call for other musicians looking for the most unshakable groove, versatility, and peerless taste of anyone whoever hit the skins. It’s no wonder that his skills have taken him all over the world. Glenn is also responsible for the creation of The Blackpot Festival, an event representing Louisiana’s cultural renaissance and vitality that he so embodies.

Jesse Lege
(Staff Musician)
is an inductee to the Cajun Music Hall of Fame and has been playing traditional Cajun accordion music and singing Cajun French songs for more than 30 years.

Charlie Terr
(Staff Musician)
has played with some of the masters of Cajun and Creole music including The Balfa Brothers, Nathan Abshire, Marc Savoy, The Sundown Playboys, D. L. Menard, Lionel LeLeux, and Bois Sec Ardoin. Charlie plays accordion with The Chicago Cajun Aces.

Nancy Weston
(Liaison)

Betsy Fuller
(Assistant Liaison)