Karen Ashbrook

Today, October 4th, is my 6th anniversary working as a therapeutic musician in the Arts & Humanities Program at Georgetown University Lombardi's Cancer Center and Medstar Hospital. The above photo was taken by Elena Kindy in the 7th floor PACU…

Today I made the serious step of choosing (and paying) for the platform to host my subscription lesson app, Dulcimer With Heart.  June is crazy with festivals and camps, QuaranTUNE 7.0 June 2-5, Kentucky Music Week, June 19-24 and…

45 years ago–Little did I realize when I built and started learning to play hammered dulcimer for a senior high school project, that it would lead all around the world (literally) and become my career!  In March, 1976 I finished…

October 19, 2021

Life gives and life takes.  

I have felt that keenly recently.

Paddy Maloney, founder of the great Irish band The Chieftains, has passed.  A Chieftains recording, played by a substitute teacher in my music class in middle…

I am grateful for music that brings us together, comforts us, uplifts our spirits.

I'm grateful for the internet and being able to teach, perform and play for patients online.

Saturday, September 15, 2001 (or perhaps it was one week…

In April 2020 I was madly putting together this website on Bandzoogle, to move my old, out-of-date website from a different server by the end of the month. My husband Paul and I were also working up new material to…

A new year has come.  February 1st is Imbolc- the beginning of the Celtic Spring and St Bridget's Day.  In Maryland we have greeted the new season with 2 days of snow. This weekend is QuaranTUNES 3.0 - the…

The photos are from Thanksgiving weekend in our living room as we get ready to pre-record videos for a Christmas Eve Pageant. Many cables, lights and covers go into recording "simple" videos!

As we come to the end of…

In February 2017 in Southern California, 8 musicians took my first Mystery of Modes Workshop (pictured here!) Just a few months later in April, I taught it again to 18 participants in Maryland. Since then I have offered it a…

From 1998-2017 I ran the Sligo Creek Hedge School Irish music and culture summer camps for youth ages 6-20.  From the  little "Sprouts" (ages 6-8) to the Teen Celtic Band weeks, and of course Musician and Intro weeks for the…

We live in painful and interesting and hopeful times. It's been a time of discovery and  for those of us who are white, a time to support our community members of color. How phenomenal this is happening during Covid-19 quarantine-…

May 20

I should have landed in Shannon airport this morning and been happily playing in a pub in Ennis, County Clare.  In 2013, along with Jeanean Songco-Martin, painters and her family,  we had a 6:00 am arrival and by…