The text thread between Fairfax singer-songwriter Troy Millette and Spruce Peak Arts executive director Seth Soloway is not for the faint of heart.
“Oh, it’s horrible,” Millette said with a laugh in a recent Zoom conversation with Soloway and Seven Days. “It’s all sports trash talk and texts about bands we love, usually at 2 a.m. We’re always on the lookout.”
Millette and Soloway have been working together closely for the past several years, turning Spruce Peak Arts in Stowe — traditionally a stage for world-class touring artists — into a haven for local musicians, too. The culmination of their efforts is the Homegrown in Vermont Music Festival, taking place this Saturday, September 5. Now in its third year, the daylong event features a robust lineup of local singer-songwriters and Americana, pop and folk-rock acts that includes the likes of Madaila, Ali McGuirk, Kyle Chadburn, Reid Parsons, Millette and plenty more. More than 20 artists will appear on two stages for the biggest Homegrown fest yet.
“We wanted to overstuff the fest this year,” Soloway said.
The festival’s marquee draw is a closing set from Guster front man and Williston resident Ryan Miller, backed by Michael Chorney’s seven-piece jazz-fusion outfit, Freeway Clyde. The Vermont supergroup will perform Tom Petty’s Wildflowers in its entirety. How faithful that rendition is remains to be seen.
Founded by Chorney, the Tony Award-winning Hadestown composer and leader of such boundary-pushing local outfits as viperHouse and Hollar General, Freeway Clyde specialize in a surrealist style of composition — specifically, fashioning soundtracks to movies that don’t exist. Miller knew that Chorney and bandmates such as Matt LaRocca, an artistic adviser and project conductor with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, wouldn’t be interested in a note-for-note re-creation of Petty’s 1994 classic.
“That’s not how they roll,” Miller said in a video call from his houseboat, No Regerts — and yes, the name is a reference to a Milky Way commercial.
At last year’s Homegrown fest, Miller spearheaded a relatively straightforward Vermont all-star tribute to the Kinks. This year, he looked for an album he could put his own imprint on. “Wildflowers is kind of like three chords and the truth,” he said. “It feels like a cool record to be able to fuck with. You can’t really fuck with something like, say, Pet Sounds,” he added, referring to the breakthrough Beach Boys album.
While members of Freeway Clyde have a deep love of the source material — according to Miller, electro-pop producer and trumpet player Will Andrews, aka Willverine, claims Wildflowers is one of his favorite LPs of all time — Chorney’s familiarity with it might be looser.
“Chorney is so funny, man,” Miller said. “He doesn’t really know that record at all. I thought I had obscure tastes, but he goes really, really obscure.
“But I knew that I needed a record I could sing — so, no Björk — and a record that eight musicians would love enough to learn, unlearn and re-create,” Miller continued.
For Millette, the festival isn’t just an opportunity to play in front of more than 1,000 people; it’s a chance to connect with a local music community that is far bigger than he ever realized. He hopes the growing festival will illuminate more of the Green Mountain musical ecosystem each year.
“I’ve never been so thankful to be ignorant on a subject,” Millette said. “I thought I had my thumb on the pulse of what’s going on, but every new friend I make in the scene introduces me to another incredible musician that I never knew about. So when we get to the fest, it’s almost like a Vermont singer-songwriter summer camp.”
Adding the second stage was a no-brainer for Millette and Soloway. That allows there to be no breaks between acts: When a band on the WhistlePig Pavilion stage finishes, the next artist will kick off their set in the Acoustic Station.
“We asked ourselves, How do we squeeze some of these acts that are kind of playing Triple-A ball and let them take some swings with a major league at bat?” Millette said. “And the result is more music and, selfishly for me, more pals on the bill.”
Soloway, who previously worked in music and arts in Nashville and New York City, has been impressed with the camaraderie of the Vermont scene, which he’s watched closely since taking the top job at Spruce Peak Arts in 2023.
“After the first year of Homegrown, I saw how this scene inspires and creates community,” he said. “There’s no cutthroat backstage-antics kind of stuff; no one is worried about time slots. It’s just people playing hacky sack or jamming together for the first time.”
“There’s not a lot of gatekeepers in this scene,” Millette agreed. “That’s part of the magic.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Wet, Hot Vermont Summer: Spruce Peak Arts’ Homegrown festival returns”
This article appears in September 2 • 2026.
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