Special Award
“Jeremiah McLane, of Sharon, who has been making music for 30 years or more, earns the Special Award for Best Musician. He trained for classical piano but is also a noted piano
accordion player. In the early 1990s, McLane formed two bands, The Clayfoot Strutters and Nightingale. In 2003, he formed Le Bon Vent, a sextet specializing in Breton and French music.
Since the early 1990s, McLane has recorded over a dozen CDs with Nightingale, the Clayfoot Strutters, Bob & the Trubadors, Le Bon Vent, with Ruthie Dornfeld. His second solo recording, “Smile When You’re Ready,” was nominated by National Public Radio in its “favorite picks,” and his fifth release, “Hummingbird,” with Ruthie Dornfeld, received the French music magazine Trad Mag Bravo award, as did his CD “Goodnight Marc Chagall” with Le Bon Vent. He has composed music for theater and film, including Sam Shepard’s “A Lie Of The Mind,” and been awarded the Ontario Center For The Performing Arts “Meet The Composer” Award, and the Vermont Council On The Arts “Creation Of New Work” grant.In 2005 McLane started the Floating Bridge Music School, which is devoted to teaching traditional music from the British Isles, Northern Europe and North America. He teaches at a number of schools and camps. He recorded “The Wind Among the Reeds” with Timothy Cummings which garnered our Best Album of the Year award. McLane’s music is a present to Vermont and to the listening and playing community as a whole.”