Welcome to GAFilk 2025!

Guests of Honor

TJ & Mitchell Burnside-Clapp

TJ and Mitchell Burnside Clapp have been writing and singing filk songs since before they knew of each other’s existence (and before they even knew what filk music was). In over 30 years of their marriage, they have appeared as guests and performers at conventions all over North America and much of the rest of the world (they’re still working on South America and Antarctica). They are each Pegasus Award recipients: TJ for her performance work with the trio Technical Difficulties, and her songs "Lullaby for a Weary World” and “Weekend Only World”; and Mitchell as a performer and for his apocalyptic sing-along song “Falling Down on New Jersey.”

Along the way the couple managed to raise three nerdy and musical children, who occasionally joined their parents onstage during their various convention appearances. They were briefly referred to as “The Von Clapp Family Singers,” but Mitchell shut that down fairly quickly. TJ and Mitchell currently reside in Arlington, Virginia, and are delighted to be the Guests of Honor at GAFilk 2025!

Toastmaster

Mark Bernstein

GaFilk 2025 will be a special weekend for Mark, as he'll be celebrating his 50th filkaversary. The first filksing he attended was at ConFusion 13, in January of 1975. Since then, he's been many things within the filk commmunity - singer, songwriter, poet, monologuist, storyteller, teacher, incorrigible punster (please do incorrige), proponent of a capella performance, Interfilk auctioneer, dancer (especially when Play it With Moxie is providing the music), listener, and constant advocate for the proposition that anyone in the community who wants to perform should have to opportunity to do so.

He's previously been GoH at Consonance and Musicon, Toastmaster at OVFF, and Filk Waif at FilKONtario. He won a Pegasus Award for his version of Robert Heinlein's "The Green Hills of Earth", and has been nominated for "Welcome Home", a song he wrote to welcome those new to the community. He was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame in 2016. He likes running workshops teaching Beginning Voice for those with no vocal training, and hosting Shallow End circles, which provide a safe space for those who are nervous about performing. His poem "Big Ty's Ride" won a Kazoo award.

A lifelong resident of Michigan (which makes traveling to Atlanta in January extra nice), Mark shares his life with wife and partner Sharon, and currently has one son, one daughter-in-law, two granddaughters, and one great-grandson. All of them are wonderful.

His songs, stories, and essays can be found at markbernsteinfilk.wordpress.com.

Interfilk Guest

Robert Beckwith

Robert discovered filk at the UK Eastercon in 2019. He had no inkling that he would ever write a song, but then the line "Fly me to Mount Doom" popped into his head. He pulled on this line to see if it was attached to anything and discovered yet more lines. At around the same time he discovered the wonder of chords which was a delight after many years spent struggling and failing with sheet music - a door had opened and music was now possible. His first Worldcon was in Dublin that year, and then DemiSemiQuaver slipped in just before the plague. Filking had begun.

Robert specialises in comic songs about geeky topics, usually mixing the exotic and mundane in some manner. He plays the ukulele and "strums" the piano and is working on all the aspects of performing or otherwise making music with others. He has been nominated for a Pegasus Best Song, won two “silly song" awards (SAM and Millcon), has recorded his first ever instrumental track for a CD (Flüsterbar - Silke Kovàr) and was UK Guest at the UK Filk Con in 2024. He finds music an excellent way to grow as a person and couldn't be more delighted that filking exists.

You can find out more about Robert at his website, www.verynichesongs.com.

Super Secret Guest

We Ain't Tellin'! (until December 1st, 2024)

We can't tell you until December, but we promise you, it's gonna be AWESOME.

ConCom's Choice

To Be Announced

Information coming December-ish!