7:30 PM
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
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
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.”