Crys Matthews and Seth Glier

CRYS MATTHEWS  

Already being hailed as “the next Woody Guthrie,” Nashville resident Crys Matthews is among the  brightest stars of the new generation of social justice music-makers. A powerful lyricist whose songs of  compassionate dissent reflect her lived experience as what she lightheartedly calls “the poster child for  intersectionality,” Justin Hiltner of Bluegrass Situation called Matthews’s gift “a reminder of what  beauty can occur when we bridge those divides.” She is made for these times and, with the release of  her new, hope-fueled, love-filled social justice album Changemakers, Matthews hopes to take her  place alongside some of her heroes in the world of social-justice music like Sweet Honey in the Rock  and Holly Near. Of Matthews, ASCAP VP & Creative Director Eric Philbrook says, “By wrapping honest  emotions around her socially conscious messages and dynamically delivering them with a warm heart  and a strong voice, she lifts our spirits just when we need it most in these troubled times.”  

Matthews began performing in 2010 but cemented her acclaim at Lincoln Center as the 2017 NewSong  Music and Performance Competition grand prize winner. That year she also released two new projects  — her album of thoughtful songs on love and life called The Imagineers, and her EP called Battle Hymn  

for an Army of Lovers, which tackles social justice themes. Matthews also won the People’s Music  Network’s Social Justice Songs contest at the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance. Loyal fans quickly  followed as Matthews racked up performances at large music festivals and prestigious venues across  the country including the Sundance Film Festival, Kerrville Folk Festival, and locally at venues like The  Birchmere, The Hamilton, Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center, and Jammin’ Java. In her TedTalk  about difficult conversations called “Sing, Don’t Shout — An Alternative Approach” Matthews spoke  about being born and raised in a small town in southeastern North Carolina by an A.M.E. preacher, and  how she witnessed the power of music from an early age. A former drum major and classically trained  clarinetist turned folk singer, Matthews is using her voice to answer Dr. Martin Luther King’s call to be  “a drum major for justice.”  

“I believe in hope,” Matthews said. “As a social-justice songwriter, it is my duty to keep breathing that  hope and encouragement into the people who listen to my music.” And, from the title track to the last  track, Changemakers does just that all while tackling some heavy topics like immigration, the opioid  crisis, Black Lives Matter, and gun safety to name a few. “Ani DiFranco said, “People used to make  records as in a record of an event,”” said Matthews, “so I hope that these songs will serve as a time  capsule, a record of the events of the last four years and what it was like to live through them.” Crys  Matthews’s thoughtful, realistic, and emotional songs speak to the voice of our generation and remind  us why music indeed soothes the soul.  

SETH GLIER 

The earth speaks to us in a myriad of ways — through ice cores, through uplift and erosion, through tree rings — languages we have the potential to restore our literacy in. Reconnecting with these quiet messages has set Seth Glier, an avid mushroom forager and a Grammy-nominated artist from Western Massachusetts, on a path of channeling nature’s longing for communion with humanity into song. His new album Everything is a collection of eight songs inviting us to imagine a future in which humans and the planet are re-aligned into mutual restoration. 

Each song presents a practical climate solution with concrete optimism.“What if this is the beginning, not the beginning of the end,” the album opens with bristling energy and hope on “Rise,” an anthem about rewilding. “Finally Home” is a celebration of regenerative farming with driving doo wop vocal harmony. “Mammoth,” written from the perspective of a wooly mammoth being brought back to life from frozen DNA, invites us to consider the blip of human history against billions of years of evolution. The album’s guest stars Crys Matthews, Hayley Reardon, and Windborne elevate the record with surprise from the stark choir arrangement of “Birches” recorded a capella in an old church to “My Body Remembers,” a flowing meditation on the transmission of healing, EMDR & The Language of Trees. The album’s title track was inspired by an experience Seth had while foraging. “When I picked up the chantarelle mushroom and brought it towards my nose I first smelled sweet apricot and then my spine straightened suddenly. The feeling was like déjà vu. It was a first time, yet somewhere inside of me I had done this once before. I was reconnecting to a knowledge I had already known.” The album is an acknowledgement of the sacred connections that exist between all living things and is an active questioning of what might be possible collectively. Everything is a reminder that the future is something we always have an influence over.

Seth’s gifts are an innate curiosity and a fierce desire to connect with other people. His musical acumen provides him with a vehicle for both. He was worked as a cultural diplomat for the US State Department and collaborated with musicians in Ukraine, Mongolia, China, and Mexico. Seth has shared the bill with a diverse list of artists ranging from the likes of Ronnie Spector, James Taylor, Ani DiFranco, & Glen Campbell. As a producer, music director, or studio musician he has collaborated with Sophie B. Hawkins, Tom Rush, Antje Duvekot, Richard Shindell, Doctora Qingona, Dar Williams, Nick Carter, & Cyndi Lauper. Seth is a five-time Independent Music Award winner and received a Grammy nomination for his album The Next Right Thing. With a commitment to using songwriting as a tool for positive change, he has written with the students in Parkland, FL for the “Parkland Project,” cowritten with soldiers at Walter Reed, and is an advocate for autism awareness citing his autistic brother Jamie as his greatest non-musical-musical influence.

Food & Bar: Our full food and drink menu will be available before and during the show.