Studio visit appears first in print, on Sundays. Here, Melissa Merli visits with Kathleen Everingham of Urbana. In the Nov. 6 News-Gazette, we'll have a studio visit with weaver Bobbie Johnston.

Q: So you play the fiddle?

A: The first two instruments I learned to play were violin and piano. I started piano when I was 7 and violin at 8. My grandfathers on both sides fiddled, so there were two violins in the attic. So it was just a question of which one to use.

Q: What other instruments do you play?

A: The only ones I play really actively are violin, viola, guitar and piano — and I have a strumstick. It's like a dulcimer but strung backward. When I was in high school, I played trombone in the marching band and oboe in the symphonic band and the violin in the city, regional and state youth orchestras.

I never met an instrument I didn't want to learn to play. I find instruments fun.

Q: Where did you grow up?

A: Toledo, Ohio.

Q: Did you major in music?

A: I started out as a music performance major at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I was really headed toward music, but I was really active in art, too. Then, after my first year at Miami, my mother got ill. I had to return to Toledo. She had become a quadriplegic from polio in 1955, when I was 5.

I changed my major to get a bachelor's degree in art education at the University of Toledo. All of my classes were at the Toledo Museum of Art School of Art and Design. I also got an MFA in art from Bowling Green University.

Q: When did you move here?

A: In 1978. I worked as a graphic artist for Pyramid Paper, which no longer exists, and later at WICD-TV. Before I came here I was a designer for Libbey Glass.

Q: How did you get into the music scene?

A: I went to a jam session for Irish music at Trito's on University Avenue. I had played folk music up until then — I was in a guitar trio. In pretty short order, about four months, I started meeting with other musicians every Sunday at George Lowrey Jr.'s house. He was head of the leisure studies department at the University of Illinois. He was a dance caller and played guitar and sang. We formed the Peppermill String Band to play at dances that George was putting together and for public and private events.

I also did some gigging on the side with Paul Zohn. He was a wonderful musician. We played for a few private events.

Q: Have you played in bands ever since you came to town?

A: Yes, amazingly enough, except for a year and a half when my father was dying and I had begun divorce proceedings and was working full time. That's when I quit teaching the group courses at Urbana Adult Education.

The other bands I played with were Prairie Homestead, ShakeRag Bridge and now Big Bluestem. I think of us as power players. We have a really broad repertoire of tunes from the British Isles, America and French Canada. Everything from Stephen Foster to Dylan and beyond.

I have written some tunes, but we're not playing those right now. I have arranged tunes as well.

Q: Have you always played traditional music?

A: Yes, but it's a big umbrella. I was classically trained, but I was really lucky because I had an outstanding music teacher from the time I was 9 until I was 18. We did other things than classical, and she was unfailing in her support of other kinds of music.

Q: How do you feel about winning the ACE Artist Award?

A: I didn't know they invented a new category, "Artist." I was surprised and pleased. If you do something right with traditional music, you don't just do something for the community. You give something back.