Oak Harbor Musical Festival tunes up for 10th year

For over a decade, the Oak Harbor Music Festival has brought talented musicians from all over the Pacific Northwest.

This Labor Day weekend, several long-standing Whidbey Island musicians will also be performing in the annual event.

Nathaniel Talbot will be playing with his newly-formed band the Nathaniel Talbot Trio at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 3 at the Peoples Bank stage.

Talbot, a graduate of the Organic Farm School, moved to Whidbey Island from Portland about 12 years ago. He started an organic mixed vegetable and seed farm called Deep Harvest Farm in Freeland with his wife.

“Wherever I can squeeze it in, I play as much music as I can,” he said.

Talbot is a guitarist who said he is most well-known for acoustic finger-style picking folk music, but more recently he’s been playing electric guitar in the pop rock and soul genres.

The Nathaniel Talbot Trio includes bassist Keegan Harshman and Mickey Grimm, a Nashville transplant, on the drums.

Talbot said they will likely play an electric set at the Oak Harbor Music Festival. Talbot writes all of their melody and guitar-driven songs. He said his lyrics focus on environment and culture.

“Just trying to kind of relate to the current times as much as possible through my lens as a farmer and musician,” he explained.

Talbot has played the festival many times in the past.

“It’s a rare thing to bring so much talent to Whidbey Island,” he said. “There’s a good amount going on here on our island for how small and rural of a community we are.”

Along with bringing national talent to residents, Talbot said it’s also an opportunity for South End musicians to play on North Whidbey.

“It’s kind of a once-a-year opportunity for the north and south music communities and art spheres to blend and hear each other play,” he said. “That’s my favorite part of it.”

Drummer Grimm also plays in the Hot Club of Troy, a Whidbey Island band that will close out the festival.

Kristi O’Donnell plays standup bass in the band. She said her music career began simply because someone asked her why she didn’t play an instrument.

“So I came about it from a nontraditional way,” she said. “I’m an experimental player, an intuitive player.”

That musician who asked her, Keith Bowers, later became her husband.

“He was the one who asked – not only asked me would I like to play music but also asked me if I’d like to get married,” she laughed. “I said yes to both.”

Bowers plays guitar in the Hot Club of Troy. He and O’Donnell started off playing bluegrass together and moved to Whidbey Island in 1993. O’Donnell said she and Bowers discovered Whidbey “by mistake” while on a camping trip during their honeymoon. She was the director at Meerkerk Gardens for 18 years and brought music there, such as the Bluegrass Festival and the Mother’s Day concert.

Troy Chapman is the leader and other guitarist in the Hot Club of Troy. O’Donnell called him “the visionary.”

“I always joke that he and Keith were probably born with guitars in their cribs,” she said.

Chapman formed the band in 2014. They play django music, a grenre pioneered by Romani-French musician Django Reinhardt. He blended American jazz with Romani folk music in the 1920s. The Hot Club of Troy opens DjangoFest in Langley every year.

O’Donnell played at the first Oak Harbor Music Festival a decade ago with her band Trio Nouveau.

“It was really rinky dink 10 years ago,” she said. “Larry’s done a fantastic job with the festival.”

Larry and Cynthia Mason are the founding board members of the music festival.

“It’s a real honor to be asked to play,” O’Donnell said. “Especially locally when there’s so much music available.”

She described Oak Harbor as a “jazz-rich community.” Playing at the festival is much different from playing in a small club and O’Donnell said they have to work harder to put on a good show for the audience members.

“It’s well-attended, it’s organized, it’s clean, and I like the diversity of music,” she said of the festival. “We get to stretch our wings this year.”

Hot Club of Tory will be playing swing standards, originals written by Chapman and Stevie Wonder tunes with a Django influence. Molly Felder will join as a vocalist.

“It brings a really great depth and dimension to the band to have her heartfelt singing,” O’Donnell said. “And then have this great drummer and percussionist to help the foundation of the band.”

The Hot Club of Tory will end the Oak Harbor Music Festival at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 4 at the Peoples Bank stage.

“We hope people come and dance,” she said.

The festival is taking place from 6 p.m. on Sept. 2 to 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 4. There will be two stages on Pioneer Way and there is no cost to attend.