Ozark Folk Center to host fall music, arts festival

The Ozark Folk Center State Park’s Stringband Music & Arts Festival is Oct. 15 and 16. The family-friendly festival will be a weekend-long celebration of lively stringband music and handcrafted arts featuring the Ozark’s finest artisans, music prodigies, and live performances by some of the best touring bands that play old-time mountain music, also known as Ozark folk music.

Festival featured acts include old-time music troubadours from the Ohio River Valley, The Tillers on Friday night, and underground sensations from Nashville, Tennessee, the Hogslop String Band, who will perform two sets on Saturday.

Tickets include the cost of admission to the park’s 20 artisan shops, gardens, and music shows at the park’s historic 1,000-seat indoor music venue, Ozark Highlands Theater. Outdoor acoustic music shows, programs, and artisan demonstrations will occur in the Craft Village from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and feature concerts will take place in the music theater from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, and again from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday.

Due to Arkansas Department of Health COVID-19 guidelines, ticket sales to music shows will be limited to one-third of the theater’s seating capacity. Tickets are $25 for Friday, $35 for Saturday, and $50 for both days. To reserve tickets or learn more, visit OzarkFolkCenter.Ticketleap.com. To book a modern, renovated cabin for the weekend, visit OzarkFolkCenter.com.

The Skillet Restaurant, also located at the state park, will serve buffets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner throughout the festivities on Friday and Saturday. The park’s hilltop restaurant, which is known for its Southern hospitality and down-home cooking, will feature its famous Ozark Settlers buffet for dinner on both nights.

“It’s so refreshing to have live music back at the park after such a long hiatus,” said Ozark Folk Center State Park Music Director Daren Dortin. “It was great to see so many smiling faces in the music theater during our August bluegrass festival and we’re looking forward to welcoming stringband music fans back for this new festival. We have an immensely talented group of local and nationally-touring bands that will be performing Oct. 15 and 16.”

The Hogslop String Band formed in 2009. Since then, the band has won every major stringband contest in the South and even made the Guinness Book of Records for hosting the world’s largest square dance in 2015. Their last appearance at the Ozark Folk Center in 2016 earned them an ardent following of local musicians, dancers, and old-time music fans after impromptu dancing broke out in the music theater. Despite having to cancel their last show at Ozark Folk Center due to COVID-19, the young, energetic quartet featuring fiddle, washtub bass, guitar, and banjo will return to the Folk Center stage for two shows on Saturday, Oct. 16, for one of the park’s most anticipated concerts of the season.

The Tillers have been thumping their own distinctive sound of string band style folk music for a decade, riding it all over the country and across the sea. Four studio albums and one live record have won them praise as modern folk storytellers of the national soundscape. This quartet of passionate American songsters and stringband musicians from the Ohio River Valley are sure to have you singing along and clapping along with every note.

The festival lineup also includes some of the Ozark’s most popular stringbands, as well as young music prodigies, elder statesmen, and rising stars from the old-time music scene in Mountain View. Bands include Taller Than You, The Creek Rocks, Grace Stormont, Eden & Lukas Pool, and Whoa Mule.

Taller Than You are an upand-coming 5-piece stringband based out of Mountain View. Since winning the award for Group of the Year at the Ozark Folk Center in 2019, this group of young all-stars has performed their original arrangements of upbeat fiddle tunes and timeless folksongs across Missouri and Arkansas. Taller Than You which features Gresham McMillion on upright bass (commonly known as “bass fiddle” in Mountain View), Chandler Spickes on guitar, National Hammered Dulcimer Champion Ben Haguewood, Arkansas Fiddle Champion Kailee Spickes, and State Banjo Champion Grace Stormont, and will perform on Friday & Saturday during the festival.

The Creek Rocks are known for their impeccable harmony singing, songwriting, and original renditions of classic country, bluegrass, and forgotten Ozark folksongs. The band, which was recently featured on the cover of

Acoustic Guitar Magazine, includes Mark Bilyeu, lead vocalist and guitarist from Springfield’s wildly popular folk band, Big Smith, and Little Rock’s own Little Rock’s Cindy Woolf, a gifted three-finger style banjo picker and singer. The Creek Rocks will be joined by friends and special guests to perform on Friday and Saturday.

Grace Stormont is an accomplished banjo player, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and rising star from the Mountain View area. Despite her young age, 20-year-old Stormont performs with the skill and maturity most seasoned musicians only aspire to: skills she honed over the past five years playing regularly at the Ozark Folk Center. In 2021, Stormont took home two awards at the Arkansas Country Music Awards including Acoustic Act of the Year and the highly coveted award for Songwriter of the Year. Stormont’s performances include turn-of-the-century acoustic jazz, American folksongs, centuries-old ballads, and lively old-time banjo tunes. Grace will perform on Friday and Saturday of Stringband Festival as a solo performer and with the band Taller Than You.

Eden & Lukas Pool met while pursuing a degree in fiddle and banjo at the renowned Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. This young husband-and-wife duo have developed their own unique style of playing and arranging old-time tunes with a beauty and precision that surpasses many of nation’s top touring bands. Their performance on Friday, Oct. 15 will be their first live performance since February 2020.

Whoa Mule are one of Mountain View’s longest running old-time music groups. This endearing band of musical brothers (from different mothers) are chock full of humorous Ozark tales, stories, and timeless folk, country, and bluegrassinspired songs. If you like authentic mountain music, you won’t want to miss these elder statesmen of Ozark music on Saturday, Oct. 16.

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