David Reffkin

David Reffkin is the award-winning producer and host of the weekly radio program The Ragtime Machine (KUSF-FM, San Francisco). He is a violinist and graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he performed with the New England Ragtime Ensemble and also served as a recording engineer on its album The Red Back Book. As a professional violinist, he plays with a variety of orchestras and small groups. In the three decades since he founded The American Ragtime Ensemble, he has emerged as a national authority on ragtime orchestration and performance.

Mr. Reffkin is a contributing editor and reviewer for The Mississippi Rag and was voted Best Ragtime Journalist by that journal's readers. He wrote the Foreword for the discography Cakewalks, Rags and Novelties, and has helped edit numerous other ragtime publications. In 2006, he received the prestigious Scott Joplin Award "for research, performance, and advancement of ragtime." He is director and arranger of The American Ragtime Ensemble, specializing in performing the concert, dance and theater music of the period of about 1880-1925. Founded by David Reffkin in 1973, the Ensemble's mission is not so much to re-create the music of that era, but rather to bring its distinctive, original and often profoundly beautiful works back to life.