Wheatland Music Organization

47th Annual Wheatland Music Festival

September 10th-12th, 2021

This past year has brought many changes for everyone. For Wheatland Music that meant the cancellation of all in-person events, which included the 2020 festival. For the safety of everyone, WMO extended those cancellations to May 31, 2021. Our priority was and is in keeping everyone safe.

Our focus now is to hopefully provide an in-person festival in September. At this time, we are not sure how that festival will look. We are currently considering our options, but with the guidelines from the state continually changing, we are not able to make any definite decision at this time.

The issues that we are considering include limiting the number of tickets we sell to reduce the size of the festival; state required safety guidelines that attendees might have to follow; a possible ticket price increase for additional expenses we expect to incur; and the policies needed to keep everyone safe.

We have an active committee working on all of the above items. We hope a decision on holding a festival in 2021 can be announced no later than May 1, 2021. This timeline is fluid due to the state guidelines changing. The decision to be made by the Board in May will be whether to move forward with contingency planning for a festival, not whether to actually hold one. That decision can only come after the state announces if and under what conditions mass gatherings will be allowed. We are hoping for the best!

With the cancellation of in-person events this last year, Wheatland Music lost our main source of revenue which is ticket sales to events. While this has put a strain on our cash reserves, we have been blessed with continued support from our friends, supporters and volunteers. Words cannot express WMO’s gratitude for the financial and moral support we have received.

Headlines / Announcements

WHEATSCOUTS: Lavender Cloud – April 10

Lavender Cloud will take you on an imaginative, musical journey full of feet stompin’ fiddle tunes, anthropomorphic animal sing-a-longs, and repeat-after-me camp songs! Join Justin and Rachael for lots of dancing, singing and playing along!

Enjoy this REPLAY of "Michigan Songwriters in the Round 2020" originally streamed live on Sep 12, 2020 during Wheatland Worldwide 2020. In the round performances by Michigan singer-songwriters Kyle Rasche, Samantha Cooper, Kaitlin Rose, and Mike Ward.

Feel (and learn) the Beat! The Rhythm Stage performers include: Barb Pitcher, Brenda Huckins Bonter, Beth Keloneva - "Wonderful World of Frame Drums"; Carolyn Koebel and Jonathan Wegner of Michigan Hiryu Daiko - "Music of the Taiko Drums"; Kevin Jones teaches "Ganza" (music for a rite of passage); Josh Dunigan - Musical Moments in Your Home!; Sundance DiDominico

The LIVE extension of director Sharon Leahy's "dance for camera," filmed during Wheatland Music Organization’s 40th anniversary 2013 festival. A documentary that shows the concentration, energy and focused skill of the ardent dancers and musicians - in rehearsal and then the explosive exhilaration of performance.

Songwriting program Wheatsongs - that normally runs during the Wheatland Music Festival - continued online as part of Wheatland Worldwide 2020 led by instructors Jan Krist and Dan Hazlett. The online program featured teaching segments, discussions and sharing session of songwriting process, group performances and one-on-one sessions with Dan and Jan and each participant.

A wonderful variety of presentations from the Kid's Hill gang. Come on and play along! Featuring: Lavender Cloud, Aspen, Build an instrument with Dave, The Nott Family (with Jess), Lake Effect, Kristen Hartnagel, Susan Harrison and Palamazoo, and the JukeJoint Handmedowns.

Upcoming Events

47th Annual Wheatland Music Festival

Winter Wheat

Traditional Arts Weekend

Summer Wheat Music Camp