Alastair Moock

• Folk
• Singer/Songwriter

Alastair Moock is an award-winning singer-songwriter; a Grammy-nominated family musician; a social justice and songwriting educator for all ages; and co-founder of The Opening Doors Project, an anti-racist music organization. He has toured throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia, performing at renowned events like the Newport Folk Festival and Scotland’s Celtic Connections. The Boston Globe called him “one of the town’s best and most adventurous songwriters” and The Washington Post declared “every song a gem.”

Almira Ara

• R&B
• Rock
• Singer/Songwriter

Almira Ara is a 21 year-old songwriter, singer, and producer that focuses on melding Rock and R&B together to create a genre that is truest to their creations. With influences ranging from Queen and Tracy Chapman to Kehlani, Almira captures aspects of the past and present to create music that can resonate with future generations. Their music is also heavily influenced by their community, which consists of queer Black and POC people, whether their music is talking about queer love or issues that members of the community face.

Ara is based in Boston, Massachusetts, where they are a member of the inaugural Folk Collective at the legendary Club Passim and a co-founder of The Fae Richards Collective: a collective intent on creating a community for Black queer creatives to be seen, be heard, and thrive.

Anju

• Singer/Songwriter

Anju (they/she) is a singer, songwriter, producer, and performer shaped by the people and places in Minnesota and Massachusetts. Their music conjures imaginary lovers, scents of citrus, and visions of hairy brown skin under the sun.

Anju’s work has been highlighted by NPR’s All Songs Considered, Rolling Stone India, and Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current. She is currently teaching piano, violin, and guitar to young musicians and working on their debut full-length album. You can connect and follow their journey @anjutunes on social media and www.anjutunes.com.

Audrey Pearl

• Alt Folk

Audrey Pearl is a singer/songwriter who was born in Burlington, Vermont and grew up at the foot of the Green Mountains, with sap on her hands and pine needles underfoot. The natural landscapes of the northeast were foundational to her sense of imagination and creativity and remain an essential source of her inspiration to this day. She writes songs that feel like running through those forests, catching glimpses of memories and daydreams like filtered light through the canopy. 

Some of her earliest musical influences were The Beatles and Simon Garfunkel, both of whom weave themselves into her songwriting along with elements of modern indie rock, folk, and pop. Her music could be found on a playlist with artists such as Big Thief, Clairo, Julia Jacklin, and Laura Marling. 

Audrey is a firm believer that by looking into someone else’s mind and heart one can often gain valuable insight into their own experiences. When she writes a song, she’s saying to the listener “I’ve felt this way, have you felt it too? If so, let’s carry this feeling together. If not, let me show you so we can better understand and accept one another” Her ultimate goal is for someone to hear her songs and feel validated and less alone in the way they experience the world.  

Audrey is a recent graduate of Berklee College of Music where she honed her skills as a writer and performer while majoring in songwriting. She’s released three singles that can be found on streaming platforms and has a new (top secret) project on the way!

Cliff Notez

Award-winning multi-digital media artist, musician, organizer & filmmaker Cliff Notez’s art is a continuous exploration of the black mind. Rooted in hip-hop, their art tackles the political and the personal, exploring the intimate consequences of a society where black bodies are easily ignored, forgotten, or disregarded. In 2018 they took home Best New Artist at the Boston Music Awards, and in 2020, Cliff became the first musician to be named “Musician of the Year” for Boston Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Bostonians. Cliff’s Second full-length album, Why The Wild Things Are, was released on September 11th, 2019.

Gabriella Simpkins

• Indie Folk
• Singer/Songwriter

Gabriella Simpkins is an award-winning singer-songwriter, composer, and musician hailing from Cape Cod, MA. Informed by her experiences across genres and performance settings, her music exists at the intersections of folk, classical, jazz, and indie rock. While simultaneously independently managing her career, Simpkins currently attends Salem State University in the BA Music program and focuses specifically on classical composition. She regularly performs her singer-songwriter material in and around Boston and hopes to establish herself as a freelance composer in the coming years.

Kim Moberg

• Folk
• Singer/Songwriter

Award winning singer/songwriter/guitarist Kim Moberg was born in Juneau, Alaska, the daughter of a mother of Alaskan Native Tlingit descent and a US Coast Guard veteran father from Kansas. Kim inherited an innate sense of music which was the constant in Kim’s childhood, helping her to adjust to the frequent moves associated with growing up in a military family.

A classical pianist and guitarist, Kim’s mother guided her life-long love for a wide range of musical genres from traditional and contemporary jazz to Broadway tunes and Folk music. Her father, a lifelong country music fan, exposed her to legendary Country music artists like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. As a Folk/Americana artist, Kim’s sound reflects this mélange of her musical upbringing.

At the age of 14, Kim began playing acoustic guitar on a borrowed nylon 6 string. Later, Kim taught herself to strum and finger pick to her favorite songs by singer/songwriters, but debilitating stage fright kept her from pursuing her dream of becoming a professional performer. In 2014, after a career spanning nearly two decades in the financial industry, Kim set out to overcome her stage fright and wrote her first song.

Kim teamed with Grammy-nominated producer Jon Evans (Tori Amos / Sarah McLachlan) to record “Above Ground” (2017) who’s title celebrates the achievement of her goal to bring her music out of the basement.. The collection includes 7 original songs, including the anthem “Resist” and 1 cover (“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”).

Her sophomore release “Up Around The Bend” (2020) addresses a variety of topics such as her great grandmother’s marriages (“Josephine”), the soldiers that guard The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (“21 Steps: Ballad of the Unknowns”)and the award-winning “Angels Fly” about the loss of her sister to breast cancer.

Both albums have been aired world-wide and charted on the Folk International Folk DJ and the North American College & Community Radio charts to critical acclaim.

Kim and Jon collaborated again for her third album “The Seven Fires Prophecy: Suite for Humanity” (2023), an 8 song original suite that ties the ancient Anishinaabe prophecy to our current social environment. The project blossomed from Kim’s desire to share what she learned about Indigenous teachings and the important and relevant life lessons they offer.

Kim’s rich vocals, described as “a blend of honey and whiskey”, gently guides listeners through her musical stories while her compositions tug at feelings of melancholy, heartbreak, healing and social consciousness.

Lydia Harrell

Lydia “LovelySinger” Harrell is one of Boston’s musical treasures. Her sultry, soulful voice and evocative songwriting have garnered her the attention and respect of the nation’s finest musicians and venues. Jazz and soul are where her heart is; however, Harrell has shown an unbreakable ability to mold herself into any musical situation. Whether performing with the Boston Pops, serenading NBA fans with America’s national anthem, or lending her vocal talents to chart-topping deep house singles by British record label Reel People Music, Harrell’s dedication to extracting the pure essence of the song is unmatched. In addition to her accomplishments as a musical artist, Lydia is a film/TV, voiceover, and theatre actress.

Maxfield Anderson

• Bluegrass
• Roots

Maxfield Anderson is an American roots multi-instrumentalist, teacher, writer and music director, currently living in Somerville, MA. As an artist, Maxfield aims to bring new light to honored traditions and to share the joy of making music with others.

Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Maxfield’s home was filled with an array of musical styles. After years of playing violin, his attention was taken hold by bluegrass and western swing fiddle, quickly leading him to discover the mandolin. He moved to Boston to study mandolin and American roots music at Berklee College of Music. Additionally, Max is a proficient guitar player, and after a year of isolation, finally broke down and added clawhammer banjo to the repertoire.

Teaching music has always been a big part of Max’s artistry. He believes that traditional music is an excellent vessel for understanding an instrument and finding your own voice as a musician. Teaching at Club Passim since 2020, Max has taught group courses in Beginner & Intermediate Mandolin, Bluegrass Ensemble (co-taught with Trevin Nelson), and Intro to Tune Writing. He also offers private instruction on mandolin, fiddle, guitar, music theory, and tune writing out of his home studio.

In addition to performing and teaching, Maxfield recently wrote and music directed the ‘Homegrown Stringband’ roots trio at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, OH. The trio performed authentic bluegrass, folk, and old time string band music throughout the summer season of 2022.

Maxfield graduated from Berklee College of Music with a BFA in Music Performance. He is an active gigging musician in the Boston music scene, and has toured throughout the Northeast playing listening rooms, ball rooms, bar rooms, back rooms, front porches and festival stages.

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Naomi Westwater

• Americana
• Singer/Songwriter

Naomi Westwater (they/she) is a queer, Black-multiracial singer-songwriter from Massachusetts. Their work combines folk music, poetry, and spirituality. Their hope is that through ritual and storytelling they can aid nature in the end of capitalism and the return of community, creativity, and collective joy. 

Naomi holds a Master of Music in Contemporary Performance and Production from Berklee College of Music and she is a part of The Club Passim Folk Collective, where she produces Re-Imagining Lilith Fair: a tribute to the feminist music scene of the 1990s with an intersection lens for today. 

Naomi was nominated for a 2021 and 2022 Boston Music Award for best singer-songwriter, and has been featured in The Boston Globe, Under The Radar, WBUR, WGBH, and The Bluegrass Situation. 

Naomi is on faculty at Club Passim and Not Sorry Productions teaching songwriting, tarot, and poetry, and leads the Boston Chapter of We Make Noise. She is also an event producer and has produced shows at The Apollo Theatre, The Beacon Theatre, The Bell House, and more. Currently, Naomi is producing a series called Reclaiming Folk: A Celebration of People of Color in Folk Music.

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Peter Mulvey

• Acoustic
• Folk
• Guitar
• Singer/Songwriter

Peter Mulvey is a veteran singer and songwriter from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He began his career on the streets of Dublin, Ireland, as a busker, and from there moved on to performing in the subways and streets of Boston, Massachusetts. This led to his first record deal and a leap to full-time national and international touring, beginning in the early Nineties.

Mulvey is an iconoclast within the singer/songwriter world. Restless and inventive, he has made seventeen records, spanning rock and roll, folk, Jazz, spoken word, and Americana. A long-standing gig at the National Youth Science Camp led to a spoken word piece, “Vlad the Astrophysicist”, which became a TEDx talk, and then an illustrated book. In 2007 he began an annual late summer tour by bicycle instead of by car and airplane- the 10th annual bicycle tour will happen this September. He has taught songwriting and guitar workshops at the Swannanoa Gathering and at various folk festivals across the U.S.

Mulvey continues to tour, playing over a hundred shows a year as he has for the past twenty five years. This is the core of what he does: music, in a room, performed for a live audience.

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Stephanie McKay

Stephanie Mckay is a recording artist, arts educator and advocate whose work lies at the intersection of music, education and community.

Stephanie has toured over 35 countries playing her original music at major festivals, appearing on TV and major radio stations in five continents. Her music fuses soul, folk and is inspired by legends such as Tracy Chapman, Odetta, and Mavis Staples.

She is a member of the Inaugural Folk Collective at the Legendary Club Passim and founder of We Start With Art an arts education and community building organization, whose mission it is to impact children’s lives by nurturing their self expression through the arts.

Stephanie brings her years of performing experience as an international touring musician into her community work as an artist in Boston. Whether in the classroom or on the stage, Stephanie aspires to deeply connect to people through her art and find meaning across cultural divides. As an artist, “I come to every situation with curiosity and wonder.”, ‘I love the way music unites people and connects while simultaneously breaking down invisible walls of difference.”

She is currently facilitating a monthly workshop for children at the Boston Public library on the art and activism of artists from the Harlem Renaissance. Stephanie also teaches master classes in integrated arts at K-12 schools across Massachusetts, community centers, as well as performing her original songs within the Folk Collective tours.

In 2022 she was awarded a Live Arts Grant from the Boston Foundation and has been featured on WGBH Boston’s Jim and Maury show. A Creative Entrepreneur Fellow with the Arts and Business Council of Boston. Stephanie has a Masters in Education from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA and an undergraduate degree from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pa. Her new music will be released April 19th and is a collaboration with her son.

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