7:30 Patrick Ross

Patrick Ross

A fiddler since age 5, Patrick Ross knows what it means to be a music-loving kid. As one of Vermont's busiest acoustic roots musicians, he has brought traditional music to audiences of all ages, always giving it a fresh, captivating feel.

A DJ, composer, singer and producer as well as superb multi-instrumentalist, Ross is the very model of the modern traditional musician! He grew up near the Canadian border, and his grandparents came from Quebec, where there's a strong tradition of fiddling. At age 12 he caught the attention of a Smithsonian Folkway Records team documenting regional folk music, who ended up recording him on the front porch of his family's home. He won the Vermont-State Fiddle Championship at age 14 and has been performing professionally since age 19, when he joined Smokin' Grass, a Vermont bluegrass band that blended elements of folk and roots rock.

Now in his mid 30s, Ross has toured with a variety of music ensembles, worked in Nashville with a Celtic band, performed at the Grand Ole Opry and the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C., and shared stages with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Paul McCartney. He's established himself as one of Vermont's top session musicians. He tours the state regularly, has started an annual music festival and opened his own recording label, Rock Farmer Records, dedicated to "roots" music. Always busy, Ross performs with The Fellers with Rusty DeWees and guitarist Doug Perkins, the bluegrass band Mountain Money, and bands Hot Flannel and Atlas Key. His solo concerts include a worldwide range of fiddle styles as well as songs he has written for guitar, banjo, mandolin and cello.

Said Robert Resnik, host of Vermont Public Radio's All the Traditions, "It's not just the technical expertise or the mastery of an amazing variety of styles that puts Vermont fiddler Patrick Ross several steps above and beyond practically all other players; Ross's eclectic taste and raw energy make sparks and create musical magic every time his bow hits the strings." Remarked his performance partner DeWees: "Equal to or perhaps beyond Patrick Ross' virtuosic command of the fiddle is the easy and entertaining style in which he commands a performance. I'm blessed to have shared his stage."

8:00 Lucy Isabel

9:00 Decatur Creek

7:30 pm Arlo Phillip

8:00 pm Heather Pierson

Heather Pierson with bassist Shawn Nadeau:

Heather Pierson is a singer/songwriter, pianist, songleader, and performer with a passion for cultivating joy and harmony. Her live performances feature her ease at the piano and her voice that Americana Highways says ‘sounds like timeless wind moving slowly through the trees.’ Heather’s September 2024 release, Back To The Light, reached #1 on the Contemporary Folk charts and was deemed ‘flawless from beginning to end’ by Steel Notes Magazine. Heather takes as her inspiration the traditions of New Orleans, the beauty of Appalachia, and a healthy dose of Sunday-go-to-meeting celebration. Whether playing stride piano, strumming her late father’s Gibson, wielding a melodica, or singing the blues, the many iterations of Heather Pierson unite in a singularly warm and genuine presence, both onstage and off.

9:00 pm Better Late Than Never

Better Late Than Never:

Rich Fedorchak, Bill McGowan, and Pete Agnoli met at Montclair State University In New Jersey in the mid 1960's and have been getting together to make music whenever they can since. Rich, who has lived in Vermont since 1990 is a founding member of the Dirdy Birdies Jug Band who have been performing since the 60's at various folk clubs and festivals including a tour in England in 1987. 

He plays washtub bass, kazoo, percussion, and sings. During the 1980's Rich and guitar player Bill McGowan formed a duo called Method Trainer, which eventually became a quartet and performed at various music clubs at the Jersey Shore.They once were the opening act for the soon to be monster rockstar John Bon Jovi.( go figure )  Pete Agnoli, who plays guitar and harmonica has been the front man in the 5 member Bob Dylan tribute band Bottle Of Bread for over a decade. Rich, Bill, and Pete will be joined at the Anonymous Coffee House by guitarist and retired psychiatrist Peter Thomashow from Strafford, Vermont.  

7:30 PM: Tom Pirozzoli

Tom Pirozzoli

For more than thirty years Tom’s simple path has been a life rich in music, art and travel, yielding a career filled with nine studio albums, numerous songwriting credits, and collaborations with other artists such as Willy Porter, Joyce Andersen and David Wilcox. 

Tom’s sophisticated guitar work forms the rich backdrop for his warm tenor that delivers melodies and lyrics exploring the full range of the human and global experience. 

A self-taught guitarist and painter, Tom’s music found it’s way into New England coffeehouses and street corners at the age of 19. The sense of endless possibility and adventure of the 1970s lead to travels – initially through Europe and South America, later to India and Southeast Asia, then eventually to China and Tibet. His encounters with such an array of people, cultures, and ideas, have contributed to and enriched both his painting, music and lyrical content. 

8:00 PM: Grace Palmer

Grace Palmer

Grace Palmer is a 24-year-old folk singer/songwriter from Burlington, Vt. She was raised in Ellington, CT, and grew to love music through performing in her family's Christian rock band. After spending a year in Nashville working as an independent acoustic artist, at the onset of the pandemic, she moved to Burlington, VT, to attend St. Michaels College.

Grace's music is influenced mostly by Jim Croce, Miley Cyrus, and Fleetwood Mac, leading to a unique folk-pop-rock sound. Her released music can be described as heartfelt, and reflective. In addition to solo acoustic shows, she can be found performing along the East Coast in the jazz-funk fusion band Lazy Bird and the pop-disco cover band Small Talk.

9:00 PM: Cuchulain

Cuchulain

Cuchulain is a low-voiced songwriter with a wry wit. Featured four years in a row as the NPR Music Tiny Desk Contest "Desk of the Day," the multi-instrumentalist's duets album FEAT was called "an as-yet-unpublished portion of the Great American Songbook." Cuchulain's deep baritone and clever lyrics have drawn comparisons to Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and Randy Newman. From the Kennedy Center to the Oregon Country Fair, from Club Passim in Boston to the Cobblestone in Dublin, Cuchulain's lyrics have brought laughs and tears to audiences across the US and beyond. He has shared the stage with renowned folk acts including Ira Wolf, Jeffrey Lewis, Viv & Riley, Billy Keane, Upstate, Julianna Zachariou, Izaak Opatz, Jenner Fox, R.O. Shapiro, and more. His Sing In The Shower single release tour took him to Europe in the summer of 2022, and his nationwide My Dog single release tour criss-crossed the US in summer 2023. His experimental album Minute To Win It - a visual album of 20 songs in 20 minutes - peaked at 20,000 monthly listeners on Spotify; was screened at the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation, & Technology and Portland Panorama; and won awards at the Oregon Short Film Festival, the San Francisco Arthouse Festival, and Minute Madness Toronto.

7:30 PM

Hiroya Tsukamoto

Hiroya Tsukamoto is a Japanese-born fingerstyle guitarist who moved to the United States in 2000 to attend the Berklee College of Music. Needless to say, he’s not only a dizzyingly agile fingerpicker, but a soulful and transcendent performer, with compositions that combine instrumental guitar work with lyrical performance and spoken stories from his life. 

Tsukamoto has been recognized for his talents on stages such as at Blue Note in New York City, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), International Storytelling Center and United Nations, and by scoring second place at the International Fingerstyle Guitar Championship both in 2018 and 2022. 

8:00 PM

Erin Ash Sullivan

Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter Erin Ash Sullivan’s initial foray into music was as one-half of the folk duo Edith O. with Amy Speace. After a hiatus to focus on her family and career as an educator, she returned to writing and performing. In May 2021, she released her debut solo album, We Can Hear Each Other, which reached #10 on the FAI DJ Chart; her single, “Fireflies,” reached #8. In 2022, she was selected as one of the “Most Wanted” performers from Grassy Hill Emerging Artist Showcase at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and was John Platt’s selection for the Folk DJ Showcase at NERFA. She won the 2023 Rose Garden Performing Songwriter Competition, received the Mark Erelli Judge’s Choice Award in the New England Songwriting Competition, and was a finalist in the Great American Song Contest and the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest. WFUV’s John Platt describes Erin as having “a special talent that reminds me of early Dar Williams,” and Victor Infante of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette describes her music as “delicate and evocative” with songs full of “nuance and emotional resonance.”

9:00 PM

Grace Morrison

If nerditude had a formal name, it would be Grace Morrison.

She’s a little bit of everything—pianist, accordion player, Renaissance Faire performer, cranberry grower, reader of historical nonfiction, coffee devotee (she sells her own coffee blend), and an unapologetic expert on all things New England. And somehow, all these quirks weave seamlessly into the fabric of her music, making her one of the most unique and endearing songwriters around.

Born and raised on the shores of Cape Cod, Grace Morrison has trademarked a sound she calls Saltwater Country. “I was always too pop for folk and too folk for country. Eventually, I started peeling back the layers of my music to find out what truly made it mine. At the heart of it all was my deep, undeniable connection to the Cape Cod coastline—it’s in my blood, in my voice, in every lyric I write. My music carries the storytelling of country, the twang, but also the raw, unshakable spirit of a Swamp Yankee. That’s Saltwater Country.”

7:30 PM: Lilly Golden

Lilly Golden

Lilly Golden (she/her) is a Vermont based singer-songwriter, currently touring her debut album, Roadside Attraction. Lilly graduated from Bennington College in 2025 with a BA in vocal performance and songwriting where she met long time collaborator, Helen Bergstrom. Bergstrom is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist, non-fiction author, and true jack of all trades. She and Golden are currently touring as a duo, with support from banjo extraordinaire, Robin McDonald. 

Golden’s music puts a bubbly, sapphic spin on indie pop and Americana, with a clear-toned, lyrical mezzo-soprano voice. Her songs feature complex harmonies and her lyrics are romantic pocket-sized memoirs that read as a glance into a private diary. Lilly’s versatility spans from pop hit to folk ballad, and her lyrical themes explore coming of age and navigating relationships in the green mountains. The quality of her musical style as well as simply her character draws you up a chair to sit before her fire. 

8:00 PM: If You Must Know

If You Must Know

While firmly rooted in the fertile ground of Scottish traditional music, harpist Rachel Clemente and piper Dan Houghton’s gritty, avant-garde musical interpretations put them at the forefront of Celtic folk musicians in New England. They are both avid tunesmiths and their repertoire reflects this as it features many original compositions as well as traditional melodies.

Vermont-based pedal and traditional Scottish harpist Rachel Clemente has had a passion for music from the early age of five. She began her harp training as a student of the Suzuki method. In addition, she discovered her love of Scottish music through events and competitions held by the Scottish Harp Society of America and the Ohio Scottish Arts School. Her musical education then continued at renowned arts boarding high school Interlochen Arts Academy. In July of 2018, Rachel graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow with a bachelors degree in traditional Scottish music. She also won the title of U.S National Scottish Harp Champion in 2016.

Dan Houghton is a Scottish piper, flautist and DADGAD guitarist currently residing in southwestern Vermont. Winner of numerous competitions, including the Scottish Lowland and Border Pipers’ Society “Open Borderpipes” and “New Composition” events and the St. Chartier “Mâitre de Cornemuse,” he has toured and taught extensively throughout Britain, Europe, Ireland, America, Asia and the Antipodes. He performs as a soloist as well as in various ensembles, not least amongst which may be counted the Scottish power-trad band, Cantrip, the Salsa fusion band Salsa Celtica, the more RSCDS based Parcel of Rogues, the “Celtic” Rock band Prydein and, more recently, Piper’s Den.

9:00 PM: Andrew and Noah Vannorstrand

Andrew and Noah Vannorstrand

For the past twenty years ANDREW & NOAH VANNORSTRAND have been bringing their brand of original folk music to festival stages, concert halls, dance floors and living rooms all over North America and beyond.  As teenagers, they helped define a new generation of contra dance music with their family band The Great Bear Trio and even appeared on the nationally syndicated public radio program A Prairie Home Companion.  Since then they've established themselves as virtuosic multi-instrumentalists and insightful songwriters, drawing from a wide range of genres including Bluegrass and Appalachian, Celtic and Quebecois, Swing and Jazz.  Andrew and Noah are often on tour with progressive folk roots band The Faux Paws but since they're both now living in Vermont you can occasionally catch them performing locally as a duo, exploring their deep repertoire and love for American folk music.  

7:30 PM

Fez Silk

8:00 PM

Ben Clark

8:30 PM

Cosy Sheridan