Sunday Morning Festival Pages #1

This one is a long rambling affair with lots of news that’s fit to sing. Thanks to Clinton Reno for the beautiful poster!

Subject: New Music, Nowhere Else Festival (3 Weeks!), October Belfast Concert Added, Ireland 2024 Retreat Dates, The Netherlands, PNW Concerts, Songwriting Workshops

Hello fellow travelers,

Greetings from a small farm in Ohio in the heart of summertime. Sure, the homegrown tomatoes are ripening. The butter crunch lettuce is still bountiful with all the rain we’ve been having. The farmers have already taken our 2nd cutting of hay. The hummingbirds dart around the feeders and the profusions of blooming black and blue salvia. They thrum the porches constantly like vibrating guitar stings, playfully sparring in mid-air. The butterflies are moving through, always exploring Karin’s native pollinator beds, fluttering by the wild edges. (The monarchs aren’t quite as thick as last year, but increasingly present as summer passes.)

But with summer blowing out its seams, this time of year mostly means one thing for a couple of Ohio songwriters:

It’s festival season.

In just three weeks, good folks from near and far (40 different states and abroad) will travel to our little farm in Clinton County, Ohio, for Nowhere Else Festival, our musical family reunion.

Why host and curate a festival? What was the soul imperative? Why did we feel our hearts leaning in toward the possibility of a gathering like this?

1) We’ve always from the very first years of our career had the desire to get people who were discovering our music together and give them a chance to meet each other. Meet-ups after shows at Kaldis Coffeehouse in the old neighborhood, Sunday Soirees at ragged St. Elizabeth’s at Christmastime, the long weekends of music at Canal Street Tavern. The connective tissue of all the relationships that have formed over the years is simply amazing. Nowhere Else Festival is an extended musical family reunion.

2) Place. We’ve always been interested in how the place a writer or painter calls home collaborates with the work of the artist. Flannery O’Connor, Robert Frost, Georgia O’Keefe, Wendell Berry — place is inseparable from their work. We named our band after one of the world’s great neighborhoods, the place we got our start. Our first double album was simply called OHIO. We eventually left the city for a place where we could leave the edges wild. How does having a piece of unpaved earth to call home, and sharing that place with our extended musical family change us and our work?

3) We’ve always had the desire to share young or recently-discovered songwriters with our audience. It’s lovely to watch the artists react in real-time to one of the best listening audiences in the world. They often struggle to find words to describe what a breath of fresh air it is simply to have their work received with full attention. And it’s gratifying to watch those who have discovered our music sometimes react in disbelief at what they’re hearing.

4) And finally, one of the best reasons to have a festival that I’ve come across was expressed by G.K. Chesterton, a sometimes cantankerous but brilliant British writer. In my own words, he said this: We need pastors and priests to remind us that one day we’re going to die. We need writers, painters, singers and poets to remind us that we’re not dead yet.

5) I’ll add this gem as a postscript: “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” Mary Oliver, swinging for the fences there, like she does. It’s not easy to answer a creative calling with time and attention. Life offers a million reasons why it’s too hard, not practical, there’s too much to do. The world contends in countless ways that if it can’t be instantly monetized, it must not be worth much. How sad and soul-killing. The reality is any practice that contributes to a more fully dimensional spiritual journey is priceless. Sometimes we just need a jolt of inspiration to reanimate the heartbeat of our dreams.

So that’s some of what we had in mind for the glorious experiment called Nowhere Else Festival.

But surprisingly, you know the word not mentioned above that actually comes back to us time and time again from so many of the folks who attend the festival?

Healing.

That’s the word we’ve heard more than any other.

Here’s one direct quote that we found unforgettable:

“I just want you to know I attended your festival. I cried all weekend. I had the best time. It was so healing.”

Isn’t that just like life? You can have all sorts of things in mind regarding what you’re doing, but the outcomes are ultimately somewhat beyond our grasp. And that’s ok.

We’ll take “healing” any day of the week.

All that to say, if you’re feel something “restive and uprising” telling you to join us this year, please do come and be a part of it all. You might be so glad you did.

All the details are at nowhereelsefestival.com. Please read the FAQ if you are making plans to attend. We will be announcing the festival morning workshop schedule soon, including two fun art workshops for children. Stay tuned.

BELFAST!

We are thrilled to announce that we’ve added a concert in Belfast, this October 7, at The Black Box. This extended evening of music is open to all. Join us! https://www.blackboxbelfast.com/event/over-the-rhine/

Check out overtherhine.com for details on more concerts coming up later this fall in The Netherlands, and the PNW (Seattle and Portland). We’ll be announcing more barn concerts and December tour dates soon as well.

IRELAND 2024

After our Retreat in Northern Ireland this October quickly sold out with a waiting list, we are pleased to announce we have scheduled a second gathering, June 19-27, 2024.

Early in our career, when we first arrived in Ireland during a tour of 13 countries in Europe and the UK, we noticed a subtle shift. While European countries displayed their monuments of conquest and empire front and center in seemingly every major city square, the Irish tallied their wealth differently: everywhere we turned we were caught up in Ireland’s love of music and a good story — and preferably over a pint if at all possible.

When we first met Gareth Higgins, he was standing atop a table reciting a Seamus Heaney poem from memory. Whenever we have occasion to get together, Gareth always has the knack for saying something that we think about for a long time. Perhaps that is one of the great good gifts that Gareth and Brian offer all who come within their sway: the gift of real conversation.

Getting to spend more than a week in Ireland with Gareth and Brian will be a gift to all of us who are able to be present. In the words of writer Kathleen Norris, “It’s a chance to visit a magnificent place that isn’t overrun with tourists, to learn more about Ireland’s troubled history, and to join with others who are listening to the stories that can shape our lives for the better.” This retreat will offer beauty, laughter, a few healing tears and generous hospitality. We hope we can share it with you. And we’re sure it will be the trip of a lifetime.

All the details: www.irelandretreats.com

Our September Songwriting Workshop here at Nowhere Else is SOLD OUT. We’re looking forward to another deep dive together into the mystery called songwriting. Stay tuned at overtherhine.com for more workshops that we’ll be announcing for early 2024.

Finally, if you supported Over the Rhine’s last recording campaign, which yielded the band’s latest studio album, Love & Revelation, you should have received the link in your email to the new solo piano album from Linford, called, Ten Songs Without Words. If you didn’t receive the link, please email us: overtherhineofficial@gmail.com

We hope to have the CDs by Christmas. More new music currently in the works.

Take good care of each other, and we hope to see you soon,

Linford and Karin