KATIE OATES

with special guest Owen Walsh

JULY 14 | 4 PM

SUNDAYS ON THE RIVER SERIES
Riverside Pavilion at Olivette
1069 Olivette Road
Asheville, NC
$25

– ALL AGES

Katie Oates knows how to sing. She’s been singing for as long as she can remember. The daughter of a preacher, she belted hymns from her crib as a toddler to wake up her parents. Over the years she has trained with many vocal coaches and songwriting mentors and sung a wide variety of music genres (classical, folk, music theatre, blues, jazz, country, spirituals/sacred) in diverse venues: churches, homeless shelters, theatres of all sizes, bars, festivals, conferences, house concerts and listening rooms. But finding her own voice—that’s another story.  

In Katie’s 5th album (Edge of a Hurricane, 2024), she plumbed the depths of human emotion in her songwriting. She confesses: “Some songs are quite different from what people expect to hear from me—or any folk singer. I travel through anger, humor, despair, hope, sass, sincerity and everything in between. Even the most hopeful ballads on the album all emerge from a hard-fought battle with despair. Because in the end I think it’s as simple as a choice we each have to make between darkness and light. Hate seems so powerful, but all hate can do is destroy; only love can create something new. So I choose love. I hope you will, too. And maybe our small little acts will make a difference.”

Owen Walsh has been telling stories and performing music his entire life. Born and raised on the banks of the Lackawaxen River in Honesdale, Pennsylvania—a small, historic coal-mining town that spawned the American railroad—Owen grew up surrounded by relics of 19th Century American life and imagery ripe for musical exploitation.

His years of formal violin and classical guitar training, zest for informal improvisation, and love of folk-lore storytelling combine to create a unique blend of musical expression. His recently released debut album, On My Way, has been met with critical acclaim and charted at #9 on Folk Radio in the second month of its release.

Owen now lives in Asheville, NC where he performs music regularly, writes for various publications and constructs crosswords in his spare time.