Deb Justice
Teaches at Meadowood: Sat
Teaches off-site: Weekday and Sat evenings
Deb Justice has been playing folk music for more than 25 years. After childhood piano lessons, she discovered the hammered dulcimer—an instrument she now teaches in private lessons and at regional festivals. While performing Irish, Eastern European, Arabic, and Klezmer music at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, Deb learned guitar, and soon after became immersed in old-time music.
When she moved to Syracuse, NY in 2013, she began playing clawhammer banjo.
Deb holds multiple degrees in ethnomusicology (BA through PhD), traces her Scots-Irish heritage to Clan Menzies in the Highlands, and even enjoys axe-throwing as a hobby.
Deb performs throughout the Northeast. She is the guitarist for the Northside String Band and plays clawhammer banjo and hammered dulcimer with fiddler David Deacon (Ithaca, NY).
Her performance venues include Kilpatrick’s Irish Pub, Wintersquabee at Stone Cat Café, The Scalehouse, Barry Family Cellars, Fleur de Lis Brew Works, Americana Vineyards, Monks on the Commons, WellSpring Forest Farm’s MapleFest, the Finger Lakes Celtic Festival, the Allegheny Celtic Fest, Rochester Contra Dance, Binghamton Porchfest, Dundee Scottish Festival, FLX Oktoberfest, Ithaca Porchfest, Trumansburg Conservatory Contra Dance, the Nutmeg Dulcimer Festival, Contra Dance at Slow Lane, the Cornell Elves Blanket Bee, Tioga County Contra Dance, Celtic Christmas at The Heart Light Center, the Danby Town Hall Concert Series, Music and Meditation at Cornell’s Tatkon Center, Hector Wine Company, Six Mile Creek Winery, Sheldrake Point Winery, and Bottomless Brewing.
Whether you hold an advanced degree on another instrument or cannot yet read a note of music, Deb can help you learn banjo, guitar, or hammered dulcimer—or all three. She enjoys teaching both beginners and advanced players and has something meaningful to offer at every stage of your musical journey.
We are delighted to offer Deb’s talents to our Meadowood community.
Students visit Meadowood Music from communities throughout Berks County and the Lehigh Valley — including Reading, Allentown, Bethlehem, Kutztown, Fleetwood, and Boyertown — for private music lessons. We also sometimes have students who travel to us from places as distant as Lancaster, Harrisburg, the Philadelphia area, and occasionally from New Jersey, New York City, Baltimore, and Washington DC.