Songwriters Festival returns for a second act

By Anthony Collins

LPR Editor                                                            

   For three days in September, downtown Lockhart will once again become one big listening room as the Texas Women Songwriters Festival returns with dozens of artists, intimate song swaps and some of the most recognizable women in Texas music. The second annual festival is set for Sept. 18-20, bringing performers to venues scattered throughout historic downtown Lockhart. Headliners for 2026 are Patricia Vonne, BettySoo, Patrice Pike and Susan Gibson, while legendary Texas singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa will serve as the festival’s keynote speaker.

   While the festival is still young, its roots stretch back to founder Mandy Rowden’s work studying the role and history of women songwriters in Texas. Rowden, a longtime Central Texas musician and Lockhart resident, published her master’s thesis on Texas women singer-songwriters in 2024. That research helped lead to the idea of creating a festival where women could not only perform, but where the craft of songwriting itself could take center stage. Rowden is also the founder of Girl Guitar, an Austin-based guitar, songwriting and rock-and-roll school for women, and teaches Business in Music at Texas State University.

   What began as an idea for a relatively small songwriter gathering quickly grew. The inaugural Texas Women Songwriters Festival was held Sept. 19-21, 2025, with 54 women songwriters performing in nine bars, cafes, galleries and businesses around Lockhart. Rowden told the Austin Chronicle before that first festival that she initially hoped to bring together around 20 performers and chose Lockhart over Austin because the smaller city offered the laid-back, intimate atmosphere she envisioned for listening-room-style performances.

   The first-year lineup included Texas music veterans Rosie Flores, Tish Hinojosa, Sara Hickman, Kimmie Rhodes and Pauline Reese along with dozens of established and emerging writers. The festival was built around a simple idea: put the songwriter and the song at the center of the experience rather than turning the weekend into a traditional large-stage music festival.

   That format returns in 2026, with free song swaps forming much of the weekend’s schedule. The small-group performances place several writers together on stage, giving audiences a chance to hear original songs, and often the stories behind them, in some of downtown Lockhart’s smaller rooms. The festival says all its songwriter swaps are free and open to the public, while the major headliner performances and Sunday mariachi brunch are ticketed events.

   Rowden serves as the festival’s founder and executive director and remains at the center of the event’s artistic direction. She is joined on the leadership team by Anne Sifuentez, director of brand and partnerships, who brings a professional background in advertising and creative campaigns, and Dakota Doster, operations and communications manager, whose event experience includes work or volunteer roles with ACL, SXSW, Cap10K and other large events. Together, the team has built an event that blends established Texas performers with working songwriters and emerging artists while using Lockhart itself as part of the festival experience. Patricia Vonne will open the headliner schedule at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18, at The PEARL/The Blue Pearl. Vonne has toured internationally, including appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Kennedy Center and the United Nations Headquarters, and has worked alongside artists including Chris Isaak, Los Lobos, Alejandro Escovedo, Joe Ely and Flaco Jimenez. Her 10th studio album is scheduled for release in September. BettySoo follows at 8 p.m. Friday at Masur Hall. Raised outside Houston by first-generation Korean immigrant parents, BettySoo has become one of the respected voices in the Texas singer-songwriter scene. Her honors include Kerrville NewFolk and the Dave Carter Songwriting Award, and she has toured as a solo artist and in support of performers including James McMurtry and Chris Smither.

   Saturday’s headliners begin with Patrice Pike at 6 p.m. at The Blue Pearl. Pike first became widely known as the frontwoman of Austin band Sister Seven and has built a career that crosses rock, R&B, soul and singer-songwriter traditions. She has toured with artists including Blues Traveler, Sarah McLachlan, the Allman Brothers, Dave Matthews and John Fogerty. At 8 p.m. Saturday, Susan Gibson takes over Masur Hall. Gibson carries one of the most familiar songwriting credits in modern Texas country music: she wrote “Wide Open Spaces,” which became a signature hit for The Chicks. Gibson was named BMI Writer of the Year in 1999 and received the CMA Single of the Year honor connected with the song.

   There is plenty of star power beyond the four headliners. Tish Hinojosa will give the festival’s opening keynote address from 2-3 p.m. Friday at The Blue Pearl. The San Antonio-born singer-songwriter has released 16 albums in English and Spanish, weaving together folk, country, pop and Latino musical traditions over a career spanning decade. Hinojosa was also one of the marquee performers at Lockhart’s inaugural festival in 2025. 

    The larger songwriter lineup includes familiar Texas and Central Texas names such as Wendy Colonna, HalleyAnna Finlay, Libby Koch, Aimee Bobruk, Natalie Price, Giulia Millanta, Rachel Laven, Katrina Cain, Ali Holder, Isabel Suarez, Marina Rocks and dozens more. Many will appear in three-person song swaps throughout Friday and Saturday.

   Sunday changes the flavor a little with Mariachi Las Coronelas, who will perform during a mariachi brunch from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at The Blue Pearl. The festival closes with free performances by Girl Guitar songwriters from 2-5 p.m.

   Part of what sets the Texas Women Songwriters Festival apart is that there is no single festival ground. Instead, audiences can walk through downtown Lockhart and move from one listening room to another. The current 2026 performance schedule includes The PEARL/The Blue Pearl, Chaparral Cantina, Masur Hall, Dr. Eugene Clark Library, Soundwaves Gallery, The Get Up, Thorn and Bred and Commerce Gallery. The festival’s separate venue page also names Commerce Hall and Land Unlimited among its 2026 partners and venues, although the currently published day-by-day performance schedule does not list a song swap at Land Unlimited.

   That downtown layout is an important piece of the festival’s identity. Rather than putting several thousand people in front of one stage, the event encourages visitors to move around the square, step inside galleries, bars, businesses and historic buildings, and listen to the lyrics and stories that made Texas songwriting famous. For Lockhart, the festival also represents another step in the city’s growing identity as a destination for live music, arts and culture alongside its longtime reputation as the Barbecue Capital of Texas. And for the songwriters, the weekend offers something even more basic: a room, an audience and a chance for the song itself to be heard.