Headliners announced for Ozark Heritage Festival

Headliners are announced for the Ozark Heritage Festival, now in its 32nd year. The festival will celebrate Missouri Ozarks music and culture on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 16 and 17 in downtown West Plains, Mo. Admission to all festival events is free. Festival hours are 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. each day, with music scheduled to begin at noon.

 

Friday, Oct. 16 at 7:00 p.m. - The Lacewings

Liz Carney (Izabel Crane, Ozarks Bella Donna) and Molly Healey (Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Molly Healey String Project) form a haunting acoustic duo from Springfield, Mo., performing dark folk music laced with rich vocal harmonies. Their first self-titled album was released in 2019, and their much-anticipated follow-up album, II, released April 19, 2024. The girls met in 2015 to collaborate on a performance, and immediately found a shared love of vintage sounds, lush harmonies, and the macabre.  They have now been playing in the Missouri region for twelve years, and their sets consist of unique originals, and fresh rearrangements of both traditional and contemporary covers. They will quiet a room immediately with their sound, charging the audience to listen to the stories, relish in the musical prowess, and to be left with a desire to know more about what makes the girls tick.  

 

Saturday, Oct. 17 at 7:00 p.m. - Little Jones Band

Southwest Missouri's Little Jones is an eclectic hillbilly string-and-percussion combo directly descended from Ozarks favorite Big Smith, featuring 4 members of that group. Little Jones brings scintillating original songs, traditional favorites, and whatever the heck else they feel like playing with a danceably loping sense of fun and adventure.

 

The West Plains Council on the Arts (WPCA) started the Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival in response to input from the traditional arts community - mostly musicians from families who had played for generations as well as graduates from the Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program of the Missouri Folk Arts Program.  The festival seeks to celebrate, preserve, pass on and nurture an appreciation of the old-time music and folk life traditions distinctive to the Ozark Highlands.

 

The Ozark Heritage Festival is the signature event for West Plains. 2026 Festival partners include the West Plains Council on the Arts, the City of West Plains, the Ozark Heritage Welcome Center and Missouri State University – West Plains. Partial funding for this event is provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. Additional support has been provided by Missouri Humanities.

 

For more information on the festival visit the website at https://www.ozarkheritagefestival​.​org, or "like" the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Old.Time.Music.Festival