There are some great performers booked for the July 7th Steamboat Mountain Music Festival in Edgewater. Their talent and energy are sure to spark a musical day to remember.

Homeboys Martin Reisle on guitar and Brendon Hartley on bass are two members of the Vancouver-based Maria In the Shower, a young band that mixes vaudeville with Euro caberet, a bit of hipster swing, a dash of the muppets and a whole lot of their own attitude to their very original music. The other two members of Maria are percussionist Todd Biffard and their singing trumpet and accordion player Jack Ganon. These performers are bursting with energy.

Clawhammer banjo maestro Chris Coole is the front man of Toronto’s bluegrass group the Foggy Hogtown Boys. At the Steamboat Mountain Festival, he’ll be performing solo. Strongly influenced by both old time music and the speed and freedom of bluegrass, Coole has become known as one of the best clawhammer players in the world.

Mark Koenig moved from Invermere to Creston back in 2003, but he returns periodically to sing and play his latest songs. He sings them alive in a landscape of stark beauty that will surely strike a familiar chord for those who know and love the upper Columbia.

John Reischman & the Jaybirds perch in Vancouver when they are not touring on the bluegrass circuit. The instrumentation is what might be expected in a traditional bluegrass ensemble, but the Jaybirds fly far beyond tradition to sweet and elegant horizons.

These headliners will be interwoven with sets by a wide range of local performers including: Bill Cropper, the Dry Gulch Ramblers, L8, Bob Benvenuti, Combo Akimbo, Marty & Eli Beingessner, the Halfsacks, Mickey Maione, Beard’s Creek, Steamboat Mountain Stardusters, Paige Fuller and the Kootenay Legends.

—Submitted by Anne Jardine