Floating Down the River with a Fiddle and a Banjo

Onoma River album cover showing an engraving of a Kingfisher surrounded by a gold halo and hovering over a rural landscape. Esther Morgan-Ellis and Holland Hopson's names are in cursive and blocky fonts.
Onoma River cover art, exceprt from John Klosterman’s print

Fiddler Esther Morgan-Ellis and I are celebrating the release of our new recording, Onoma River, with an online listening party on Thursday. Onoma River is a collection of new old-time tunes for fiddle and banjo that brings new blood to old-time music. Esther and I embrace the spirit of ‘crooked’ tunes with a set of newly composed music that builds on southern Appalachian traditions.

Thursday, November 13, 2025 7pm
Onoma River Listening Party
RSVP for a free, online listening party

I’ve been writing a banjo tune every week since 2011. A few of these tunes have wound up in other projects, but most have never been released. Working with Esther was a great opportunity to get more of this music out into the world.

To accompany the album we commissioned John Klosterman to create a beautiful, limited-edition, 12.5” x 18.5” art print. The hand-printed piece incorporates gold ink on Arnhem cotton rag paper and chine collé woodblock images on Japanese rice paper. We chose a section of the print to serve as the album artwork. More information about John’s work can be found at www.johnklosterman.com

Esther & Holland in Dahlonega

set list for concert, showing song names, notes, banjo tunings
set list for tonight’s concert

Tonight Esther Morgan-Ellis and I play the last show in our current run of concerts featuring new old-time music for fiddle and banjo.

Saturday, May 18, 2024 7:30pm
Esther & Holland
University of North Georgia – Dahlonega Campus
Shott Auditorium
Dahlonega GA

We’ve just wrapped up a recording session with John Grimm for all these tunes. So be on the lookout for a future release!

Esther and Holland

Esther Morgan-Ellis holding fiddle and bow beside Holland Hopson holding a banjo

Fiddler Esther Morgan-Ellis and I have been working on a set of original banjo and fiddle tunes. We’ll be playing them out in public beginning in May 2024. We’ll also record the collection for future release.

Get a jump start on the shows by visiting Esther’s website to hear some sample tunes.