2022 Freshwater Folk Festival Performers [Jump to schedule]

The lineup is set for the 2022 Freshwater Folk Festival! We have many wonderful groups this year: The Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys, Jim Snyder, The Sea The Sea, Kipyn Martin and The Rust Brothers Read on for details….

Richard Hefner & the Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys    (Video)

Legendary banjo player, Richard Hefner, will be onstage with his band, The Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys. This band is one of West Virginia’s longest-standing bluegrass bands, having been around for over fifty years. Multi-instrumentalist Dave Bing plays fiddle, banjo and guitar. He grew up in a household filled with music, and like his brothers Mike and Tim, taught himself how to play. Fiddler, Blaine Sprouse, is one of the top fiddlers in the US today. Sprouse began his career as a teenager, playing with the “King of Bluegrass,” Jimmy Martin. As for Joanna Burt-Kinderman, Hefner has known her since she was born. She grew up listening to his banjo playing, and then one day picked up the bass in his living room and started plucking away. Hefner encouraged her to continue, teaching her along the way, and now she’s a member of his band!
Make sure you’re sittin’ in the front row and ready to dance when this blazin’ Bluegrass band takes the stage at the Freshwater Folk Festival!

Jim Snyder w/ Bob Riggleman and Scott Logsdon  (video)

Singer-songwriter Jim Snyder has been playing guitar and singing since he was a boy when he taught himself to play his father’s ukulele. His music runs the gamut from folk, rock, and gospel to blues and bluegrass. He’ll tell you that he does everything from Mother Maybelle to Jimi Hendrix. He makes his home in Lewisburg but travels wherever the gigs take him. Besides being a performing artist, he is also the Director of the WV Winter Music Festival and the D Street Art & Music Series. He’ll be joined by bassist Bob Riggleman and percussionist Scott Logsdon.

The Sea The Sea   (A Thousand Years – video)

Chuck and Mira Costa are The Sea The Sea – an indie folk-pop duo from Upstate New York. Winners of the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival, The Sea The Sea is known for stunning vocal harmonies and creative song arrangements. Not surprising, since both Chuck and Mira are award-winning songwriters. Mira combines her extensive training in dance, theater, and music with the folky roots she cultivated growing up in the wings of Mountain Stage as the daughter of its musical director, Ron Sowell. Before meeting Mira, Chuck toured the festival and coffeehouse circuit for years as a solo artist and independently released five albums. He garnered many songwriting accolades over the years (Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, Falcon Ridge “Most Wanted,” Telluride Bluegrass Troubadour.)

Kipyn Martin    (River – video; Keep Your Lantern Lit – video)

Kipyn Martin is an emerging Indie Folk singer-songwriter whose roots sink deep into the banks of the Shenandoah River. She is a three-time winner of the coveted Gold Award in the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest, was the Washington Area Music Association’s WAMMIE Award winner for New Artist of the Year in 2015, a Gold Award winner at the international United Kingdom Song Contest, and has had multiple WAMMIE nominations for Songwriter of the Year and Folk Contemporary Vocalist.  
Martin is blessed with an incredible voice. Karin Fuller of the Charleston Gazette says “Kipyn is something else” and has the purest voice she’s ever heard. Kipyn Martin is one of those artists whose music casts a spell and brings a hush over the audience. 

The Rust Brothers

The Rust Brothers are George Piasecki on bass, Jim Wright on guitar and Bob Ducharme on guitar and guitjo. What is a guitjo? It’s a six-string banjo with a guitar neck. Banjos typically have five strings. As Bob will tell you – with a twinkle in his eyes – these three guys have had day jobs totaling more than 150 years. They bring together more than 75 years of living in the Greenbrier River areas of Lewisburg and Greenville, and they’ve spent just about as many playing music! They perform music that they like, ranging from golden oldies to classic folk with a bit of rock’n roll and blues tossed in, and they do it in a back porch, parlor, good-time kind of way. As Bob says, “Fun first, and lastly!”

Schedule of performances:

All performances are at the hatchery amphitheater.