Under the Oaks is a two-day music festival, hosted by GoldenOak, featuring live music, workshops, and camping along the Sandy River.
2026 Line UP
GoldenOak
GoldenOak’s music is rooted in the natural landscape. Their songs move in an organic, grounding direction, shaped by rich, folk-influenced sibling harmony. Fronted by siblings Zak and Lena Kendall, the Maine-based band has built a steady and growing fan base through a sound that feels both intimate and quietly powerful. This approach is clearly reflected in their new album, All the Light in Autumn.
The record deepens GoldenOak’s sound, building on their indie folk foundation with the addition of drum machines and synths, while keeping folk-influenced vocal harmonies front and center. Lyrically, rather than offering easy answers, All the Light in Autumn invites listeners to slow down and reflect on responsibility, connection, and care for the places we live in. The album artwork mirrors this approach, with nine birds representing the nine songs and the individual stories within them.
Beyond their recorded work, GoldenOak tours nationally and has shared the stage with artists such as Hiss Golden Messenger, Sierra Hull, and Blitzen Trapper. They also host their own music festival in their hometown of Farmington, Maine. Under the Oaks Music Festival is a two-day event featuring live music, workshops, and camping along the Sandy River. Now in its fourth year, the festival has become a pillar of the community the band is building.
The Ballroom Thieves
As acclaimed indie folk band The Ballroom Thieves wrote and recorded their upcoming album, one central question emerged as the theme: “What if we could all just be a little more tender?” The duo – Calin Peters (vocals, cello, bass) and Martin Earley (vocals, guitar) – started to ponder what they could do to be more self-aware of their mental health and of those around them in a world oversaturated by social media, pop-culture, and digital consumption. The result is a personal, lush, 10-track collection of thoughts on the human experience called Sundust.
For more than a decade, Earley and Peters have been combining their thoughts and musical abilities. They’ve toured the US dozens of times, ventured into Europe, Canada, and even managed a journey from Maine to Hawaii to Alaska in one trip, all to play their music for the dedicated fanbase they’ve been steadily growing, person by person. The two have played beautiful theaters like Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, well-loved festivals like Newport Folk, and legendary rooms like LA’s Troubadour. They’ve been known to power slide across stages on bloody knees with their full band and silence packed rooms for 90 minutes with their lyrics and harmonies, accompanied only by a cello and an acoustic guitar during their more intimate duo shows.
Their most personal album to date, Sundust is about self-awareness, breaking down walls that trauma creates, and healing from harshness, but it's also about finding the glimmers, the striking beauty of being a person, and a longing for connection with healthy people. Sundust will be released on April 12 via Nettwerk.
Oshima Brothers
Oshima Brothers, a Japanese-Italian sibling duo from the coast of Maine, make open-hearted music with smooth blood harmonies and groovy guitar lines. On stage, Sean and Jamie share warm tones of folk, alt pop, and indie R&B on road-weathered guitars, keyboards, and a loop station. Offstage, the brothers enjoy sipping espresso, tinkering with guitar pedals, hosting dinner parties, and writing songs together. Embracing a DIY approach, they produce every inch of their songs and videos from scratch, including a 45-minute album film. Their latest work speaks of love, climate resilience, and family history repeating. Maine Public Radio says their “harmonies can’t be beat. They are uplifting and, let’s face it, we need uplifting these days.”
Alisa Amador
Praised by NPR’s Bob Boilen as a “powerful voice whose tender performance commands attention and fosters connection,” Alisa Amador made history in 2022 with the first-ever Spanish language song to win the prestigious Tiny Desk Contest. Now, the bilingual singer/songwriter is formally introducing herself with her stunning full-length debut, Multitudes. Recorded with co-producers Tyler Chester and Daniel Radin, the album is a bold, captivating self-portrait, one that serves not only as a testament to how far Amador has come (she’s earned dates with everyone from Hozier and Brandi Carlile to Lake Street Dive and Maggie Rogers) but also as a celebration of where she comes from (her roots span Puerto Rico, New Mexico, Argentina, and New England). Slipping effortlessly between Spanish and English and featuring appearances from Gaby Moreno, Madison Cunningham, and Quinn Christopherson, the collection is raw and vulnerable, at once steeped in devastating loss and uncertainty, but also laced with the hope and resilience of a young woman learning to find her voice and stand her ground. Certainly, Multitudes is a beautiful record—the way Amador’s crystalline voice cuts through the album’s lush synthesizers, dreamy guitars, and cinematic string arrangements is nothing short of spellbinding—but more than that, it’s a fierce work of discovery and affirmation, a profound, revelatory meditation on triumph and loss, endings and beginnings, identity and belonging.
Heather Maloney
With over 1,000 international shows and 8 studio albums under her belt, she is now on the brink of releasing her 9th and most personal record to date, “Exploding Star” (out Jan 2025), after which she’ll embark on an international release tour throughout the US and Europe.
On Heather’s 2019 album, Soil In The Sky, her “ability to channel emotion is radical” (PopMatters) and the tracks are stacked with special guests who help her deliver an immense range of sound and sentiment in 12 songs; there’s a duet with Dawes front-man Taylor Goldsmith and vocal harmonies by Lake Street Dive’s Rachael Price. The all-star band includes drummer Griffin Goldsmith (Dawes), and multiple members of the Amos Lee band. The Bluegrass Situation called her 2015 release, Making Me Break (produced by Band of Horses’ Bill Reynolds) “an intoxicating blend that captures the sonic texture of indie rock, the humanity of folk and the spirituality of a Rumi poem.” In 2014 she released “Woodstock”, her collaborative effort with Boston quartet Darlingside, which drew praise from the New York Times and Graham Nash.
Heather’s songs have played on NPR stations across the country and her live appearances have aired on syndicated programming like eTown and AudioTree. Her song “Nightstand Drawer” was featured in the season finale of the CBS TV series "Elementary", and her songs have also been streamed hundreds of thousands of times on editorial Spotify playlists & Starbucks’ in-store nationwide playlists.
As well as a songwriter and performer, Heather is an illustrator and linocut artist who carves and prints visual representations of her songs on a variety of mediums.
Heather has toured throughout the US & Canada as a headliner and also in support of acts including Anais Mitchell, Lake Street Dive, Shakey Graves, Gary Clark Jr., Rodrigo y Gabriela, Colin Hay (Men at Work), Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Dar Williams and many more.
Caroline Cotter
Caroline Cotter’s sunlit songs honor the countless ways of being human. With her honeyed voice and disarmingly honest lyrics, Cotter sings about connection, nostalgia, gratitude, loss and wanderlust. Lyrics like, “Find me somewhere out on the road / Take me into your heart and into your home,” make perfect sense from a touring artist who has played shows in 46 states and 19 countries. Cotter has released three records, Dreaming as I Do (2015), Home on the River (2018) and Gently as I Go (2023). In 2025 she spent months crisscrossing the US, two months touring in Germany, two months performing at The World Expo as an artist in residence in Osaka, Japan, and a month touring through Italy on an “End of War Peace Tour” with her WWII era banner Gibson. Under the Radar magazine says her music, “brings forth an abiding sense of warmth and welcome, offering an uplifting reminder to make the most of every moment.” Everywhere she goes, her oracular songs elicit emotion and spark insight—medicine for our collective longing.
High Tea
High Tea, the folk-punk duo hailing from Massachusetts, is the explosive creation of a story-spinning blues guitarist and a harmony-obsessed punk. Isabella DeHerdt and Isaac Eliot have come together to fill spaces with homegrown storytelling and raucous, booming vocals. Their songs are ripe with existential angst, weaving tales of growing up, going wild, and always coming back to the ones you love.
Their previous releases, Scuba Diving, Old Cowboy, and The Wick And The Flame were featured on playlists, radio shows, and publications like The Boston Globe, The Greenfield Recorder (among others). The title track of Old Cowboy led them to be chosen as one of WBUR’s top 4 Massachusetts Tiny Desk entries of 2022. They toured The Wick And The Flame on the West Coast, in New England, and throughout other US States and received write ups from Atwood’s Magazine, The Boston Herald, and more. They were nominated for the New England Music Awards Best Americana Act in 2023, and were chosen as one of the top three artists in the Grassy Hill Emerging Artist Showcase at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in 2025. They have also been nominated for Best Folk Artist in the Boston Music Awards 2025.
Despite its name, there’s nothing little about High Tea’s latest album, A Small Notion. Listeners are led through an inspiringly personal journey, from the disoriented yearning of loss, to an appreciation of the brutal realities of rough living, to tender reflections on past mistakes, to an ultimate acceptance of the all-too-human need for community and care. As ever, the Massachusetts duo is heavily committed to marrying intensely beautiful lyrical storytelling with congruent and energetically contagious instrumental arrangements. Without a doubt, A Small Notion is some of High Tea’s most honest, eye-opening, and cathartic work yet.
Randy Miles
Randy Miles is an indie-folk artist born in New England. After years of playing and touring up and down the east coast with a variety of bands — sharing stages with artists like Paramore, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and Dashboard Confessional — Miles turned inward to focus on quieter, lyric-driven songwriting. Drawing inspiration from his own working-class stories and everyday characters, his songs explore themes of personal growth, resilience, and the quiet emotional weight of modern life. With a patient and reflective approach to folk songwriting, Miles writes about the quiet emotional terrain many people carry but rarely say aloud. Noticing the beauty and quiet grief of being human right now. Over the past year he has been steadily refining his sound while preparing his debut full-length solo album, set to be released as monthly singles starting in May.
Bee Parks and the Hornets
Bee Parks and the Hornets is the creative endeavor of Brittany Parker, a Maine-based theatre and music maker who is also the Education Director at the Strand Theatre. She started this band at the beginning of 2018 to empower young people and the adults who love them. Pulling from various musical inspirations, including Motown, the Beach Boys, and 90's alt rock, Brittany writes all-original music for the group, which features a rotating roster of Hornets playing a variety of instruments: trombone, saxophone, trumpet, electric guitar, keyboard, ukulele, bass guitar, and drumset. The band has played at theaters, libraries, museums, schools, zoos, and parks across the East Coast. You can find their music on all digital music platforms, including the full-length album Welcome to Our Hive and single collaborations with Ants on a Log and Little Miss Ann. Brittany was the Maine Arts Commission’s Performing Artist Fellow for 2023