Flyer Festinfo Program Photos Membership Instruction Email Links Charlie Blacklock
Welcome to the International Musical Sawplayers Association website. The first California Musical Saw Festival was held in Santa Cruz in 1981. The California Saw Players Association was established in 1994, and several years later changed its name to the International Musical Saw Association. We present the annual "California Musical Saw Festival" annually at Roaring Camp in Felton, California - www.roaringcamp.com
CONTEST: SUNDAY - August 18th, 11:00am
California Musical Saw Festival Flyer
California Musical Saw Festival Information
California Musical Saw Festival Program
Old issues of Saw Player News published by IMSA from 2003 to 2011 are now available in PDF format. Click on the links below to download a copy of each issue.
Saw Player News Winter 2003-2004
Saw Player News Winter 2004-2005
Saw Player News Winter 2005-2006
Saw Player News Winter 2006-2007
Saw Player News Winter 2007-2008
Saw Player News Winter 2008-2009
This was our first festival after taking a two year break due to the Covid outbreak.
Many fabulous saw players visited our last festival.
In 2018 we had two international visitors, Klasse Mollberg from Sweden and Haris Gershom from India.
The 2017 Saw Festival was a wonderful gathering of mostly California based saw players.
In 2016 Alistair "Azo" Bell visited us from Australia and took first place in our musical saw contest.
In 2015 we were joined by Shou-Bai Yu from China. Mr. Shou-Bai Yu impressed the audience with his excellent showmanship, beautiful tone, engaging manner, and heartfelt music!
In 2014 we were joined by Dr. Haris Gershom from India and the saw playing trio, Kara-a-ge from Japan.
Our festival continues to amaze us with the performances and camaraderie we have developed and diversity of entertainment, including Brownie, Donnie's parrot.
The entrants in the contest drew numbers and appeared in the following order: Hideo Kato (Japan), Maika Saito (Japan), Hirohisa Nakoji (Japan), Yuki Nakamuira (Japan), Tomomi Kamiya (Japan), Donald Hodges (Berkeley, CA), Thomas Spearance (Felton, CA), Cindy Weyuker (Alameda, CA), Hiroko Sakai (Japan), and Art Peterson (El Cerrito, CA).
The winners were: 1st place - Maika Saito (pictured below on the right), 2nd place - Tomomi Kamiya, 3rd place - Thomas Spearance, and a most unique performance award went to Donald Hodges.
Next year, August 10th and 11th, will be our 36th annual Saw Festival.
We had a wonderful festival in 2011 with our friends from the Bay Area and beyond. This year we were graced with two guests from Japan, Yoshiko Saito and Shinsaku Murakawa, and two guests from China, Liu Ya and En Wu Du. All excellent players of the musical saw and Liu Ya won first place in our contest.
Makoto Ogihara, one of the world's finest sawyers, is pictured on the right:
Another standout, Giriko Shimizu, has brought her musicality and fun personality to the festival.
Referring to the photos below: The 1st photo is a picture of the Tom Scribner statue produced by artist Marghie McMahon, and permanently installed in Downtown Santa Cruz, California. Tom was the saw-playing lumberjack that the original "Festival of the Saws" was organized around in 1978 - he was a beloved and extremely talented sawyer. The 2nd picture is a photo of Tom himself. The 3rd picture is of Charlie Blacklock, legendary sawyer whose musical saws are sold world wide. Charlie organized the California Saw Players Association (which evolved into the International Musical Saw Association in 2003). Charlie is also featured in the "National Old-Time Country Music Hall of Fame.” The 4th photo changes as we feature different members, and this time it is of Rosalyn Claret, 2009 Saw Contestant.
