Musicians
Sarah Harmer
Sarah Harmer is a multiple award-winning, platinum-selling singer-songwriter and environmental activist. Her solo career launched with the now-classic debut You Were Here (2000) and includes six critically acclaimed albums, most recently Are You Gone, released via Arts & Crafts in 2020.
A deeply personal and political collection of songs motivated by the beauty of life, the urgency of the climate crisis, and the question of loss, Are You Gone was described by Harmer as a spiritual successor to her acclaimed debut. The album’s title serves as a meditation on presence and a bookend to the questions posed on You Were Here—a sharper, more electric confrontation with the realities of nature and human nature.
Alongside her music career, Harmer is a prominent environmental advocate. She co-founded the citizens’ organization PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land) and helped lead the successful campaign to stop an open-pit gravel mine in a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve on the Niagara Escarpment.
In 2022, Harmer helped launch the Reform Gravel Mining Coalition in Ontario to protect water, farmland, and biodiversity. In 2025, she received the JUNO Humanitarian Award, presented by Dr. David Suzuki in Vancouver, in recognition of her human rights and environmental advocacy. She was also honoured with the keys to the city of Burlington by Mayor Marianne Meed Ward for her ongoing contributions to the region.
Sarah Harmer is currently writing songs for a new album.
R Sheaves
R Sheaves is an alt-folk/rock project led by Corner Brook–based composer and songwriter Robert Humber. Their debut album MARY SPINS, released via Milltown Records in March 2025, was nominated for three MusicNL awards: Folk Artist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, and Rising Artist.
As a composer, Robert has written music for ballet, orchestras, soloists, installations, and more, and has released two experimental/contemporary classical albums under his own name. R Sheaves grew from a desire to blend those more abstract influences with Humber’s earlier roots in folk, rock, and singer-songwriter music.
The live band includes violinist Jessica Pereversoff, bassist/guitarist/visual artist Scott Sheppard, and drummer Steve Gill.
Duane Andrews and The Hot Club of Conception Bay
Duane Andrews casts a wide net in the musical world. Uniting what would seem to be impossible – traditional Newfoundland music with the swing jazz of the legendary two fingered guitarist Django Reinhardt, Andrews makes it not just work – he makes it soar.
The Juno award winning composer, arranger, producer, conductor and globetrotting performer’s latest album is the best evidence yet of his inimitable musical vision and is the sound of him, literally, bringing it all back home.
He’ll be joined by the hottest swing band in the bay The Hot Club of Conception Bay which features Erin Power with her magical mandolins and vibrant vocals and Isaac Andrews Power with his fiddle of fire and beguiling bass.
Adrian Sutherland
Adrian Sutherland is a roots-rock musician from the remote Cree community of Attawapiskat in Ontario’s Far North. His music blends roots, rock, folk, and blues while drawing inspiration from the land, his life experiences, and Cree language and culture.
Adrian recently published his first book with Penguin Random House Canada, The Work of Our Hands: A Cree Meditation on the Real World. His music has earned JUNO Award nominations in 2022 and 2025 and nominations at the Ontario Folk Music Awards in 2024 and 2025. He won Best Americana Album at the 2025 World Entertainment Awards and Best Music Video at the 2022 American Indian Film Festival.
His sophomore solo album Precious Diamonds was recorded in Nashville with Grammy-winning producer Colin Linden. Named one of the “Top 100 Albums of 2024” by CKUA Radio, the album includes two songs in Cree—his first recordings in his first language. The single Notawe (Father) reached #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown and was named one of the “Top 100 Songs of 2023” by CBC Music.
One of the few professional recording artists living in an isolated fly-in First Nation community, Adrian brings a unique perspective to conversations about Indigenous life in Canada and hopes to contribute to ongoing reconciliation through music and storytelling.
Sweet William Society
Sweet William Society is the latest project from long-time musical collaborators vocalist Andrea Koziol and pianist Bill Brennan. Celebrated for an honest and emotive performance style that blends jazz, pop, and classical influences, this Newfoundland and Labrador/Ontario–based songwriting team has released dozens of albums and performed individually and collectively across Canada and the United States for decades.
Their 2019 award-winning jazz album I’ll Be Seeing You inspired the duo to begin writing together more intentionally. The result of this interprovincial collaboration is their upcoming album Bread and Roses, a moving collection of original songs and meditations reflecting on the lives they have lived, the people they have loved, and the joy that remains available when we choose to see it.
“Bill Brennan and Andrea Koziol make music that is elegant, impulsive, sleek, unfiltered, sexy, funky, subtle, caring and as real as it can be. Let these songs into your world and you will have no choice but to be exactly where you are.”
— Tom Allen, host of CBC Radio’s Shift
The East Pointers
JUNO Award winners The East Pointers are innovators within the evolving genre of modern folk, crafting a joy-filled fusion of folk, pop, and dance music. Across four studio albums, they have captured the energetic spirit of their live shows while contributing to the legacy of East Coast folk.
Their newest album, Schoonertown, scheduled for release January 23, 2026, reflects on the moments that shaped their youth—kitchen parties, small-town life, first love, late nights, long drives, and the exuberance of growing up on the East Coast.
Since their debut album Secret Victory won the 2017 JUNO Award for Traditional Album of the Year, The East Pointers have become a defining voice in contemporary folk music. Their music is streamed millions of times monthly and has been featured in film, television, and broadcast. Their performances have been shared by artists such as Ed Sheeran and Mumford & Sons. The band tours internationally and hosts Goolaholla!, a festival celebrating East Coast music and culture in Prince Edward Island.
Christine Fellows
Christine Fellows finds music in sounds we often take for granted—the voices of people we love and the spaces we move through each day. Although she identifies primarily as a songwriter and performer, her practice includes scoring and sound design for film, theatre, and spoken word; interdisciplinary collaboration; poetry; paper collage; and stop-motion video.
Over the past 25 years, she has released eight critically acclaimed solo albums and toured internationally both as a solo artist and collaborator, from the Canadian Arctic to South Australia.
In 2022, she released Stuff We All Get, accompanied by 13 hand-animated stop-motion videos she created alongside the songs. Based in Winnipeg on Treaty One Territory, she volunteers with the John Howard Society of Manitoba’s “Get the Story Out” program, recording, editing, and scoring bedtime stories read by inmates for their children. Fellows will premiere new repertoire at Writers at Woody Point, joined by violist Jennifer Thiessen and cellist Leanne Zacharias.
Hit Piece
Newfoundland super-duper-group Hit Piece boasts a 9 large cast of the finest players money can't buy. Debuting in 2024 at the WOWP Saturday Night Legion Bash, this original dance band had everyone hopping and all leather hitting the lumber. And they're back again to showcase more new tunes and lots of huge beloved covers. Ask around, this is the place to be and the company to keep. Good times by any means necessary. Check the roster! (Bill Brennan, Dan Smith, Nicole Hand, Jodee Richardson, Grant King, Amy Joy, Terry Campbell, Dave Rowe and Chris Harnett) Great Gravy! Also every year at the festival, visiting stars and local heroes step up to perform with the gang, so expect some radly righteous surprises!
Rasa
Sandy Morris and Erin best are both long-time Woody Point favourites who this year take the stage together as RASA.
Erin has a voice that could melt even the iciest of hearts. Sandy, the most easterly guitar player in North America, is a living Newfoundland legend and we are proud to have him as our Woody Point musician-in-residence. Together, they're a musical force to be reckoned with. Their debut album, "Neoprehistoric", blends rock, folk, and a hint of something indescribable, much like the feeling of finding a lost sock in the dryer.
When they're not making music, Sandy is likely in some lake or river practicing his front-stroke, backstroke, and fancy diving. Meanwhile, Erin can be found navigating the legal waters as a lawyer with Stewart McKelvey, probably arguing that all disputes should be settled with a jam session.