The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Acclaimed musician and songwriter Josh Ritter will help Sisters Folk Festival purchase its current headquarters.

Sisters Folk Festival will present Josh Ritter & The Royal City Band at the Sisters High School auditorium in a fundraising concert for “Connected by Creativity,” a capital campaign of Sisters Folk Festival. Tickets will go on sale to the general public April 17 at 10 a.m. and are $35 to $60 (plus fees) each.

Ritter is celebrating the release of his 10th studio album, “Fever Breaks.” Produced by Grammy Award-winning musician Jason Isbell, the 10-song record was recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A. Paste magazine considers Ritter “one of the 100 best songwriters living today,” and Rolling Stone says of “Fever Breaks”: “It’s classic Ritter on Muscle Shoals-bred steroids.”

Sisters Folk Festival has been conducting a capital campaign for the past year to purchase the Sisters Art Works building and the adjacent land, which serve as the largest venue for the annual festival and a community space for events throughout the year. The purchase of the building will allow Sisters Folk Festival to secure their largest venue space, provide a dedicated “home” to execute their mission of enriching lives through arts and music performance and education, and to create new ways to serve the community through programming with adults, after-school and underserved populations.

“The ‘Connected by Creativity’ concert is a great way to educate the public about our mission and add to the excitement for the closing of phase one of the capital campaign,” said Creative Director Brad Tisdel.

Ritter, who sold out his last performance in Sisters during SFF’s 2018 Winter Concert Series, was excited to be returning to Sisters and will be meeting with donors to the Capital Campaign for a pre-concert VIP experience.

Brian Koppelman, filmmaker, record producer and essayist says: “Ritter’s music has a way of unifying us, bonding us, and bringing us together in a search for love, peace, understanding and an escape from the earthly cruelty all around us.”

“This unifying force that Josh Ritter’s music embodies is exactly what Sisters Folk Festival is embracing as it enters a new phase in its growth,” said SFF Development Director Steven Remington, who adds that “as an accomplished author, visual artist, composer, songwriter and musician, Josh Ritter is the perfect person to exemplify and help us celebrate our vision. We are on a path to better serve our community through the acquisition of the building and the growth of the organization. We are very excited to be sharing this vision, honoring our capital campaign donors, and encouraging everyone to get involved during this very special evening.”

Opening the evening will be Sisters Americana Project alumna Slater Smith with multi-instrumentalist Tim Karplus. As leader of the Portland-based folk-rock band The Weather Machine, Smith will be releasing his third record in 2019, a concept album celebrating the Oregon Coast in commemoration of the 1967 Oregon Beach Bill.

Ticket sales and donations the night of the celebration will support the campaign, which has raised over $1.1 million of the $1.4 million phase-one goal of purchasing the building. For general admission and reserved seat tickets to the connected by creativity concert with Josh Ritter and The Royal City Band, visit

http://www.sistersfolkfestival.org.

For ticket information call 541-549-4979 ext. 3.