GOLD HILL -- Andrew Sturtz has written songs for over twenty years, releasing projects but never focusing on touring those projects. He’s lived in Boulder for nearly a decade, and through playing open mics and other events in the town, he met people who have since become close musical and personal companions.
Now, Sturtz has christened a group with his last name, a quartet that includes himself on guitar, Courtlyn Carpenter on cello, Will Kuepper on bass, and Jim Herlihy on banjo. All four provide vocals, with Sturtz providing lead vocals.
The band spent a month coming up with their name, even creating a spreadsheet including dozens of potential band names (including Slow Drive, Alcove, Topiary, and Incongruity). However, the group eventually realized that Sturtz served as a perfect name for the group, which focuses on new arrangements of the namesake’s original material.
Carpenter grew up playing classical music, branching out into the folk scene as an adult. Playing at an open mic, she performed a Bach arrangement on her cello, motivated by the challenge to play for fifteen minutes and earn a free beer.
Over the last five years, she’s developed musical connections in the area, especially her connections through Sturtz. While she sometimes jumps onto other people’s projects and recordings in the area, Sturtz is currently her primary musical project.
Sturtz himself completely embraced choir and theater during his middle and high school years. Around the age of fifteen or sixteen, he started building a long repertoire of material to perform longer sets as a solo act, which inspired his interest in songwriting. He says that moving to Colorado revitalized his interest in songwriting and performing in a new way.
Herlihy started playing music as an adult, teaching himself guitar as his first instrument and performing throughout Boulder. Kuepper brings a jazz standpoint into the group as a whole, having focused on jazz performance and recently graduating from Metro State University in jazz performance on bass.
Sturtz has always written the basic structures for his group’s songs, bringing them to the rest of the group so that they can flesh out the harmonies and arrangements for the final product. Sturtz has loved evolving his sound and style over the years, and as he’s continued writing, he’s found the process more natural for him.
The group hopes that audience members and listeners can experience meaningful emotions listening to their music and lyrics, and they hope that somehow, they’ll be able to surprise their audiences with their setlist and provide something unexpected with their sound.
If you want to see Sturtz performing live, you can catch them at the Gold Hill General Store, located at 531 Main Street in Gold Hill, on Friday, April 11, 2025, starting at 8 p.m. To learn more about Sturtz and find their releases, head to their website at sturtzmusic.com.
