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Gabriel Eng-Goetz
Artist | Designer | Creative Director
Gabriel is an award-winning, multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Durham, North Carolina USA. His work explores our human connection to the natural world and the cultural history of identity, including his own as a Chinese American born and raised in the South. Outside of creating artwork for clients and collectors, Gabriel works with his community to showcase and uplift North Carolina's vibrant and diverse art scene by producing/curating events and working as a youth mentor.
Founder of Runaway, award-winning apparel & lifestyle brand
Pierce Freelon
2X GRAMMY nominated Pierce Freelon’s joyful music blends hip-hop, electronic jazz and soul. His modern and dynamic sound is inspired by his journey as a millennial dad and is carefully crafted for today’s modern families. Through honest and playful lyrics, rich melodies and fresh beats, he shares his story and welcomes kids and adults to his world. Pierce’s critically acclaimed work has been featured on the TODAY Show, NPR, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Parents Magazine and the PBS Kids animated series’ Alma’s Way and Work it Out Wombats! He is also the co-creator and talent of the PBS Kids podcast “Jamming on the Job” and has written two children's picture books with Little Brown. Pierce is currency GRAMMY nominated alongside his mother, jazz singer Nnenna Freelon, for their first family album together, AnceStars.
Takiri Folclor Latino
"Takiri in Quechua language means “Who creates music and dance.” The purpose of the group is to showcase Latin American culture through dance. We are a Latino family where our members range from age 3 to older adults and represent various countries, including Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Perú, Ecuador, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, United States and France.
We dance rhythms from Latin America, especially from Colombia, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, México, Perú and Guatemala. These include Cumbia, Bambuco, Mapalé, Plena and others. The majority of our dances have African, European and Indigenous influence, the African influence in the basic rhythm, the European influence in the wording and the dresses, and the Indigenous influence in the melody and the dance."
Tift Merritt
Tift Merritt is a Grammy-nominated musician who wanted to be a writer until her father taught her guitar chords and Percy Sledge songs. She has toured around the world with her sonic short stories and garnered a reputation for making her own way and setting an interesting artistic table. The New Yorker calls her !the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry.” Don Henley, with help from Mick Jagger, kicks off Cass County with a cover of her song Bramble Rose. Taking time off the road to raise her daughter, Merritt began work on larger, site specific projects by way of collecting found objects in the abandoned asylum in her hometown as forgotten, essential language. Merritt has also collected artist interviews researching creative process and integrity on The Spark for Carolina Performing Arts and Marfa, Texas Public Radio. She is a Practitioner-In-Residence at the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University. She lives in North Carolina with her daughter Jean, and is recording a new album in early 2023.
Tray Wellington
Growing up in western North Carolina’s Ashe County, Trajan “Tray” Wellington heard a lot of music — and from the first time he heard the banjo as a young teen, he was, he says, “hooked.” Even before he graduated from East Tennessee State University’s renowned Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country program, Wellington had earned acclaim as the banjo player with Cane Mill Road, performing across the country and winning a 2019 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year award while the group took Momentum Band of the Year honors. A well-received, independently released 2020 EP under his own name, the creation of his Tray Wellington Band and signing with Mountain Home Music Company that same year marked Wellington’s decision to make his own path going forward. As he began releasing singles in advance of his full-length debut, Black Banjo, Wellington continued to garner attention, leading banjo workshops at the prestigious Merlefest and Gray Fox festivals; performing on the IBMA’s 2020 World of Bluegrass Main Stage and acting as host for the Momentum Awards ceremony; gaining coverage in publications like No Depression, The Bluegrass Situation and Folk Alley; and appearing on David Holt’s PBS NC series, being interviewed by Rhiannon Giddens for a BBC documentary series and by W. Kamau Bell for his CNN series, United Shades of America.
Jordan Wiley
Fifteen year old Jordan Wiley is a sophomore at Northwood HS. Wiley is a budding filmmaker with four short films and numerous YouTube videos under his belt. Wiley was a featured filmmaker in the Chapel Hill Black Film Festival’s inaugural year, as well as an awarded filmmaker in the Hayti 72-hour Film Contest.
