Common Ground on the Hill's Traditions Weeks returns to McDaniel College July 6–10

Common Ground on the Hill is bringing its annual Traditions Weeks program back to McDaniel College in Westminster for its 32nd year, with in-person workshops running July 6–10, 2026. Traditions Week 1 (June 22–26) was held virtually this year.

Traditions Weeks is a week-long immersive workshop program in traditional roots-based music, visual arts, dance, creative writing, film, and more. Participants can take up to five workshops per day, choosing from over 350 classes taught by more than 200 nationally and internationally recognized instructors. Classes run Monday through Friday, 9 AM–5:30 PM, with evening events each night, including gallery talks, keynote lectures, live concerts, late-night jams, and dances.

Classes are divided into five daily periods:

Workshops span a wide range of skill levels — from true beginners to advanced players — and cover traditional instruments, old-time fiddle and banjo, blues, bluegrass, Celtic, world music, visual arts, quilting, storytelling, tai chi, yoga, and much more.

The 2026 catalog also includes blacksmithing, welding, crankie storytelling (building a hand-cranked scroll machine from a cigar box), mountain dulcimer building, didgeridoo, Highland bagpipes, and making artist pigments from plants and minerals.

This year's in-person week features Grammy Award-winner Tim O'Brien teaching mandolin and harmony singing with vocal partner Jan Fabricius. Roots music legend Alice Gerrard, revered across old-time and bluegrass for a career spanning six decades, leads unaccompanied singing classes and joins the Old-Time Jam & Dance. A class called The Southern Folk Tours, taught by Sparky and Rhonda Rucker, explores the history of the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, a groundbreaking 1960s initiative that brought together Black and white musicians to tour the South during Jim Crow. Gerrard, who was part of those tours, plans to join for one session.

On Monday, July 6, at 8 PM in Alumni Hall, Alice Gerrard delivers the week's keynote lecture, which is free and open to the general public. The evening traces her journey through American roots music with songs, stories, and reflections, accompanied by fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves and mandolinist Reed Stutz. Gerrard will also receive the Robert H. Chambers Award for Excellence in the Traditional Arts that night.

Now 90, Gerrard has been a central figure in American roots music for more than five decades. She is best known for her groundbreaking collaboration with Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens in the 1960s and '70s. The duo Hazel and Alice released four classic LPs on Rounder and Smithsonian Folkways that influenced a generation of young women in old-time and bluegrass. Both were inducted into the IBMA Hall of Fame in 2017. Gerrard also founded The Old-Time Herald magazine in 1987 and served as its editor-in-chief until 2003. Her most recent album, Sun to Sun, came out in 2023 on Durham's Sleepy Cat Records.

Last year, Gerrard published Custom Made Woman: A Life in Traditional Music with UNC Press, named a best music book of 2025 by both Rolling Stone and Garden & Gun. The memoir features nearly 100 rare photographs of key figures in the folk world, from Doc Watson and Bill Monroe to Elizabeth Cotten and Dickens.

Each evening runs from around 6:30 PM onward. The week's concert lineup includes Celtic Night on Tuesday, Blues Night on Wednesday, and Old-Time & Bluegrass on Thursday. Late-night jams on the McTeer-Zepp Plaza follow each concert. An Interracial Gospel Choir performs nightly at 6:45 PM.

Week 2 includes two dedicated youth programs. World Village serves children from kindergarten through age 12, offering music, dance, drama, and crafts, as well as visits from Common Ground instructors. New this year is the Rising Pickers Bluegrass Kids Academy for ages 9–14.

Check-in and orientation take place on Sunday, July 5. Classes run July 6–10, with departure on Saturday, July 11.

Tuition is priced per class period: $132 per period, or $660 for full-time enrollment (5 periods). On-campus housing is available in suite-style dormitory rooms at $500 per week, including three cafeteria meals daily from Sunday dinner through Saturday breakfast. A $87.50 commuter fee is assessed by McDaniel College for in-person participants.

Participants can also earn undergraduate or graduate academic credit through McDaniel College. Graduate students can earn 3 or 6 credits; undergraduate credit is also available.

Since 2012, Common Ground on the Hill has offered full scholarships for veterans to attend Traditions Weeks through its Veterans Initiative. The program provides a space for veterans to engage with traditional arts alongside civilians, and has been described by participants as transformative.

Traditions Week takes place on the campus of McDaniel College, 2 College Hill, Westminster, MD 21157. For the full class schedule, registration, and more information, visit commongroundonthehill.org.

Photo by Libby Rodenbough