Kalamazoo Fretboard Festival 2026 to star Cold Mountain Child, Billy Davis and more
Cold Mountain Child includes musicians Tyler Bradley (vocals and guitar), David Spalvieri-Kruse (lead guitar and piano) and Gerren Young (multi-percussionist). Together, the trio explores themes of nature, grief and spirituality through their carefully constructed music.
By Enrique Olmos
LocalSpins.com
For the past 17 years, Cold Mountain Child has crafted a sound that’s crossed genre lines and county lines.
Hailing from Kalamazoo, the psychedelic dream-folk band has made an impression on the region and beyond with its captivating live show and layers of immersive musicality.
The band includes musicians Tyler Bradley (vocals and guitar), David Spalvieri-Kruse (lead guitar and piano) and Gerren Young (multi-percussionist). Together, the trio explores themes of nature, grief and spirituality through their carefully constructed music.
“I think that the craft and the practice itself is what is kind of the through line or the guiding compass, the North Star, whatever you want to call it. I think the more that I turn towards the actual craft of making songs, honoring music and sound, the more it guides me,” Tyler Bradley said over the phone from his home and recording studio on the rural fringes of Kalamazoo.
“It’s a hard path if you’re basing it all on external metrics, which we live in a world where that has influenced and contaminated everything. So to bring it back into the core of each day being about the practice, just the daily dedication without a particular goal in mind, other than to keep honoring music. It has changed my life, and I don’t know what I would do without her.”
Cold Mountain Child will perform at the Kalamazoo Fretboard Festival, which takes place Friday and Saturday, March 20-21, at Kalamazoo Valley Museum, 230 N. Rose St. in Kalamazoo, as well as at Anna Whitten Hall next door.
The event is free of charge, opening with a kickoff event at 6 p.m. Friday starring rock and blues guitarist Billy Davis, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Detroit native who was part of the band Hank Ballard & The Midnighters.
Saturday’s day-long event boasts performances by 16 artists, including sets by Elisabeth Pixley-Fink, Samuel Nalangira Trio, The Incantations, Joel Mabus and others. The festival also features guitar and other music-related vendors and instrument workshops. More here and scroll down for the complete performance schedule.
Fresh from the release of their new album “Moon Pine All Night,” Cold Mountain Child performs at 11 a.m. Saturday at Anna Whitten Hall. The new record, which the trio chipped away at over six years, displays the band’s sonic evolution over the span of 11 colorful tracks.
“It’s a process of labor, and a labor of love, but the day-to-day is proof to me that music is a beautiful path because if I think of it as a collection of days. What would just be an average, beautiful day for me would be to get up, make some coffee, go upstairs to the studio, and work for eight hours on music sounds. That sounds pretty alright,” says Bradley.
“We’ve been playing the arc of the album with our recent sets, and so we’re gonna move through the emotions and tones of the record and live in the real sounds of it,” he adds.
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Started more than 20 years ago, the Kalamazoo Fretboard Festival — which attracts well over 1,000 people every year from across the state — strives to preserve and showcase the city’s rich stringed-instrument heritage.
Many of the festival’s workshops revolve around the instruction and technique of playing various instruments. Workshops include “Strings of Uganda,” “Zondo” (exploring African polyrhythms), and “The Art of Finding Your Own Sound.”
Get more information online at kalamazoomuseum.org.
— Email John Sinkevics at Local Spins at john@localspins.com.
