Meet the Goose (left to right):

Matt Rolfson: Bass Guitar
Matt Rolfson, age 15, grew up in a small town in rural Maine. He was exposed to traditional American music at an early age when he went to his first East Benton Fiddlers' Convention. There he was recruited to play the spoons and harmonica with the East Benton Jug Band. In elementary school, Matt started to play the saxophone with the school band and was also a member of the chorus. Matt next began to play bass guitar and went on to form a rock and roll band called The Last Generation, which performed in Maine for four years. His current band is called Apocrypha, and their original music may be heard on YouTube. Matt has toured with Old Grey Goose International in Poland, Benin, and Mauritania. He will enter the 10th grade in the fall.

Doug Protsik: Fiddle, Piano, and Accordion
Doug has played music all his life since starting piano lessons at age five. In college, he developed an interest in folk music and guitar. After moving to Maine in 1971, he began studying and playing traditional music from New England, adding fiddle, accordion, and country-dance calling to his repertoire. He has performed throughout the United States at folk festivals, concerts, and dances. Doug has also traveled and performed in Europe and spent seven months touring the world learning and exploring the traditional music in countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Nepal. He composes, performs, and records old-time piano scores for silent movies, teaches at a variety of academic levels, and provides educational programs to schools and summer camps. Doug is the Director of Maine Fiddle Camp, composes and arranges for the band, and is a full-time musician.

Greg Boardman: Cello and Fiddle
Greg has been teaching and performing, for the most part in Maine, for close to forty years. He currently teaches strings full time in the Lewiston Public Schools and at Bates College, where he leads a fiddle group and offers private lessons. Greg has performed extensively, from the American Folk Festival in Bangor to the viola section of the Maine Chamber Ensemble in Lewiston. His interest in gathering with large groups of fiddlers has led to the formation of the Mighty Cloud of Fiddlers, a rag-tag revolving-door blend of professional and amateur volunteers who meet biennially since 1988 to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. Co-founder of the Maine Country Dance Fiddle Workshop and Maine Fiddle Camp, Greg was influenced by many of the older fiddlers in Maine, including Otto Soper, Simon St. Pierre, Cherry Frechette, Ben Guillemette, Lucien Matthieu, Leo Murphy, Albany Beaulieu, J. Walter Snipe, and in New Hampshire, Dudley Laufman.

Eric Rolfson: Guitar, Mandolin, and Harmonica
Eric grew up in France where he began playing rock and roll music in the mid-1960's, influenced by the British and American bands of the period. His mother bought him a banjo as a high-school graduation present. He took it with him to Maine in 1969 where he also discovered the mandolin and began playing the traditional music of the region. While teaching in Europe, he wrote a textbook on how to use folksong in the classroom to teach American History and Social Studies. "Folksongs bring history to life," Rolfson explained. "Because these songs tell a story, you quickly get to the essence of the drama. Live performance, which has immediate emotional impact for students, also helps them retain detail," Rolfson noted. Rolfson currently works at the University of Maine as associate vice president for development.

Jeff McKeen: Accordion, Guitar, and the Bones
Jeff grew up in a musical household, singing at home and at church. As a young man he began playing the guitar, first learning popular and rock and roll music, later turning towards folk and traditional idioms. In college, he began playing banjo and mandolin, later adding fiddle and button accordion. In 1977, he co-founded the traditional music group Old Grey Goose and has toured with them throughout his native New England as well as in the southern Appalachians and the Pacific Northwest. In 1990, he toured Brazil with Project Troubadour, an organization devoted to international cultural exchange through music. He has worked as a folklorist for numerous cultural organizations in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes, conducting research, producing folk festivals and radio documentaries, and collecting folk songs and dance tunes from traditional musicians. In 2002, the Governor of Maine appointed Jeff to the Maine Arts Commission. When not playing music he is co-owner and operator of an oyster farm.