Old Friends Reunion is partnering with Mount Sequoyah to bring you a 5 part, free concert series up on the Mount Sequoyah. Join us in welcoming Gayle Ross and Kalyn Fay in this first concert of the season and hear about what’s to come.

Kalyn Fay (Cherokee Nation, Muscogee descent) is a songwriter and musician from Oklahoma, who fosters an additional interdisciplinary practice that interweaves visual arts, curation, and education. Born and raised in rural Oklahoma between Cherokee, Muscogee, and Osage territories, they are deeply rooted in their nuanced relationship to Oklahoma, and their musical practice is a reflection of that influence. Focusing on self-location, community, collaboration, and empathy, Kalyn sees their music as a way to lean into personal and shared narratives. Their songs embed Indigenous understandings associated with community and environment, navigatings the ways in which we all intersect with the hopes of building bridges of understanding between. Kalyn Fay’s music is “for you, for me, for us, for we.” 

Gayle Ross is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and a direct descendant of John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee during the infamous “Trail of Tears”. Her grandmother told stories and it is from this rich Native American heritage that Gayle’s storytelling springs. During the past twenty-five years, Gayle has become one of the best-loved and most respected storytellers to emerge from the current surge of interest in this timeless art form.

Gayle has appeared at almost every major storytelling and folk festival in the United States and Canada, as well as theaters and performance arts halls through out the U.S. and Europe, often appearing with some of today’s finest Native American musicians and dancers. She is in great demand as a lecture artist on college campuses and as a keynote speaker at education and humanities conferences. Most importantly, she continues to mesmerize children at countless schools and libraries across the country. Whether she is provoking laughter with a Trickster tale or moving her listeners to tears with a haunting myth, Gayle is truly a master of the age-old craft of storytelling.