Martha's Vineyard Songwriters Festival 2026: Nashville Writers at the Strand in Oak Bluffs

The Martha’s Vineyard Songwriters Festival ran four days in Oak Bluffs in September 2026, September 17 to 20: a free kickoff on the lawn at Nomans on the Thursday, then three nights in the Strand Theatre on Oak Bluffs Avenue, each at 7 PM. The idea is simple. Nashville writers who wrote hit songs for other people sit in a row with acoustic guitars and play those songs themselves, with the stories from the writing room in between. We were in the room at the Strand; the photographs are ours.

Our video from the festival at the Strand Theatre, in 4K:

How the four days ran

The Strand as a listening room

The Strand is a small cinema on Oak Bluffs Avenue, a block up from the harbor, and it turns out to be a good listening room. The floor rakes down to a shallow stage with just enough depth for a row of stools, a keyboard and a drum kit; the film posters stay on the walls; the screen behind the players makes a plain white backdrop that suits a writers’ round better than any light show would. From the last row you are still close to the players. Between sets the lobby, painted a green that glows under the marquee bulbs, sells the tickets from one window and the popcorn from the other.

The songwriters’ round is a Nashville format: several writers on stage at once, taking turns, each introducing a song with the story of who it was written for and how. The hit makers this year have songs recorded by Ella Langley, Morgan Wallen, Alison Krauss, Kenny Chesney, Riley Green, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Jelly Roll, Cody Johnson, Jon Pardi and Billy Currington among others, which is the kind of list that fills a small cinema on a Sunday in September. The rising-stars night is the other half of the idea: singers a year or two from their own radio songs, on a stage where the front row can see their set lists.

Saturday: the rising stars in the round

Saturday, September 19, was the Rising Stars night, and it ran in rounds: the writers sat on a row of stools across the front of the stage, guitars on their knees, and took turns down the line. The first round was Austin G, Morgan Johnston, Fuller and Stacey Kelleher; the second was Alee, Garrett Owens and Presley Tennant; then Martin and Kelly took the stage. The festival lists eight Rising Stars for 2026; the eighth, Jillian Dawn, a singer and multi-instrumentalist from Mansfield, Massachusetts, who has been in Nashville since 2021, opened the Friday show and is not in our Saturday photos. The photos below are all from that night at the Strand; the full set, with the room itself, is in our Songwriters Festival gallery. The notes on each writer draw on the festival’s own artist pages.

Morgan Johnston grew up on a family farm on Cape Cod and moved to Nashville in 2016, so Saturday was close to a hometown show for her. Her debut single, Good Guy, came out in 2018 and the EP There’s No Going Back followed in October 2022; since then she has opened for Lainey Wilson, played the Cape Cod Melody Tent on a Dustin Lynch bill, and become a regular at the Song Suffragettes round in Nashville. Cape Country 104 has her on the air back home.

Fuller is a Nashville country-rock act who came to it from electronic music. The festival’s page puts him in the company of Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton and Tyler Childers and describes the songs as a sunny day, a rowdy group of friends and a cold beer, which on Saturday translated to the straw hat and the paisley.

Austin G is from Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He spent his first years in the business writing for other artists and touring with Brantley Gilbert, Michael Ray and Walker Hayes, and is now putting out his own material: country storytelling with an alternative pop-rock pulse.

Stacey Kelleher is a Nashville alt-country writer with a smoky, raspy voice. Her page lists the Bluebird Café, the Hotel Café, Eddie’s Attic, Tin Pan South and Song Suffragettes among her stages, and a collaboration with the Grammy-winning producer Daniel Tashian. Her first full-length record is due this fall, and she is on the bill for Old Dominion’s Odie’s Beach Vacation festival in October 2026.

The second round brought Alee, Garrett Owens and Presley Tennant to the same stools. The Saturday show was the middle night of the three at the Strand, the evening after Tivoli Day on Circuit Avenue; it started at 7 PM, as on the other two nights, and the after-party moved to Midnight Taco on Circuit Avenue.

Alee is Canadian-born, with more than 15 million streams of her own songs and a second catalog of songs written for other artists. The leather jacket and the Martin are hers; the melodies are the catchy, conversational kind she is known for at home.

Garrett Owens played professional football before music. His debut single, This Road I’m On, came out in the spring of 2024, and in a little over a year as an independent artist he passed 14 million streams. He writes all of his own songs, country storytelling with a rock edge, and is open about the Christian faith behind them.

Presley Tennant grew up in Norco, California, the town that calls itself Horsetown, USA, and gave up soccer for music early. She sang in a pop group as a girl, then at 16 went on The Voice, where Kelly Clarkson coached her toward the country side of her voice. She has since shared stages with Tim McGraw, Carly Pearce, Blake Shelton, Cole Swindell and Post Malone, and runs a charity initiative called Riffs & Rescues for animal rescue groups.

And from last year: the 2025 kickoff on the lawn at Nomans.

Filmed September 2025

Where the festival came from

By the festival’s own account it grew out of a long-running Vineyard songwriting tradition that began as small workshops in a family home in West Tisbury and listening-room rounds in Oak Bluffs, became a multi-day event spanning Boston and the island, went quiet for six years, and came back. The shows are kept deliberately small: established writers and rising artists share the same stage, take questions from the audience and stay around afterwards, and in its own words it relies on local support rather than major corporate sponsorship. The Sunday poster lists them along the bottom.

MV Vacation has no connection to the festival or the people who run it. Dates, lineups and after-parties above are from the festival’s own site and posters, checked in September 2026; the festival’s website, marthasvineyardsongwritersfest.com, is the place for next year’s dates and tickets.

A word of thanks

Someone has to book the rooms, talks the writers into a September flight, finds the sponsors and stays up late four nights running. So, to the people who did the work: thank you to Matt Casey, the festival’s organizer, whom we know and whose vision it grew from; to CJ Solar, who came up from Nashville as one of the hit makers and, we are told, did a great deal behind the scenes as well; and to Steve, whom we met at the Strand, one of the people who made that room work three nights in a row. MV Vacation is independent of the festival and had no part in running it; the thanks are personal. But we are always glad to support and promote events like this one, and if you are putting on something on the island that deserves an audience, tell us about it.

If you come for it next year

Frequently Asked Questions

When was the 2026 Songwriters Festival?

September 17 to 20, 2026, in Oak Bluffs: a free kickoff on the lawn at Nomans on the Thursday, then three nights in the Strand Theatre on Oak Bluffs Avenue, each at 7 PM.

What is a songwriters’ round?

A Nashville format. Several writers sit on stage at once with acoustic guitars, taking turns, each introducing a song with the story of who it was written for and how. The hit makers played the songs they wrote for Morgan Wallen, Alison Krauss, Kenny Chesney and Jelly Roll, among others.

Who played?

The hit makers CJ Solar, Phil Barton, Joe Fox and Johnny Clawson; the rising stars Alee, Stacey Kelleher, Garrett Owens, Fuller, Presley Tennant, Morgan Johnston and Austin G; Martin and Kelly; and island musicians Jodie Treloar, Sean McMahon, Alex Karalekas, Wolftrap and Dock Street Fight Club.

What is the Strand like?

A small cinema a block up from the harbor that turns out to be a good listening room: a raked floor, a shallow stage with a row of stools, the film posters still on the walls and the screen as a plain white backdrop. From the last row you are still close.

Were there after-parties?

Yes: the Port Hunter in Edgartown on Thursday, the Sand Bar on the Oak Bluffs harbor on Friday and Midnight Taco on Saturday.