Experience the spellbinding artistry of Hiroya Tsukamoto / a master of fingerstyle guitar and evocative storytelling that transcends cultural boundaries. 

Praised by Acoustic Guitar Magazine for his “delicate, fluid, and beautifully details” style, Hiroya’s music weaves intricate melodies with poetic narratives, creating an unforgettable, soul-stirring performance.

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 Television, International Storytelling Center and United Nations, and by scoring second place at the International Fingerstyle Guitar Championship both in 2018 and 2022. 

“Hiroya Tsukamoto takes us to an impressionistic journey ” -Boston Herald

”...chops, passion and warmth. Zealously recommended!”  -Jazz Review.com

Caitlin Canty’s songs harness the grit and spark at the heart of American music, tempered with a voice both haunting and distinct. Her new record, Night Owl Envies the Mourning Dove (October 2025) marks a return to her roots, a grittier and more electric Americana sound. Recorded live in the studio while nearly 8 months pregnant with her second child, the songs can be seen in the light of major shifts in Cantys life, from pre-parenthood city life in Nashville to present day raising a young family on a mountain in southern Vermont. She is currently touring Night Owl Envies the Mourning Dove with her four-piece band.

Since the release of her critically-acclaimed Reckless Skyline in 2015, Canty has put thousands of miles on her songs, touring throughout the U.S. and Europe. A constant collaborator, as a cowriter with Jamey Johnson and Peter Bradley Adams, she also appears on albums by Joy Williams, Jeffrey Foucault and Darlingside. She has performed at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, FreshGrass, Tonder and Green Mountain Bluegrass and Roots festivals and won the Telluride Troubadour songwriting competition at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2015. Her song, Get Up, was nominated for Song of the Year in the Folk Alliance International Music Awards and was featured on NPR Musics, Songs We Love. Her songs have appeared in film and TV, including Rainmaker, House of Cards, Money Heist, and Rebuilding, and have garnered over 40 million streams on Spotify alone.

“Dreamy and daring” ROLLING STONE

“A beautiful voice both strong and deliberate. Her stage presence is radiant and her songs pack a big lyrical punch” NO DEPRESSION

“Caitlin Canty mixes a gritty side with aching ballads” WORLD CAFE

“Profound musical and lyrical authenticity sets Canty apart [and] draws so many of the acoustic worlds greatest artists into her corner” THE BLUEGRASS SITUATION

Pacific Northwest Americana songwriter and performer Stephanie Anne Johnson’s (they/them) voice is like a prayer. It’s the kind of sound that makes you feel renewed, refreshed, and in love with the higher spirits of the planet. It’s a sound you can bask in, that can wash over you and regenerate the best of you all at once. And they have wowed judges on the immensely popular NBC TV series, The Voice, showcasing their gifts.​

New studio album ‘Sing,baby!’ was released on October 17th, 2025.

Stephanie Anne Johnson has opened for acts that include political figure Bernie Sanders, and artists such as The Indigo Girls, Macy Gray, Mavis Staples, Taj Mahal, Robert Cray, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Steve Earle, Cedric Burnside, and Mason Jennings among many others.

https://stephanieannejohnsonmusic.com 

Sparrow Smith, a multi-instrumentalist based in Marshall, NC, is well loved for her evocative songwriting, tasteful banjo playing, epic accordion chops, and striking outfits. A longtime member and leader of multiple bands (most notably Resonant Rogues) with Keith Josiah Smith, her husband and collaborator, Sparrow is stepping out under her own name with a new album of Appalachian originals. Her journey into old time started in her late teens with freight trains and Tommy Jarrell tapes, and her musical taste is also inspired by a lifelong love of dance. When not on tour, Sparrow can be found in the North Carolina mountains where she teaches Womens Basic Carpentry and is building her own house from scratch.

Matt Heckler is the fiddle player you wish still existed. Hailing from the Catskill Mtns, a physiographic subrange to the Appalachian chain, Heckler has been embraced by mountain music and culture from early on. Self-taught on fiddle, banjo and guitar, he can weave together a night of songs from all over the world. Swaying from an acapella Irish ballad to a rowdy Romani fiddle tune, Heckler has taken on a style of writing that sounds timeless, rustic and entirely his own.

The Plight of A Woman is a powerful international tour by multidisciplinary artist and cultural storyteller Helen Masvikeni. Through a dynamic blend of narrative, movement, music, and visual storytelling, this experience examines the forces that shape identity, expectation, voice, and liberation—rooted in Zimbabwean culture yet resonating with all people.

While centered on the lived realities traditionally carried by women, the work opens an expansive conversation about the cultural roles, pressures, and inherited stories that shape us all. It is a call to reflect on the systems we participate in, the histories we inherit, and the collective responsibility we hold in, imagining something more just, compassionate, and free.

Designed for universities, global studies programs, cultural centers, and arts organizations, The Plight of A Woman is part performance, part lecture, part communal gathering. It invites audiences not only to witness a narrative—but to locate themselves within it. Participants leave inspired to engage, to question, and to carry the conversation forward into their communities, classrooms, and personal lives.

Helen Masvikeni is a Zimbabwean-born artist, cultural strategist, and storyteller whose work explores identity, resilience, and the human condition through global and culturally grounded lens. An internationally performing musician and distinguished photographer, she uses the arts as a bridge for dialogue—creating encounters that deepen understanding across culture, gender, and generation. Helen serves as Director of Cultural Engagement for an organization that brings world-class music into unexpected spaces and works as a Literary Agent dedicated to advancing underrepresented voices. With a foundation in business, marketing, and entrepreneurship—including her African-inspired jewelry line—she weaves heritage, artistry, and inquiry into a singular voice that invites audiences to listen, question, and participate in shaping a more connected world.

Long-time friends and collaborators Emily Mann and Wila Frank, known together as Paper Wings, dream up warm, pastoral folk songs furnished with delicate banjo and spellbinding harmonies so close you often can’t tell their voices apart. On their latest project, Listen to the World Spin, the Nashville duo’s songwriting flourishes, displaying their exceptional ability to reference nostalgic sounds of American folk music while maintaining their own compelling style of artful and unpretentious lyricism. Embracing themes of solitude, nature, and passage through time and space, Listen to the World Spin is a beautiful exploration of how we are never alone in our search for meaning and certainty in difficult times. “We needed these songs to guide and comfort us through the last few years,” says Frank, “And we hope they’ll do the same for others.” Listen to the World Spin was released on March 15th, 2024 with support from Free Dirt Records.

Hannah Mayree (they/them) is an artist and musician whose work as a banjoist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and vocalist has been a historic excavation of folk music as well as a window into the future of folk. Hannah has a body of work that highlights original and traditional banjo compositions as well as harmonies through acoustic live vocal looping and involves audiences in community singing.

On the dawn of releasing their second studio album following the 2017, Thoughts of the Night, Hannah’s evolution as a musician has included holding down solo performances as well as duo, trio and full band configurations and highlights both the Black string and tradition as well as innovating between genres, expressing the conditions of our world and sparking change through culturally stewarded experiences they curate for music loving communities. 

The Lowest Pair

The Lowest Pair has questions. The duo, made up of Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee, know that we tend to see duality as a problem. We want life to be linear, working through the dark to finally get to the light. Grief to joy, despair to hope, confusion to clarity––not a jangly cycle we can’t escape. But through their incandescent folk songs, the Lowest Pair often ask: What if we sit with the mess? What if that’s not just more peaceful, but more magical, too?  

“Fare thee well and go to hell, I love you and I’m mad at you. It’s such a theme in my life,” Winter says, then laughs. “Wishing things were different but loving all of it, too.”

On their 8th album Always As Young As We’ll Ever Be, the Lowest Pair prove that over the last dozen years together, they’ve become some of modern roots music’s most mesmerizing, thoughtful purveyors. Produced by Tucker Martine (The Decemberists), the 10-track album puts the duo’s stark lyricism, string-driven arrangements, and raw compatibility on brilliant display. 

“We’re both trying to make space for each other rather than crowd each other out,” Lee says, reflecting on why the Lowest Pair works. “We’re doing a lot of listening and reacting to what the other person is doing.” Lee’s speaking voice is a comforting echo of his singing voice, soft and precise. Winter talks like she sings, too, sweet and raspy. Heard together, the effect is both soothing and scintillating, like a crisp mountain stream smoothing rocks. 

The Lowest Pair’s musicianship is another beautiful testament not just to playing that breathes, but playing that listens. Winter, who grew up in Arkansas but has lived in Washington State for the last two decades, and Lee, a Minnesota native, first gained attention as poetic singer-songwriters on banjos. While their family of strings has expanded––Winter plays more guitar on the new record than she ever has before––their fundamental approach hasn’t: Respond to sounds and stories the other is making. 

That focus on active listening anchored the recording of Always As Young As We’ll Ever Be, too. After years of self-production and limiting instruments to those played by Winter and Lee themselves, the duo felt ready to collaborate with a bigger circle. In addition to Martine helming boards, musicians including Leif Karlstrom (fiddle), Sydney Nash (bass/piano) and Adam Roszkiewicz (guitar, mandolin, synth) joined the recording session. “It was really thrilling to be in the studio with that group because those are all really sharp listeners,” says Winter. “I love us stripped back. That’s the essence of our songs, but at this point, recording wise, I felt excited about letting somebody else paint with us.” 

As a result, Always As Young As We’ll Ever Be pulses with life. Album opener “Give It All Away” glows warm and bright with strings and synths as Winter and Lee consider harsh seasons and humanity’s short memories. “It’s this idea of cycles and knowing there’s dark and light, and it’s going to change,” says Winter. “When it’s good, notice it. When it’s bad, know it’s going to change. I spend a lot of time reminding myself that––and still being surprised by it.”

“If I listen to somebody else’s record, it’s easy for me to have favorite songs, but if it’s something we’ve made, it’s about all the pieces being in relationship to the other pieces,” Lee says of the album. “It’s about being okay with the heaviness and seeing the light that’s associated with the darkness. I hope it helps people not feel alone in the heavy things.”