Detroit area’s Ember & Ash are one of more than 10 bands playing Saturday at The Intersection as part of the Wheatland Music Organization’s one-day festival/fundraiser. The preview and schedule.
‘A Louder and More Edgy Sound’: Folk duo Ember & Ash, with Erin Zindle and Alex Holycross, close out Winter Wheat’s Stache stage on Saturday. (Courtesy Photo)
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Despite the shorter days and frigid temperatures, Winter Wheat’s one-day festival plans to spark some warmth in West Michigan with its camaraderie, music and communal spirit.
As the seasonal counterpart to Wheatland Music Organization’s longstanding Wheatland Music Festival every September, Winter Wheat provides both audiences and artists a chance to connect and channel the spirit of warmer, longer days.
“It’s a way to break up the winter and get back together with your friends and enjoy music, the Wheatland kind of music,” says event organizer Marilyn Hummel.
“For me, and people that I see regularly that talk about it, it restores our soul. Music is one of the things that’s universal. You can enjoy it with people you’ve never met before.”
Returning to the Festival: The Schrock Bros. perform Saturday with The Wilson Bros. (Photo/Eric Stoike)
The event takes place on Saturday (Jan. 10) at The Intersection in Grand Rapids from 2 p.m. until 11 p.m. Doors open at 1:45 p.m. Tickets are $32 in advance and $40 at the door on the day of the show. Get tickets online here.
The festival will feature more than nine hours of musical performances across two stages, ranging from the stylings of Cajun, Americana, bluegrass, Latin and traditional music. This year’s lineup features a plethora of regional artists, including Ember & Ash, Sweet Dee & The Wild Honeys, Megan Dooley, The Schrock Bros. with The Wilson Bros., Josh Rose & The Founding Fathers, K. Jones & The Benzie Playboys and The Reverend Jesse Ray, among others.
On Friday (Jan. 9) — the day before — Local Spins will host a Winter Wheat Warm-Up show starring Brian Oberlin & Friends. Oberlin, mandolinist for Full Cord, has performed several times at Winter Wheat and his SpeakEZ band will include Dee Sutton and Sallie Bacon (of Sweet Dee & The Wild Honeys, who open Winter Wheat at 3:30 p.m. Saturday), Full Cord bassist Todd Kirchner and emerging guitarist Peter Cavanaugh. Details about the warm-up show online here.
‘HIGH-ENERGY’ EMBER & ASH SET TO MAKE THEIR WINTER WHEAT DEBUT
Hailing from Detroit, Ember & Ash will pack up their smoldering batch of outlaw songs and head west for the winter festivities on Saturday. The relatively new duo performs at 8:20 p.m. Saturday on The Stache stage.
Featuring Erin Zindle of The Ragbirds and Alex Holycross of The Native Howl, Ember & Ash was formed as a songwriting collaboration in 2019 between the two prolific songwriters.
The pair lean boldly into their differences, wielding the natural polarity between them as an artistic strength. But it’s the heaviness of their own respective journeys that draws them together in a cathartic, musical partnership.
Ember & Ash: Unfurling ‘music as a secret medicine.’ (Courtesy Photo)
“Both of us have been through a lot of trauma and tragedy in our lives, more than what seems like our fair share, and that has been both a bonding thing for us and also really freeing for us to be able to dig in and to express those darker feelings. We kind of create a louder and more edgy sound than you would expect from a folk duo,” says Erin Zindle.
Zindle and Holycross have spent the last six years writing songs together, utilizing “music as a secret medicine” during trying times. Themes explored within those songs include grappling with grief, navigating pain and holding onto hope. Instrumentally, Holycross holds down the guitar with ferocious tenacity, while Zindle entrances with dazzling melodies on the fiddle, their voices dancing together in harmony.
“We have both been performing our entire lives and so we love getting on stage. We really come alive on stage and it’s this high energy, dynamic show. We love to play with the audience and explore how fast, or how loud we can be. Or how quiet and gentle we can get. We like to pull at the edges of those extremes,” says Zindle.
“I’m hoping that there will be people there who have already heard the records from our respective bands, who are really excited and surprised to see how different this feels. We hope listeners embrace these different sides of both of us and help to celebrate this new project. We are coming in hot and bringing the fire.”
VIDEO: Ember & Ash
WINTER WHEAT 2026: THE SCHEDULE
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