Special Guest: The Montvales
The Ark 316 S. Main, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesPaper Wings is a folk duo based in Nashville composed of Emily Mann and Wila Frank. Their music features striking duet harmonies and heartfelt original songs which blend American roots with whimsical originality.
One timOne time garage rock troubadour Dave Boutette, and former Radio City Rockette Kristi Lynn Davis make what could be considered an unexpected musical pairing, but they have certainly found a way to make it work. Since pairing Dave’s celebrated songwriting with Kristi’s natural gift for harmony, the duo has delighted audiences at music festivals, house concerts, and listening rooms from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to the Maryland shore. Their most recent release THE CHICKADEES reached #11 on the Folk DJ Chart in June of 2025.
Mike Massé is an internationally acclaimed artist and arranger who performs epic acoustic classic rock. He is a YouTube icon with over 195 million channel views. Legends of rock like Toto, Boston, Sarah McLachlan, Styx, Rush, Berlin, Asia, and others have expressed love and gratitude for his acoustic renditions of their songs. Toto cites his acoustic cover of “Africa” as their favorite.
Opener: Caroline Spence
The Ark 316 S. Main, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesIn January 2024, Kim Richey found herself in Mexico, gazing out at a sea of people singing along to “I’m Alright,” one of her classic tracks. The three folks on stage with the veteran, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter were also raising their voices in harmony. To her right sat Brandi Carlile, to her left, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Brandy Clark. The formidable foursome was participating in a songwriter’s round only half-jokingly dubbed “Titans of Americana” at Carlile’s female-forward Girls Just Wanna Weekend festival on the Riviera Maya in Mexico. The good news for fans of this particular Titan is a whole new batch of songs to sing along with and arm wave to with the release of her 10th studio album Every New Beginning.
In April 2025, Peter Mulvey and Jenna Nicholls, along with guitarist Ross Bellenoit, traveled to Floyd, a small mountain town located in the Blue Ridge Highlands of Southwest Virginia, for five uninterrupted days of recording. What emerged is Floyd Mercantile — a record that feels both intimate and timeless.
Inspired at age 30, singer/songwriter Al Bettis picked up a guitar and a notepad and got to work. The self-trained acoustic guitarist has gained popularity for his smooth vocals and sincere lyrics. His shows are a journey through love, heartbreak and redemption as he offers stories about the musings behind many of his songs.
Born in Miami, during World War II, Chris Smither grew up in New Orleans where he first started playing music as a child. In his early twenties, Smither turned his back on his anthropology studies and headed to Boston at the urging of legendary folk singer Eric von Schmidt. What quickly evolved from his New Orleans and Cambridge musical experiences is his enduring, singular guitar sound – a beat-driven finger-picking, strongly influenced by the playing of Mississippi John Hurt and Lightnin’ Hopkins, layered over the ever-present backbeat of his rhythmic, tapping feet (always mic’d in performance).
Jane Siberry, a highly respected figure in the international music scene with a career spanning over four decades, is starting her upcoming tour on March 19th in Oregon and concluding on April 29th in Halifax. Known for her ethereal voice, poetic lyrics, and genre-defying sound, Jane has captivated audiences worldwide since the 1980s, delivering an impressive catalog of 15 studio albums and countless live performances.
In 2006 Corinne Bailey Rae released her self-titled debut album, a record she had recorded on a shoestring budget while still unsigned. An early appearance on BBC2's 'Later With Jools' and some intimate gigs around the UK had already started a word-of-mouth buzz leading her to be tipped as the next big thing. But the success of that album was instant and immense. Debuting at Number One in the UK, featuring hit singles such as 'Put Your Records On' and 'Like A Star', becoming a smash-hit around the world, and crashing straight into the Billboard Top 20 in the US - the first British female singer-songwriter to do so in decades - meant Bailey Rae gained a huge global audience within months.
The Arcadian Wild is an indie folk/pop group from Nashville, TN, led by songwriters Isaac Horn, Lincoln Mick and Bailey Warren, The Arcadian Wild confidently inhabits and explores an intersection of genre, blending the traditional with the contemporary. Combining elements of confessional pop, folk, progressive bluegrass, and formal vocal music, The Arcadian Wild offer up songs of invitation; calls to come and see, to find refuge and rest, to journey and wonder, to laugh and cry, to share joy and community and sing along.
Whether you're looking for your big break, want to perfect your live performance skills, or just want to perform live for the sheer fun of it, Open Stage nights offer supportive audiences and a terrific space. Performers have eight minutes (or two songs) each to do their thing. Doors open at 7:30, and names are drawn at 7:55 and 8:30. If your name isn't chosen, bring your raffle ticket with you next time, and you'll double your chances. Tickets at the door.
Multi-Instrumentalist and Singer-Songwriter Darrell Scott mines and cultivates the everyday moment, taking the rote, menial, mundane, and allowing it to be surreal, ever poignant, and candidly honest, lilting, blooming, and resonating. The words he fosters allow us to make sense of the world, what is at stake here, and our place in it. And ultimately, Darrell knows the sole truth of life is that love is all that matters, that we don’t always get it right, but that’s the instinctive and requisite circuitous allure of things, why we forever chase it, and why it is held sacred.