Rick LaRue - fiddle

Rick has a degree from the University of Miami School of Music and has been an orchestra director for the past 15 years in Florida and Virginia public and private schools. He has performed with the Miami and Lynchburg Symphonies and has been a band member for fiddle legend Vassar Clements, Grammy award winning country-rock band the Mavericks, and jazz great Ira Sullivan. He has recorded with the South Florida based Celtic-rock band, the Volunteers, the Florida International University Jazz Band, and is also a member of the Acme Swing Band, the Bella/LaRue Jazz Project, and the LaRue/Donahue Classical Duo. He is currently an orchestra director for the Orange County Public School System and lives in the Charlottesville area.

Jack Maus - piano and accordion

"Yo!" Jack, a native of the Garden State, has been playing piano for more than 40 years. The last ten years he has broadened his musical horizons to include other keyboard instruments, such as the organ, harpsichord and piano accordion. Jack also has a variety of instruments he is in various stages of learning and playing, including the bodhran, concertina, fiddle and recorder. In addition to being a Toad Mama, Jack also plays Colonial English Country dance music in a duet known as the Wood Ducks. In his spare time, Jack practices criminal defense law and is the minister of music at his church. Jack lives in Cuckoo, a small community in Louisa County.

Patti Reum - flutes and whistles

A native of Greenfield, Massachusetts, where contra dancing has been kept alive for generations, Patti started playing silver flute at a young age, both in a band and orchestra. Years later while a student in Winnipeg, Manitoba, she developed a love for Celtic music when playing with an Irish fiddler friend and was attracted to the traditional French-Canadian dance music of the Red River Area. In the late 1980's, after moving to Virginia, she started contra dancing. She has attended dance/music camps in West Virginia, North Carolina, and New York and played Celtic music and jazz in the Charlottesville area. She is the TOAD MAMA (so she says), though the origins of the band's name will remain a secret. Playing for dances is one of her passions. She lives in Highland County.

David Stone - mandolin, guitar and 4-string banjo

From Deerfield, New Hampshire, now Gordonsville, Virginia, David has been playing guitar, mandolin and banjo for New England contra dances since the early 1980's. In New Hampshire he has been a member of the Lamprey River Band, the No-See-Ums, The Clamtones, and Storm in the Tea as well as numerous other band combinations that have included the late April Limber, Sarah Bauhan, Allan Block, Bob McQuillen, Dudley Laufman, Jane Orzechowski, David Surette and others. In addition he hosted the Ceili Show on WUNH in Durham, and the Folk Show on WEVO, New Hampshire Public Radio for a number of years. Now in Virginia and with the Toads he says it is wicked awesome to be playing dance music with friends.