Nurture the Future is this year’s conference theme. “It was something we felt needed to be communicated as our world is changing every second of the day,” says Jill Kettles, SERFA’s board president. “We aim to uphold the past, mold the present, and project it for future generations; this is not just important but vital.”

SERFA is a regional affiliate of Folk Alliance International (folk.org), a nonprofit organization that aims to serve, strengthen and engage the global folk music community through preservation, presentation and promotion. SERFA (serfa.org) exists to promote, develop and celebrate the diverse heritage of roots and indigenous music, dance, storytelling and related arts in the southeastern United States. It has produced an annual conference since 2008. This is SERFA’s third consecutive year at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina.

The official showcases take place Friday and Saturday evenings, with each artist/act performing a 15-minute set. Unplugged private showcases follow from 10:40 p.m. to 2 a.m. Also on the agenda are daytime panel discussions and workshops, a Wisdom of the Elders session, a few thematic song circles, open mics, mentoring sessions, an awards presentation, an exhibit hall, communal meals, and plenty of other opportunities to learn, share and network –- including during built-in afternoon breaks in the programming. Informal jams and song circles also are apt to break out in the lobby and outside (weather permitting).

Rachael Sage, Award-Winning, Prolific Singer-Songwriter and Boutique Label Owner to Deliver Keynote Address

Daytime Programming Includes Workshops, Song Circles, Think Tanks, and Mentoring Sessions

Besides the workshops and panel discussions, there will be moderated, interactive “think tanks” on House Concerts and Small Venues and Hey, What’s Your Problem, one-on-one mentoring sessions, several thematic song circles, several thematic song circles, and a Wisdom of the Elders session during the daytime hours.

Wisdom of the Elders and SERFA Awards are Among Conference Highlights

The Wisdom of the Elders conversational panel session provides a structured opportunity for conference attendees to learn from and about veteran leaders in the folk community and for the elders to talk among themselves as well. Participants this year are Scott Berwick, Wayne Erbsen and Taylor Pie.

Berwick has long been active in American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local 1000 (the traveling musicians union), has been attending SERFA conferences for the past decade, and has also been involved with the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, the Hudson Valley Folk Guild, and the Ashokan Center, as well as an informal, weekly song circle near his home in upstate New York.

Erbsen has been engaged in traditional American music for more than 50 years as a musician, recording artist (with nearly 20 albums to his credit), professor at Warren Wilson College and the University of North Carolina at Asheville, author and publisher (who has written and published 40 books), and a public radio DJ.

A Tennessee-based traveling folk minstrel and Americana artist, Taylor Pie (Susan Taylor) helped form the Pozo Seco Singers with Don Williams in the early 1960s and has been a solo singer-songwriter and musician since the folk group disbanded. Many notable artists have covered her songs, while Pie was inducted into the Old-Time Country Music Hall of Fame in 2015. Along with her friend Kathryn Harrison, she launched PuffBunny Records in 2007 to share her music and that of other artists she admires. Taylor Pie, who now handles A &R for the label, also stars in Nobody Famous, an award-winning music documentary that was screened during the 2022 SERFA conference.

Menius, who currently hosts “The Revolution Starts Now” on Hillsborough, NC-based WHUP, has hosted radio shows on four stations since 2007. The first executive director of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), from 1985-1990, Menius also served as Folk Alliance International’s initial board president in 1990 and manager from 1991-1996, prior to serving as associate director of MerleFest for a decade and then as executive director of Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky and The ArtsCenter in Carrboro, NC. He’s also produced concerts, festivals and conferences and worked as a fundraiser, marketing director, emcee, stage manager, and writer.

Dom Flemons, an Arizona native and Chicago area-based musician who has earned the moniker “The American Songster” since his repertoire covers more than 100 years of American roots music, records for Smithsonian Folkways. He is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist (banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife, and rhythm bones), music scholar, actor, slam poet, record collector, and the creator, host and producer of American Songster Radio Show on WSM in Nashville, Tennessee. Earlier this year, he was named the grand-prize winner as well as first place honors for Best Folk/Americana Roots Album (for American Wildfire) in the International Acoustic Music Awards. In 2020, he received the prestigious United States Artists Fellowship Award in the Traditional Arts category. Two years later, he received a degree as Doctor of Humane Letters from his alma mater Northern Arizona University and was the commencement speaker at the graduation ceremony or the Class of 2022. Flemons was a founding member of Carolina Chocolate Drops, a Grammy Award-winning African-American old-time string band.

Junior Appalachian Musicians, Inc. (jamkids.org) is the nonprofit parent organization for more than 50 afterschool programs for children ages six and up. JAM provides communities with the requisite tools and support to teach children to play and dance to traditional old time and bluegrass music. Its program model introduces music through small group instruction on instruments common to the Appalachian region and provides youth with opportunities to learn traditional music with their peers from local teaching artists and to perform in their communities and regionally.

Taylor Caffery, the longtime host of “Hootenanny Power” on WRKF in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is the recipient of this year’s Kari Estrin Founding President’s Award. His weekly radio show incorporates musical styles and cultural influences from Caffery’s five decades on radio that began when he hosted his first show while in the U.S. Navy and continued with his college radio station KCSL. To that musical gumbo, he mixes in new discoveries from Folk Alliance International and SERFA conferences.

Dozens of Artists to be Featured in Official and Guerilla Showcases

Slated to present official showcases on Friday evening, May 10 are (in order of appearance) Sue Horowitz, Chris Haddox, Ron Fetner, A Tale of Two, Dustin Gaspard, Nicholas Edward Williams, Helene Cronin, and Admiral Radio. Saturday’s official showcase lineup features Jess Klein, Wes Collins, Bett Padgett, Cast Iron Bluegrass, Ruth and Max Bloomquist, Stone & Snow, Couldn’t Be Happiers, and Ordinary Elephant.

Here’s a link to a Spotify playlist that features one song from each of the official showcase artists.

Following the official showcases on Friday and Saturday, as well as an open mic on Thursday, late-night guerilla showcases will take place in various meeting rooms for several hours. AcousticMusicScene.com, which has had a presence at SERFA conferences since 2011, will host a couple of late-night song swaps and a midnight hoot (featuring more than two-dozen artists/acts – each performing one song) on Thursday, May 9, overnight. The AcousticMusicScene.com Midnight Hoot is a pre-arranged round-robin song swap that is intended to provide concert and festival presenters, folk DJs and others with an opportunity to get a small sampling of the music of a lot of artists in a short period of time on the conference’s opening night. It also enables artists to enjoy and each other’s company and music before the conference really gets into full swing on Friday.

Here’s the AcousticMusicScene.com Showcase schedule:

10:40 Brooklyn in the House: Carolann Solebello and Pat Wictor

11:00 Long Island Sound: Hank Stone and Jim Whiteman

11:30 Midnight Hoot, Part 1 (one song each):

Antonio Andrade, Max & Ruth Bloomquist, Dan & Faith, Katie Dahl, Annie Stokes

12:00 Midnight Hoot, Part 2 (one song each, not necessarily in this order)

Taylor Pie, The Farmer & The Crow, Amy Speace, Annie & Rod Capps, Marc Douglas Berardo, Karyn Oliver, Lindsay Whiteman, Miles & Mafale, Rachael Sage, Emma Frances, Nicholas Edward Williams, Noah Zacharin

1:00 Midnight Hoot, Part 3 (one song each, not necessarily in this order)

Jon Shain & FJ Ventre, Erin Ash Sullivan, Robert Bidney, Rob Lytle, Jim Patton & Sherry Brokus, Meg Braun, Alice Hasen, Brian Ashley Jones & Melanie Jean, Couldn’t Be Happiers, Reckless Saints, Siena Christie

Slated to perform on Saturday, May 25 are Jeremy Parsons, Gloria Anderson, Rachel Sumner, Admiral Radio, Kenny Foster, Lila Blue, Lily Talmers, Summerlyn Powers, Mike Vitale, Halley Neal, Alex Wong, and Lucy Clearwater. Performing on Sunday afternoon, May 26 will be Elise Leavy, John Dennis, Genevieve Racette, Robin Bienemann, Stephanie Simmons, Sean Keel, Jack McKeon, Katie Dahl, Elliah Heifetz, Sara Beth Go, Blossom Drearie by Brandon Whyde, and Tai Shan.

They will showcase their talents and songwriting skills at the Threadgill Theater on the Quiet Valley Ranch Campgrounds in the Texas Hill Country near Austin and San Antonio, from 1:00-4:30 p.m. CT. The New Folk Concerts will also be livestreamed on the Kerrville Folk Festival’s website [kerrvillefolkfestival.org/2024-newfolk-competition] and Facebook page, as well as on the Kerrville Folk Festival Foundation’s YouTube channel.

After performing the two songs that they submitted during the New Folk Concerts, six songwriters will be selected as 2024 New Folk Winners by a panel of judges. As in the first round, the finalists’ songs will be evaluated based on originality, lyrics, melody, harmonic structure, and other elements of song-craft. Each of the six performing songwriters chosen as 2024 New Folk Award Winners, to be announced during the evening concert on May 26, will receive a cash prize, a mentoring session with a professional songwriter, some Kerrville Folk Festival swag, two complimentary full festival access passes to the KFF Foundation’s fall festival event, and will be invited to perform a 20-minute set on stage on Sunday, June 1. They also may be afforded the opportunity to take part in a Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk House Concert Tour in Texas, as well as to play the 2025 spring or fall festival.

Established in 1972 at the urging of Peter Yarrow, the Kerrville New Folk Concerts have become a highlight of the annual festival that is geared towards singer-songwriters of various musical styles and is the longest continuously running festival of its kind in North America. In addition to receiving cash awards and additional performance opportunities, being named as a New Folk Award Winner is regarded as a very prestigious honor.

Extending for 18 days, the Kerrville Folk Festival is set for May 23-June 9. Besides concerts each evening, it features “Ballad Tree” song-sharing sessions, campfire jam sessions, concerts and activities for children, organized canoe and kayak trips on the Guadelupe River and Hill Country bike rides, guided nature walks, yoga, beer and wine seminars, a Young Artists’ Performance Incubator, a professional development program for teachers, as well as a songwriters school and instrumental workshops.