ABOUT New Songs Fest
Songwriters are at the heart of our arts community and this is where we begin to grow the next season of songwriters. New Songs is a songwriting festival featuring four days of workshops, three evening concerts, multiple breakout and coaching sessions, practice space, and a professional production on stage in front of a public audience.
April 25 - 28th, 2024
Be one of our 25 artists in residence for the weekend!
VIDEO New Songs Fest
2024 WORKSHOP LEADS & COACHES
Corinne West
Songwriting Coach
Bob Woods
Songwriting Coach
Juliet Gobert
Songwriting Coach
Bill Edwards
Songwriting Coach
Workshop attendees get:
- Four days of workshops with topics including songwriting, technical production, instrumental, and vocal/rhythm
- One ticket to three concerts during the festival
- Two coaching/feedback sessions
- Lunch provided during the festival
- Access to various practice rooms
- A public performance on a professionally produced stage*
*Participants are encouraged but not required to perform a piece of work at the festival.
Limited spots are available - don't miss your chance to attend this year.
Be a weekend Bird!
For those of you who can’t attend the full workshop, we just added a two-day ticket option for the weekend of New Songs Fest! These limited weekend passes are $275 and won’t last long!
2024 FULL SCHEDULE
Thursday 4/25/24 | What | Location |
|---|---|---|
12 pm – 2 pm | Check In | Lobby |
12:30 pm – 2 pm | Participant Meet & Greet / Tour | Lobby/ Gallery |
2 pm – 3 pm | Break | |
3 pm – 4:30 pm | Repeat After Me with Rita Hosking | Off Center Stage |
4:30 pm – 7 pm | Practice/ Free Time | Studios |
5:30 pm – 6:15 pm | Q&A w/ Brett Dennen | Off Center Stage |
7 pm – 8 pm | Doors open to the public | Lobby/ Gallery |
8 pm – 10 pm | Concert: Brett Dennen, Opener TBD | Main Stage |
Friday 4/26/24 | What | Location |
|---|---|---|
9 am – 7 pm | Practice Rooms Open | Studios |
10 am – 11:30 am | Free The Melody w/ Rita Hosking | Off Center Stage |
12 pm – 1 pm | Lunch | Lobby/ Gallery |
1 pm – 2:30 pm | Guitar Grooves and Chordal Moves with Brian Rivers (Instrumental) | Studios |
2:30 pm – 3 pm | Movement Break | Studios, OCS |
3 pm – 4:30 pm | Cover songs with Royal Wood | Studios |
4:30 pm – 7 pm | Practice/ Free Time | Studios |
5:30 pm – 6:15 pm | Q&A w/ Rufus Wainwright | Off Center Stage |
7 pm – 8 pm | Doors open to public | |
8 pm – 10 pm | Concert: Rufus Wainwright w/ Royal Wood opening | Main Stage |
Saturday 4/27/24 | What | Location |
|---|---|---|
9 am – 7 pm | Practice Rooms Open | Studios |
10 am – 12 pm | Coaching Sessions | All Rooms |
12 pm – 1 pm | Lunch | Lobby/ Gallery |
1 pm – 2:30 pm | Vocal Improvisation/Circlesinging w/ Bryan Dyer (vocal/rhythm) | Studios |
2:30 pm – 3 pm | Movement Break | |
3 pm – 4:30 pm | Receiving Song w/ Ayla Nereo | Off Center Stage |
4:30 pm – 7 pm | Practice/ Free Time | Studios |
7 pm – 8 pm | Doors open to public | Lobby / Gallery |
8 pm – 10 pm | Concert: Ayla Nereo w/ HoneyWild | Main Stage |
Sunday 4/28/24 | What | Location |
|---|---|---|
9 am – 5 pm | Practice Rooms Open | Studios |
10 am – 12 pm | Coaching Sessions | All Rooms |
12 pm – 1 pm | Lunch | Lobby/ Gallery |
1 pm – 2 pm | Technical Production Workshop w/ Conrad Sisk | Main Stage |
3 pm – 5 pm | Practice/ Free Time | All Rooms |
5:30 pm – 8 pm | Songwriters Stage Time | Main Stage |
2024 WORKSHOP LEADS, & COACHES
Rita Hosking • Host & Workshop Instructor
4/25 WORKSHOP: Repeat After Me
Repeated patterns are absolutely foundational to song. What are they? How are they useful? How can one keep from sounding TOO repetitive? Join us in pursuit of the “familiar yet changing.”
4/25 WORKSHOP: Free the Melody
How do melody, rhythm and lyric work together? We’ll experiment with all three, exploring worlds of possibility in the truest, unfettered form of a folk singer – without a lick of music theory.
BIO:
In a wavy world where we often struggle to swim, singer-songwriter Rita Hosking paddles up and canoes us through black holes, sinks of dirty dishes, demo-derbies, and wildfires until we’re safe at shore. She’s got the spirit, and she knows how to reach ours through her grace, heart, chops, and spunk. With award-winning music spanning 9 albums and 20 years of touring, this country-folk troubadour is a heavy hitter in the Northern California songwriting scene.
Ayla Nereo • Workshop Instructor
4/27 WORKSHOP: Receiving Song
A special in-person workshop with international artist Ayla Nereo, who will share her vast array of tools and practices for expanding the creative channel, sparking inspiration, getting into receptivity, and co-creating songs in the moment. Includes a very special demo from Ayla, sharing a unique behind the scenes look into her process of songwriting in real time, and collaboratively creating a song together live.
Conrad Sisk • Workshop Instructor
4/28 WORKSHOP: Intro Technical Production
Learn the basics of what it takes to perform on a professional stage with the assistance of technical staff. This workshop is a practical introduction to prepare for the New Songs Stage Time performance on Sunday evening.
Royal Wood • Workshop Instructor
4/26 WORKSHOP: Cover Songs
The power of reinventing a well known hook.
BIO:
Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Royal Wood has established himself as a true musical talent. Since being proclaimed “Songwriter of the Year” by iTunes, Wood has continued to evolve and hone his musical craft while maintaining a unique identity. His eighth full-length studio album, 2022’s What Tomorrow Brings, was recently up “For Your Consideration” for BEST FOLK ALBUM at the 2024 Grammys.
Brian Rivers • Workshop Instructor
4/26 WORKSHOP:
Guitar Grooves and Chordal Moves: Guitar hacks to expand your Songwriting
Are you ready to discover your innate musical knowledge lying untapped until now? Be ready to develop and apply new rhythmic and finger-picking techniques and to learn the simple “guitar hacks” to expand chord progressions and voicings. Every evolving songwriter will take away something they can implement today!
BIO:
Brian Rivers is an award-winning performer, educator, author, and founding member of Mumbo Gumbo. Brian has performed at numerous music festivals throughout the United States including three separate appearances at the Kerrville Folk Festival! As a clinician, Brian is known for providing participants with easy-to-implement tips and tricks.
Bryan Dyer • Workshop Instructor
4/27 WORKSHOP: Vocal Improvisation/Circlesinging
Are you sometimes a little tentative when it comes to being creative vocally? Are you comfortable singing beyond the melody of a song? In this workshop we’ll look at different ways to approach improvising and techniques to help us become more creative. We’ll also utilize Circlesinging – made popular by Bobby McFerrin in our learning process to help expand our vocal boundaries.
BIO:
Bryan S. Dyer is a multi-talented musician who not only sings but plays several instruments including bass guitar, percussion and piano; writes and arranges music, conducts choirs and groups, and works in television, radio and film. A veteran of some of the Bay Area’s top vocal groups including Street Sounds, SoVoSo, Slammin All Body Band, Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir and Chelle and Friends he also performs with Zadell, Rankin Scroo and Ginger, and R&B group, D.A.P. His musical experiences have him taken around the globe including several trips throughout Europe, Japan, South Korea and Jamaica. Bryan’s talents have landed him alongside such artist as Al Green, Bobby McFerrin, Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers, Huey Lewis & The News and Ladysmith Black Mambazo to name a few.
Hannah Kile • Songwriting Coach
BIO:
Paul Kamm • Songwriting Coach
BIO:
Paul Kamm is an award winning songwriter who got his first paying gig at the age of 7 singing in a church choir outside Detroit. But nights were spent listening to Motown on the radio before the usual knock on the door telling him to go to sleep.
Arriving in Nevada City at 19, he quickly fell in love with the music scene here and became a prolific songwriter with many bands, including his longtime partnership with Eleanore MacDonald.
Paul and Eleanore released their newest collection of songs, ‘Djuna’s Lullaby’, in February of this year.
Paul is currently looking for the next song to reveal itself.
Sam Misner • Songwriting Coach
BIO:
Sam Misner is the main songwriter for the unclassifiable Northern California-based duo Misner & Smith. Known as much for their soaring vocal harmonies as they are for their poetic and technically precise songwriting, the pair has been touring and recording music for the past 20 years. Sam has also written music for several professional theater productions at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Sacramento Theater Company, and Marin Theater Company. Misner & Smith will be releasing their new album, All is Song, in April 2024.
Bob Woods • Songwriting Coach
BIO:
I got a nylon string guitar when I was thirteen. About a year later my grandmother, who was an organist, invited me to do a song at her church in Oakland. It held about 500 people and the service was broadcast on the radio. It never occurred to me to learn a song, so I wrote one.
In 1971 I joined my first real band and started playing for a living. I was, by far, the weakest in the band musically but I came with a collection of original songs that worked with audiences. In the mid-seventies I played with a singer that had worked as a staff writer in Nashville. We would hear him sketch out a song and six months later hear it on the radio. By then I viewed my music “career” both as a guitarist and songwriter and it’s been that way ever since.
I generally write songs that will work for my gigs. Sometimes I will write a song for other purposes or just because I want to. I figure a song works if the audience is singing along by the end.
Corinne West • Songwriting Coach
BIO:
Poet, singer, guitarist, and master tunesmith. Songs veiled and direct, untethered to genre, and feeling all the feels. Deeply emotive. To deep-dive into her songs is a free fall through terrain that’s lush and haunting. Powerful stuff. First time I heard her perform, it was one of those ‘stop dead in your tracks holy s*** kinda moments’. Corinne has released five independent albums, toured extensively for 20 years through North America, Europe, and India, and performing at the likes of Shrewsbury Festival (UK), Bergenfest (NOR), High Sierra Music Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival (CAN), Grassroots Festival, Joshua Tree Music Festival, Woody Guthrie Festival and the Kerrville Folk Festival. Corinne is also a wildly compelling multi-media visual artist. Through color, form, and texture, she captures ephemeral moments and fixes them in time, juxtaposing mystery with the temporal. For the winters she migrates to Joshua Tree for an Artist Residency under the stars at the Joshua Tree Music Festival venue. The San Francisco Chronicle boldly states she is “a singer with an angelic voice.”
Juliet Gobert • Songwriting Coach
BIO:
Bill Edwards • Songwriting Coach
BIO:
Guitar-tickling wordsmith Bill Edwards has been making music for 50 years. Working with WAY OLD WEST ( was Way Out West), Mumbo Gumbo, South Loomis Quickstep and the trio Webster Walton Edwards, among many other treasured musical friends who just might be among your favorites.
He’s written songs and composed soundtracks for CBS, PBS, for the stage and for performances with dear musical pals. He’s played halls from The Great American to the Fillmore, the Freight and festivals from Strawberry to Live Oak. Bill makes music in California and teaches guitar to young and old.
PANELISTS
Jim Bruno
Peter Wilson
Hannah Jane Kile
Velvy Appleton
Paul Kamm
Royal Wood
COACHES
- Jim Bruno
- Paul Kamm
- Hannah Jane Kile
- Velvy Appleton
- Peter Wilson
- Mark Vieaux
- Rita Hosking
- Jamal Walker
- Juliet Gobert
- Jorell Bahena
Don't want to attend workshops? Join us for the evening concerts!
Festival Cancellation / Refund Policy
Due to limited attendance and availability, we cannot guarantee refunds for attendee cancellation requests. Under no circumstances will we be responsible for refunds for airline, hotel, or car reservations. We reserve the right to change or cancel any speaker, instructor, performer or session without notice.