John Liestman

John Liestman has been playing Irish traditional music on the tenor banjo, mandolin, and uilleann pipes since the late 1970’s. John has taught the Fundamentals Mandolin / Tenor banjo at O’Flaherty five times, in addition to numerous shorter presentations on ABC Notation and running the Retreat Tunes Played Slowly program. John has also been a tenor banjo instructor at the St Louis Tionol and other such events. He regularly contributes to the thriving Houston session scene and is a proud member of the performance group, The Slip Jigolos.

Most recently, John has founded the Round Mandolins company and is producing extremely loud yet toneful mandolins specifically geared toward Irish session players who do not want to be Mr. Irrelevant. These instruments are now gaining fans in Ireland, Maine, Florida, Pennsylvania and, of course, Texas.