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.

Grace Givertz

• Folk
• Singer/Songwriter

Grace Givertz is a Boston based indie folk singer songwriter. With a large voice packed into a tiny body, Grace pairs her witty and honest lyrics with various instruments to bring a refreshing sound to folk. Born and raised in Jupiter, Florida, Grace has been writing songs and performing since she was eleven years old. Performing at well-loved Boston venues including Great Scott, Club Passim, ONCE Ballroom, The Red Room and The Burren, Grace Givertz has opened for favorites like Lucy Dacus, Neyla Pekarek (The Lumineers), John Paul White (The Civil Wars), and Erin Rae.

Kemp Harris

• Blues
• Folk
• Jazz
• Roots

Kemp Harris defies categorization. He is a singer and songwriter, a master weaver of American musical styles. He’s an actor, activist, author, and storyteller, and an award-winning educator who has taught young public school students for more than 40 years.  

“It’s all about communication,” Kemp says. “Everything I do.”

Born in segregated Edenton, North Carolina, and transplanted to Massachusetts, where he bounced between relatives’ homes, Kemp learned to adapt to whatever world he found himself in – a talent that has come to define him as a person and an artist. He began writing songs at 14 and recording them in college, using a pair of old cassette players to track parts, and has been delighting music lovers ever since with his earthy, soulful creations.

Kemp honed his powerful, intimate performance style in Cambridge’s coffeehouses, developing into a magnetic frontman who has shared stages with artists such as Koko Taylor, Livingston Taylor, Gil Scott-Heron, Kandace Springs and Taj Mahal. He has composed original music for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, established a songwriting residency at Boston’s Wang Theater, and recently delivered a series of master classes at Berklee College of Music on the subject of Artists as Activists, alongside Chad Stokes of the band Dispatch and members of the dance troupe Urban Bush Women.

Kemp’s most recent album, Edenton, featuring vocals from the legendary Holmes Brothers, is a modern blues journey that fuses the personal and the political, the sacred and the profane, to haunting effect. Edenton’s title track, a bittersweet valentine to his birthplace, explores a simpler time in a racially-divided town with the clear-eyed grace that is a hallmark of Kemp’s work. Everything he makes is built on a foundation of social awareness and the desire to reflect the world as he sees and experiences it. Whether he’s performing a rousing soul tune backed by a 14-piece orchestra in a grand concert hall or a hushed meditation alone at his piano, Kemp speaks truth the only way he knows how: by baring his soul. Considering the state of the world, it is no wonder Kemp is back on the road playing to the biggest audiences of his life – selling out rooms from Northern New England to New York City and enjoying a wave of new fans who have discovered this seasoned Renaissance man via word of mouth.

“Kemp Harris is a thief, a tease and a heartbreaker. He knows too much. And it’s all right there when he sings… beautifully there. He’ll take your breath away.”  – NPR: ‘On Point’

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.

Chris Walton

• Singer/Songwriter
• Soul

Chris Walton a singer/songwriter/producer. Walton’s music is a blend of classic Soul, Jazz, and Funk with a modern aesthetic. Chris is equally comfortable writing intimate introspective love songs or upbeat retro pop tracks. He released his debut album, Ruminating Thoughts in January 2023. This album is a culmination of his music up to this point, including recent releases “Soon” and “Cravin’,” that left fans eager to hear more from the chilled-out crooner. Inspired by the likes of Stevie Wonder, early John Mayer, and Daniel Caesar, Chris has created an album of smooth, jazz kissed songs that tug at the heart strings of listeners with effortless relatability on love and loss of love.

Walton attended Berklee College of Music and currently lives in Boston, MA.

Zion Rodman

• Indie Rock
• Singer/Songwriter

Zion Rodman is a multi-instrumental singer-songwriter known for his soulful voice, intricate guitar playing, and poignant lyrics. With a melodic style that blends folk and rock influences, Zion’s performances are heartfelt and captivating as he weaves storytelling between songs.

Zion is currently recording a new album following the release of “The Lives I’ve Kept” EP in the fall of 2024.

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.

Kayla Blackburn

• Singer/Songwriter

Devon Gates

• Jazz

Devon Gates is a bassist, vocalist, and composer from Atlanta, Georgia, now based between Boston, MA and Brooklyn, NY. Through studying anthropology and jazz performance at Harvard University and Berklee College of Music, she has worked with Terri Lyne Carrington, Linda May Han Oh, Vijay Iyer, Danilo Perez, Claire Chase, Yosvanny Terry, and esperanza spalding, and has performed with Social Science, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Susie Ibarra, Michael Mayo, Alexa Tarantino, Immanuel Wilkins, Kenny Werner, and Tia Fuller. In 2020, she released her first EP, “Voice/Bass” on Bandcamp, followed by the release of single “skipped that step” in spring 2023. In 2022 her original composition “Don’t Wait” was published in Berklee Press’ “New Standards” collection of 101 lead sheets by female jazz composers.

For her work as a composer, Gates has won the inaugural Marion Brown Prize, a HerVoice prize (Chicago Acapella), and the 2024 First Commission award from ComposersNow, along with the Bohemian Prize (’23) and a John Green Prize (’22) from the Harvard Music Department, and a commission for the MassArt Museum (’22). Her pieces have been programmed by the Harvard Choruses, Chicago Acapella, Bowdoin College, and National Sawdust. She is a Mutual Mentorship for Musicians fellow and Betty Carter Jazz Ahead alum, and has performed at Joe’s Pub, the Monterey Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, DC Jazz Festival, Winter JazzFest, the Kennedy Center, Roulette Intermedium, and SFJazz. She performed her first tour in Asia (Ulaanbataar, Mongolia, and Osaka and Tokyo, Japan) in August 2023, followed by a fall 2023 term abroad in London, UK at the Royal Academy of Music, and a January 2024 Italy tour.

Her Harvard Opportunes arrangement and live solo performance of “Hard Place” by H.E.R. went viral on TikTok, garnering the attention of Michael Buble and Jason Derulo, and later winning her a CARA Acapella Award for Best Soloist on the 2022 studio album recording. She also works in varied interdisciplinary settings, from scoring a short film for the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute exhibition on seminal ethnomusicologist Dr. Eileen Southern, to collaborating with the Harvard Ballet Company to set dance to her original music. She is currently developing a string quartet in collaboration with playwright Phillip Howze, to be premiered in February 2024 as part of his theatrical work, “Self Portraits” (Bushwick Starr, Brooklyn, NYC).

Cinamon

• Alt Folk

Cinamon has been writing music for over 40 years, using it as a powerful form of self-therapy and personal healing. In 2017, they earned an MA in Expressive Therapy with a focus on music therapy from Lesley University. Their journey of recovery continues through the transformative power of creative expression, where music remains at the core of their healing process.