Greg Jenkins is a musician and music teacher who lives in Berkeley, CA. He grew up with Balkan folk dance records in his ear constantly, and began playing Balkan music on the clarinet at the age of 13 when he attended the Mendocino Balkan Music and Dance Camp for the first time. He went on to lead the first ever Kids Band at Mendocino in 2001 and became a regular fixture on the staff there, leading a class with kids from 1-21 that has played for dancers every year since. This will be his 3rd year in a row teaching Kids Band at balkanalia!

Greg plays regularly in the San Francisco Bay area with Agapi Mou, a primarily Greek folk dance band, and MWE, a reed and percussion ensemble that plays unamplified. He is a veteran of Bay Area bands like The Brash Punks, Staro Vino, Bizim Mahalle, Kaladrios, and Brass Menazeri. He also teaches Balkan Brass Band weekly at Zambaleta (www.zambaleta.org), a world music school in the Mission district of San Francisco.

Bill Cope is a multi-instrumentalist who has performed in concerts and bands on more than 50 instruments (it's not as hard as it sounds, honestly, but it's still pretty cool). His goal is to grow that number by one instrument for each year he is alive. He began playing Balkan music in 1975 and has always found a magical presence in the co-evolutionary nature of village dance and music in their traditional setting. This is the main focus of The Cope Family Band, The Mehanatones and Trio Zulum.

David Bilides' initial encounters with Balkan folk music were the weddings and dances of the Asia Minor Greek community in which he grew up in Connecticut. After hearing other Balkan music while attending international folk dancing in high school, he took the first of several trips to the Balkans in 1974, visiting Romania, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Turkey. He learned dances, made field recordings, and collected instruments. On returning to the United States he taught himself the music and instruments, formed groups, and eventually began teaching others music and dance. He continues to play and teach music from Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Turkey on a variety of traditional instruments in the US and abroad. David is a frequent guest performer with different groups and at traditional folk music and dance events across the country. Currently he is collaborating with fellow Seattle resident, Macedonian singer Dragi Spasovski. David lives in Seattle with his wife, artist and musician Sandra Dean, and is the head counselor at a public middle school.

Miamon Miller (violin) has been a fixture in folk music for 40 years. In the 70s and early 80s he was a musician with and later directed the Aman Folk Ensemble. During that period and subsequently, he's played with many other groups including Pitu Guli, Bucovina Klezmer, Fuge Imaginea, Trei Arcusi and many more. Whether playing with mariachi or klezmer bands, Middle Eastern music, or jazz, he approaches all styles with near-equal enthusiasm. Academically, he has an M.A. in ethnomusicology (UCLA) and studied Transylvanian folk music for a year in Romania on a Fulbright grant. Miamon has also participated in mainstream music having recorded with Neil Sedaka and Neil Diamond as well as other well-known artists. His compositions and arrangements have made it to Hollywood in projects as diverse as "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" to "Arabs in Detroit" and "Keeping Up With the Steins."

Lise began her involvement with Balkan music in 1976 in the vibrant dance scene of the San Francisco Bay Area. She was a member and director of Westwind International Folk Ensemble for many years. At a Balkan music and dance camp Lise first heard the sound of the santoúri (Greek hammered dulcimer) and was hooked. She began studying santoúri with the Philadelphia-based musician Yiannis Roussos. In 1986, she and her husband George Chittenden moved to Athens, Greece, where she continued her studies with the master musician Tásos Dhiakogiórgos. Lise plays santoúri, accordion, and baglamá in the bands Ziyiá and Édessa and has toured internationally with the band Rebetiki Paréa. She has taught santoúri and Greek Ensemble at Balkan music workshops on both the West and East Coasts as well as in Hawaii and Japan.

George has been playing Balkan and Near Eastern music since the mid-1970s, having previously become familiar with the music through his experience as a dancer and performer. He has studied music extensively abroad, focusing primarily on regional dance music of northern Greece and Anatolian Turkey. He has traveled to remote corners of both countries to experience the social celebrations in which music plays such a central role, and learned regional styles from both rural and professional musicians. George performs regularly for ethnic communities and for ethnic music and dance events throughout the country and has toured abroad. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Lise Liepman.