GRANDMA KELSEY & EDMUND WAYNE JOIN MUSIC PROGRAM

EOFF2014 is excited to announce that in addition to the after party celebrations with an incredible line-up of visiting and local musicians, festival goers will also be privy to solo acts Edmund Wayne and Grandma Kelsey. These intimate sets will take place prior to the evening features at The Granada Theater.  While patrons file in and find their seats these artists paint a landscape of sound to settle you in – and for the few minutes before the visuals pour on –we listen– quietly, meditatively.

Friday’s tunes will commence just before the feature presentation of Bernardo Britto’s award winning YEARBOOK and Dave Carroll’s feature documentary, BENDING STEEL. with a short solo performance by the Snohomish, Washington native Edmund Wayne. The deft and compassionate guitarist with a seemingly limitless vocal capacity has Seattle Weekly describing him as, “Harnessing the mood of Andrew Bird and the magnitude of Radiohead, Edmund Wayne’s brand of Alt-Folk in my new favorite thing.” Though he splits his frequent tours with a back-line of seasoned musicians, delivering their down-home, pop-powered, exploratory sound with great zeal, to behold Edmund Wayne on his own is a chance to hear creative freedom soar to new heights— songs morph, deviate, grow and shrink at Wayne’s will, recalling a wholly captivating piece of artistic whimsy akin to the late, great Jeff Buckley.

Prior to Saturday evening’s final film block, we welcome back the haunting and prodigious Grandma Kelsey of Boise, Idaho. Whether it’s the intensely slow signature strumming that never seems to drag, the coyote caliber voice, or the shrine of bones, trinkets, and anonymous letters that often joins her on stage, one thing is for certain: this solitary, wingless creature has an ethereal penchant for causing the audience to believe her songs address them individually. Time is suspended, moments are frozen, and spirits come to congregate at the foot of Kelsey’s stories, prayers and declarations.
“With a siren’s voice and an intoxicating stage presence, folk singer Grandma Kelsey ranks alongside the foothills and geothermal power as one of Boise’s greatest natural treasures.” —Boise Weekly

Like us folks of the Grande Ronde Valley, these two artists take time to bask and celebrate in the finer (and often simpler) things in life. Though one hails from the vast sagebrush-laden plains of Southern Idaho, and the other the lush and rain-sopped farmlands of the Snohomish River Valley, both have a nearly indistinguishable approach when it comes to the essence of expression. Without a deep respect for the land in which we live, the friends we have, and the family we nurture, all is a dead end street of loneliness and desolation. No two songwriters from this region better salute the miracle we belong to and it is our sincere privilege to give them our undivided attention at this year’s Eastern Oregon Film Festival.

– Article by Gregory Rawlins.