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It's that time again, time to start thinking about bringing yourself and your concertina to the East Texas piney woods for the 9th annual Old Palestine Concertina Weekend. Held in conjunction with the 12th annual Palestine Old Time Music & Dulcimer Festival (www.oldpalmusic.com), this year it will be March 21-23, 2012, in Palestine, Texas. Jody Kruskal will once again be the guest headliner and teacher, and we will also have two days of volunteer-taught classes for those who play English, Anglo and Duet, plus plenty of time for jamming and comparing instruments and tunes. Last year we had over 20 concertina players from all over the US including Oregon, California and Maryland and New York. This year, Dan Worrall will present a workshop on the old octave style of Anglo playing based on his recent book and CD “House Dance”. Gary Coover will be teaching beginning and Third Row Anglo and will be premiering his new 100-page tutor “Anglo Concertina in the Harmonic Style”. There’s even rumor there will be a Boer music player attending. With luck concertina builder Harold Herrington might even be able to attend to talk about concertina construction and repair. All in all, a fun weekend with good music, good friends and good BBQ, plus you get to meet and hear some of the country's finest old time musicians. And if you’ve never heard Sacred Harp singing, it’s almost worth coming just for that. For more information watch this space at concertina.net or contact Gary Coover at gcoover(at)swbell.net.