2025 Music workshops
Free! Workshops are provided by the Hudson West Fest performers with participants learning from some of the finest and most unique musicians of North America.
Alice Howe & Freebo
The Songwriter's Toolkit
By Alice Howe & Freebo
This hybrid workshop will give you specific tools and hints for your songwriting, arranging, and performing, all within the context of honoring your unique gifts and giving yourself permission to become the artist/musician you hope to become. In a world of judgment and criticism, we are filled with the voices of others telling us how to be. In this workshop, Freebo and Alice will help you to find your own voice, figuratively and literally.
They will cover inspiration, sharing their methods on how to begin writing when the page seems blank, song arrangement, shaping your song for recording and performance by defining the chorus, verse, bridge, and intro, and giving you simple alternative chords to make your song even more interesting. Finally, they will address essential elements of performance, including nerves, preparation, tools, timing, pace, and ultimately communication and communion with the audience. How do you relate to the audience? You become one with them!
2:45 to 3:30 pm
Q & A
By Amythyst Kiah
Amythyst will be available for a Q & A.
The rootsy alt-rock of Amythyst's 2021 breakthrough album, Wary + Strange, offered a collection of spellbinding songs detailing her experience with grief, trauma, and alienation, each illuminated in her extraordinary songwriting. A showcase for her singular musicality and soul-stirring voice, Kiah’s Rounder Records debut soon found many leading critics hailing her as a formidable new talent, landing her on Rolling Stone’s list of the 25 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2021 and drawing acclaim from major outlets like Pitchfork. Adding to her list of accolades includes earning a Grammy nomination for her powerhouse anthem “Black Myself.”
3:45 to 4:30 pm
Amythyst Kiah
Neel Murgai
Raga Music Appreciation
By Neel Murgai
No music experience required! Quadrature sitarist Neel Murgai will demystify Raga music in this participatory and experiential workshop as we sing raga phrases and explore South Asian rhythms. Neel will also expound on how he uses these concepts in Quadrature and other bands to create cross cultural music for the modern era.
4:45 to 5:20 pm