Chasing the Sound Between Here and Home With Taylor Ashton

2 hours ago
2 min read

Harmony in the Woods opens its sixth season this weekend, inviting audiences into one of Northeastern Pennsylvania's most remarkable listening rooms. Not because it's enclosed by walls. Because it's surrounded by trees. Beginning this Friday, July 3, music lovers will once again gather beneath the summer sky as artists from around the world bring roots rock, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Americana, global music, and unforgettable stories to Hawley, Pennsylvania. Every concert offers audiences the chance to meet an artist whose music feels less like a performance and more like a conversation.

Few embody that spirit more naturally than singer-songwriter Taylor Ashton. Before he takes the Harmony in the Woods stage on August 7, Taylor joins host Greg Frigoletto for an episode of HarmonyTALK that asks a simple question with surprisingly complicated answers: How do you stay connected when the world suddenly disconnects? For Taylor, the answer wasn't found in a recording studio. It was found on the road.

His debut album arrived just as COVID silenced concert halls, emptied clubs, and separated musicians from the audiences they had spent years trying to reach. For many performers, the pandemic became a pause. For Taylor, it became an invitation. Rather than waiting for inspiration to return, he decided to go looking for it. Packing up microphones, instruments and recording equipment, he set off on an extraordinary journey across America. Over thousands of miles, he recorded songs wherever inspiration appeared. In forests. On front porches. In parks. Beside rivers. Behind cabins. In backyards shared by friends old and new.

Those recordings became Stranger to the Feeling, an album that is every bit as much about friendship and community as it is about music.

Greg and Taylor explore what happens when creativity refuses to stay still, how travel changes the stories we tell, why collaboration matters more than perfection, and how some of life's most meaningful moments happen far from the places we planned to find them.

Listeners will also get a preview of the intimate performance Taylor will bring to Harmony in the Woods on Friday, August 7. For tickets and the complete Harmony in the Woods summer lineup, visit harmonyinthewoods.org.