Friday, August 29th

The FREE 2025 Friday Night “Expanding Horizons” Concert began at 6:00pm on Friday, August 29th, on our North Stage.

The 2025 “Expanding Horizons” Concert performer lineup included:

JAK                 SUGARBLUFF          DAVID PRINCE          KT AND THE LOVE NOTES​

History of the Friday Night Concert

I​n 2011 the Tumbleweed Music Festival hosted its first “Emerging Artists” Concert (now known as the “New Horizons” concert) on the Friday evening preceding the festival.  The concert was hosted by C.A. Hurst, and the non-profit organization called “Catalyst.”  “Catalyst is dedicated to helping young people find and develop their areas of creativity and to encourage people of all ages to rekindle their creative fires and revisit their creative wellsprings.” The concert was a big success and the Tumbleweed Music Festival has held this concert every year since, though over time it has changed from being about young, emerging artists to embrace a wider range (and, euphemistically, “higher energy”) of musical styles and types of performances.

Saturday, August 30th

Saturday dawned bright and clear, with our Craft Vendors loading in their booths and displays, and Food Vendors setting up and preparing for the day’s service.  At 11:00am, as usual, our performances began on our four outdoor and 2 indoor stages, and two workshop rooms.  Saturday saw 48 performances and 10 workshops presented.

Jane Titland Memorial Songwriting Contest

The Jane Titland Memorial Songwriting Contest, a juried, themed songwriting  competition, takes place each year at Tumbleweed. The year’s theme was “Play Time!”

This year’s finalists were chosen from this year’s applicants by a committee of pre-judges. Due to a tie in their scoring, we have eleven finalists this year. They perform ed their songs before a panel of three judges and an audience of fans on Saturday afternoon on the Community Center stage. There are monetary prizes for the top three place winners as well as a “People’s Choice Award,” voted on by the attendees of the finalists’ performances. The winner receives the hand-made Tumbleweed trophy (and check!) and performs their winning song between the first and second acts at the Saturday evening concert.

This year’s eleven finalists and their songs are:

Alan Ehrlich – We’ve Played This Game Before
Brad Keeler – County Fair
David Pablo Cohn – Play Time
Jane Fallon – Find Time To Play
Karl Robert Neice – Play Time
Katie Fitz – Play Time
Kirk Miller – Play Time
Patrice Webb – Let’s Go Riding
Peter Rothbart – Play Time
Steve Nebel – Cottonwood Canyon
Thaddeus Spae – Fifteen

You may view the recorded finalist’s performances of their songs below!

Dan Maher Tribute Concert

Saturday afternoon at 4:15pm, on the North Stage, we presented a Tribute concert to great friend and Tumbleweed family member Dan Maher, who sadly had passed away in May.  Many people performed songs that they had performed with Dan over the years, or songs he loved to perform himself.  Tom Rawson took on the duty of MC of the tribute, and brought a number of people to the stage to give reminisences of our friend.  The concert closed out with Heidi Muller and Bob Webb, and a large group of the other performers singing Heidi’s song Good Road, which served as the theme song for Dan’s Inland Northwest radio show on Northwest Public Broadcasting for over 38 years, and then served as the theme of his internet show, Dan Maher’s Good Road, for the two years prior to his death.

You may view the recorded Dan Maher Tribute concert below!

Saturday Evening Tumbleweed Benefit Concert

The Saturday evening Tumbleweed Benefit concert was one of the better ones we’ve had.  A goodly-sized crowd were treated to an amazing opening performance of the incredibly skilled duo “The Geoducks,” two young men who have been playing and exploring music together for over half their lives. 

The winners of the songwriting contest were announced next:  first prize and the Tumbleweed Trophy (made, as always, by emcee Wes Weddell) went to Patrice Webb for her song Let’s Go Riding;  Second place went to Katie Fitz for her song Play Time; and third place AND People’s Choice went to Peter Rothbart for his song Play Time.  Patrice then performed her song, aided by long-time Tumbleweed family member (also a finalist this year) Brad Keeler.

First-time headliner but long-time Tumbleweed family member Deb Seymour came next, giving us songs of strong women, and finding humor in life’s situations.

The evening closed out with the triumphant return of beloved duo William Pint and Felicia Dale, who brought, as always, their “Music of the Sea,” including some numbers that were new to their repertoire.  This was a return because they had been scheduled to be headliners last year, but health problems prevented them from attending.  Always so good to have them back!

You may view the recorded Tumbleweed Benefit Concert below!

Sunday, August 31st

Sunday again dawned bright and clear, with the kitchen crew again providing breakfast to performers and volunteers alike, which was eaten in the renamed “Chris Mesford Kenoyer Hospitality Room.”  Chris had organized and run the hospitality service for all previous 28 Tumbleweed festivals, beginning with a barbecue grill under the South shelter, and growing into a mighty exercise in coordination that has become our highly-regarded service.  Chris sadly passed of cancer in July, and a large sheet of paper was stationed in the dining room with plenty of pens for people to write their tributes and memories, which many did.  The paper, picture, and memorial page went to Tim Mesford, Chris’s husband of many years.

Sunday saw 50 performances and 14 workshops presented.

Sunday “Theme” Concert

Closing out the festival was the traditional “Theme Concert,” emceed by Micki Perry.  During the concert, the guitar raffle drawing was held.  The guitar this year was a “Sigma by Martin” Dreadnought, owned and donated by Hank Cramer III!  It was won by Becky Smith of Richland.

Contra Dance

The final event, as always, was the Contra Dance, which was quite well-attended:  57 people came to dance to the music of Bonna Damhsa (BON-na DOW-sa, “Dance Band” in Gaelic) with Joseph Erhard-Hudson calling.

TMF2026

We are already beginning plans for next year’s thirtieth annual festival, but unfortunately, another Tumbleweed is not a sure thing.  We barely had enough volunteers at the festival this year to be able to do it, and we desperately need more people to take over some of the jobs on the planning committee that have had to be second- or third-hat jobs for some committee members.  Among these are:  handling traditional PR, Volunteer coordinator, social media, and more.  If you want to help make sure that we DO have another festival, please consider filling out a Volunteer form.  Just click the link below.

Volunteer

Hope to see you in the park next year!