Songwriters in the Round 

featuring Jan Krist, Mustard's Retreat, Kitty Donohoe and Jim Bizer

They may call themselves “the yellow room gang,” but we know Jan Krist, Matt Watroba, Mustard’s Retreat and Kitty Donohoe as some of the best songwriters and performers in Michigan.  They’ve been meeting monthly, with a small group of other songwriters, to share new songs they’re working on.  Kitty wrote about their gathering on her website, “On the songwriter front, I've been gathering once a month in town here for a potluck, Songwriter's Purge kind of thing at David Tamulevich's house (of the Roots Agency/Mustard's Retreat)…It's a little daunting to toss unheard songs-in-the-making out into a room of writers, but the critiques have been kind and appropriate.”  Join us for an evening as they share some of those new songs, along with a number of their favorites, in the round. 

Jan Krist is a Trinity House favorite.  Over the years she began spreading her wings beyond the Metro area, winning praise at the nationally known Kerrville Songwriting Competition in Texas in 1991, and then releasing her first album of songs, "Decapitated Society," in 1992. That album won praise from Billboard and other magazines.  Jan followed it up with seven more CD’s including her most recent, "When Planets Collide." Over the years she has won numerous Detroit Music Awards.


Michael Hough and David Tamulevich of Mustard's Retreat have been performing together for nearly 31 years.  That may not seem like such a long time in the life of a human being, a tree or a folk song. But in the fickle world of modern music, 31 years is a very long time.  Whether singing their own gentle love songs and vivid ballads, telling tall tales or offering treasures from America's vast traditional song bag, a Mustard's Retreat show always feels like it's designed for the people who have come to see them that day.  There most recent CD is “A Resolution of Something.”

In the 70’s Kitty moved to the town of Lansing, in the middle of Michigan, where she began working as a full-time musician.  At a Folk Alliance Conference in Cleveland in 2000, Kitty met Ann Arbor multi-instrumentalist David Mosher. An immediate friendship between them became a musical one as well, with Mosher co-producing Kitty’s next CD with her.  Her song about September 11, “There Are No Words,” received a Michigan EMMY and has been performed by Paul Stookey, of Peter, Paul and Mary fame.