June 1 is the deadline for performing songwriters to submit applications online via the use of an entry form that can be found at https://solarfest.org/singer-songwriter-showcase-2025/. All entries must include video links to two original songs performed live, a brief bio, and a link to the artist’s website.

Judging will be done prior to the festival. One winner and four finalists will be invited to perform on the festival’s solar-powered main stage on Saturday, August 9. Cash prizes will also be awarded — $300 for the winner and $100 for the finalists. Each will receive two festival tickets as well. The winner and finalists will be notified by July 1.

Launched in 1995, SolarFest aims to connect people, the arts, ideas and technology, fostering partnerships and activism to create a vibrant present and a sustainable future. “In addition to workshops and great information on renewable energy, SolarFest has been the home to diverse and exciting music,” as singer-songwriter Phil Henry, a showcase organizer, previously told AcousticMusicScene.com.

“SolarFest’s Songwriter Showcase was so valuable to me when I was starting out in the world of folk and songwriting,” said Henry, 2005’s SolarFest Songwriter Showcase winner. “And many of our scene’s best have graced that stage – like Lara Herscovitch [a former Connecticut State Troubadour who co-organizes the showcase with him and is also a past winner], Louise Coombe, Connor Garvey, Jessica Smucker, and so many others. It’s a great festival with top-notch sound and an incredible vibe!”

Roots-rockin’ jam band Donna The Buffalo and psychedelic jamgrass band Into The Fog headline the festival. Also slated to perform are Phil Henry and the News Feed, Lara Herscovitch & the Highway Philosophers, world folk-rock ensemble HuDost, nuevo flamenco duo Patchouli & Terra Guitarra, Vermont’s own Bow Thayer Band and Ray Vega Band, and the party band Kotoko Brass — whose sound fuses Ghanaian percussion, Caribbean rhythms and joyous New Orleans horns. The festival closes out on Sunday afternoon, August 10, with a local talent expo showcasing some of the area’s up-and-coming performers.

The festival usually features dozens of artists performing on several stages (including a dance tent), children’s music and activities, and a wide array of crafts, food and other vendors. For the past several years, a Pre-Fest Tastings Day & Farm Market has taken place on Thursday and featured locally grown food, drink and artisanal items, along with performances by a number of artists from the late afternoon through the evening on the Lounge Stage curated by Tribal Mischief. Those camping at Falcon Ridge and staying up through the early morning hours have enjoyed an array of informal jams, mini-showcases and after-hours song circles that help foster a sense of “folk” community. This year’s virtual festival will be quite a different experience to be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home.

The Falcon Ridge 2020 Share & Shelter In Place Fest will be shown on the festival’s Facebook and YouTube pages: facebook.com/FalconRidgeFest and http://youtube.com/channel/UCgoYgzUgfFhTc_EXhNeC_ng? from 1:30-4:30 p.m. each day and will also be archived for replay and future viewing. The audio stream from the virtual festival may also be heard on FolkMusic Notebook.com, the 24/7 online music channel.Live streams from virtual camps, song swaps and mini-showcases — including The Lounge Stage on Thursday night (see details below), Big Orange Tarp, Dave Carter Song Circle, Night Owl Song Swap, Pirate Camp and more will also be shared at later times via various online platforms.

Evocative archival footage from past festivals and special messages from previous festival artists, longtime vendors, radio sponsors, dancers, campers, and others in the festival commUNITY will be interspersed among performance videos by 30 confirmed participating artists/acts and an abbreviated Grassy Hill Emerging Artist Showcase.

Scott Cook (a Canadian prairie roots balladeer), Zoe Mulford (a transatlantic singer-songwriter) and South For The Winter (a Nashville-based, genre-bending trio) were the artists who were voted “Most Wanted” to return by festival attendees following last year’s Grassy Hill Emerging Artist Showcase.

More information on Cook and the other Most Wanted artists, as well as video links, may be found in an article that was published in February and may be found at https://acousticmusicscene.com/2020/02/12/falcon-ridge-most-wanted-artists-named-2/.

Although 24 artists/acts usually showcase their talents on Friday afternoon, this year’s abbreviated edition of the Emerging Artist Showcase includes 11: Andy Baker, John Beacher, Randy Lewis Brown, Buffalo Rose, Kala Farnham, Lynne Hanson, Indian Summer Jars, Karyn Ann, The Levins, The Real Sarahs, and Shanna in a Dress. The Emerging Artists Showcase is not a contest, and artists won’t be judged per se, although the audience is surveyed as to which showcase artists they’d like to see return the following year to participate in a Most Wanted Song Swap.

Lounge Stage at Falcon Ridge Streams Via Twitch on Thursday, July 30

Another highlight of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival has been The Lounge Stage. For the past 10 years, many festivalgoers have flocked to it on Thursdays for an early musical fix before the festival formally gets underway on Friday.

Curated by Tribal Mischief (the brainchild of Ethan Baird and Jake Bush, who are also the mainstays of the band Pesky J. Nixon) with tech support by Scott Jones, what began as a special event on the festival’s campgrounds now customarily takes place in the Dance Tent. This year, The Lounge Stage will stream live on Thursday evening, July 30, from 7p.m.-12 a.m. EST at http://twitch.tv/tribalmischief.

Artists slated to perform, in order of appearance, include Pete Mancine, Izzy Heltai, Zoe Mulford, Brian and Katie (We’re About 9), Mya Byrne, Kirsten Maxwell, Dinty Child, Sol y Canto, Mike McKenna Jr., Annie Sumi, Tragedy Ann, Rachael Kilgour, Crys Matthews, Heather Mae, and Vance Gilbert.

Baird noted that the Lounge Stage at Falcon Ridge was launched to afford the weeklong attendees at the festival and select artists an opportunity to more intimately engage with each other when the festival was forced to shorten its schedule after a couple of really challenging years due to weather. Over the last decade, the Lounge Stage has presented more than 200 artists. “This year, the stage has really been split into two entities,” said Baird. “ One run by Scott Jones — our initial partner in putting the Lounge Stage together as the technical director and master of lighting, sound, and recording – will feature a retrospective of the last 10 years of material from the Lounge Stage’s evolution from hillside show to a festival mainstay. Jake and I are taking what we have built with the Tribal Mischief network of conversational programming and music presentation and are hoping to present the best amalgamation of virtual and live events.

Baird acknowledged that while multiple musicians can share a stage via the platform that Tribal Mischief is using, current technology won’t allow for them to play together live simultaneously. “However,’ he added, “they can cheer for each other, comment, speak, and interact. That interaction has always been the principle on which the Lounge Stage was built, and to be able to facilitate that means a lot to us.”

Baird noted that “Tribal Mischief is in the middle of a high-risk experiment in which we are betting on technologies and online tools that the folk community hasn’t really embraced as of yet — namely YouTube and Twitch. There are millions of people out there on these platforms actively and desperately looking for good content, for something different. We are betting that this is something that the remarkable creators in our community may not have realized they were missing.”

In addition, but of equal importance, according to Baird, “both of these platforms offer creators the opportunity to earn money passively through advertising.” He said that “while we welcome the subscriptions of our fans and want to encourage community building and engagement, we are trying to move away from a fundraising mechanism that is 100% reliant on donations. We hope to be able to build that through efforts like this.” Accordingly, this will be the first Lounge Stage for which donations will be accepted. It will also be the first one for which all the participating artists will be paid, while 20 percent of the funds raised will go to help ensure that the continuation of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.

“We won’t take a penny raised through this show – making sure that the artist community has an opportunity to make some money this year –considering all the shows and performances that have been lost is really important to us, “ Baird added.

Tribal Mischief (http://tribalmischief.com) seeks to assist worthy causes and build community through music. Baird and Bush host weekly conversational broadcasts with music makers and others in the music industry each Sunday on Tribal Mischief’s Twitch channel.

To stream or download past Lounge Stage performances, visit http://theloungestage.com.

Although there is no cost the stream the Falcon Ridge 2020 Share & Shelter in Place Festival, Saunders noted that donations — via paypal.me/FalconRiidgeFolkFest or venmo.com/FalconRidgeFolks or from the venmo app: @FalconRidgeFolks –will be much appreciated.”One of our goals in presenting this virtual fest, as far as contributions raised,is to come as close as we can to paying all of our confirmed artists their entire fee for this year because, for many of them, it may be the only fee they will get for a very long time,” she said. “Along with that, we hope to give something substantial to Dodds Farm [where the festival usually takes place] so that they can continue to hold on as well.”

Extending from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., the festival kicks off with performances by the five top finalists in CT Folk’s 2019 Grassy Hill Songwriting Competition: Nick Depuy, Sharon Goldman, Margo Hennebach, Monica Rizzio, and Stan Sullivan. One of them will receive a performance slot in next year’s festival, as well as a cash prize. Susan Cattaneo, a Boston, Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter and songwriting professor at Berklee College of Music, who won he competition last year, will perform a 30-minute set immediately following the competition finals.

Other artists slated to showcase their talents on the Main Stage include (in order of appearance) Christine Sweeney, Quarter Horse, Jim Allyn Band, Amythyst Kiah Trio, Ghost of Paul Revere, and Birds of Chicago, while Donna the Buffalo will close out the festival.

Since coming together as a band in 1989, Donna the Buffalo has played thousands of concerts and such notable festivals as Bonaroo, MerleFest, Newport Folk Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, and Telluride. The band also launched the Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival in Trumansburg, New York – an annual four-day event near Ithaca that has spawned two other Grassroots Festivals in Florida and North Carolina.

Throughout the day, the Green Expo will feature a wide array of exhibitors, informational talks and demonstrations, workshops, and activities to promote sustainable lifestyles. There also will be plenty of music and activities for children in the Green Kids Village.

Edgerton Park is located at Whitney Avenue and Cliff Street. Attendees are advised to bring lawn chairs or blankets and plan to picnic. Eight food trucks will be on site offering a wide variety of food and beverages for purchase.

CT Folk seeks to educate, entertain, and inspire a diverse audience through music and conversation to create a socially responsible and environmentally sustainable community. A suggested $10 donation during the festival will help the nonprofit organization carry out its mission. Besides presenting the festival, CT Folk also hosts a Folk Fridays concert series that runs from October through May and promotes traditional and contemporary folk and roots music throughout Connecticut. For more information, click here or visit www.ctfolk.org.

Editor’s Note: It is my honor and pleasure to again help judge this year’s Grassy Hill CT Folk Songwriter Competition finals that extend from 11 a.m. -12 p.m. on the Main Stage.

Although Old Settler’s has grown in popularity over the years, it retains a more casual and laid-back down-home Texas vibe than a couple of other notable Austin area music festivals. Among the diverse array of talented performers on the 2014 lineup are Big Head Todd & The Monsters, The Black Lillies, Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges & The Abiders, The Deadly Gentlemen, The Del McCoury Band, Della Mae, Donna The Buffalo, Elephant Revival, John Fullbright, Gaelic Storm, The Gibson Brothers, Sarah Jarosz, Lake Street Dive, Parker Millsap, North Mississippi Allstars, Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Peter Rowan, Bob Schneider, Shinyribs, Shovels & Rope, Ralph Stanley & His Clinch Mountain Boys, and more.

In addition to concerts on four stages, there will be workshops, sing-a-longs and impromptu jam sessions, a youth talent competition and children’s activities, a market area featuring arts and crafts, specialty foods and craft brews, and lots of tasty barbecue.

Discounted admission wristbands are available online until March 31. For more information and to buy tickets, visit www.oldsettlersmusicfest.org or call 888-512-SHOW.

Slated for Saturday -Sunday, June 19-20, at Croton Point Park in Croton-On-Hudson, in New York’s Hudson Valley, Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival is a music and environmental festival launched by folk icon Pete Seeger that is now in its 41st year.

Among the artists scheduled to appear at the festival over the weekend, in addition to Pete, are such notables as David Amram, David Bromberg Quartet, Jonatha Brooke, Buckwheat Zydeco, C.J. Chenier & The Red Hot Louisiana Band, Shawn Colvin, Donna The Buffalo, Steve Earle, Steve Forbert, Eileen Ivers, Lucy Kaplansky, Quebec’s Le Vent du Nord, Joan Osborne, Railroad Earth, Toshi Reagon and Subdudes. Joining them are such emerging talents as the Angel Band, Dan Bern, Mike Doughty, Felice Brothers, Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, Rhett Miller, Sara Watkins, and Dala (a young female duo from Toronto, who also star in “Girls From the North Country,” a TV special that begins airing on many PBS television stations this month). Regional artists of note include Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, Milton, Tao Seeger Band, Rick Nestler and The Dirty Stay Out Skifflers, Matt Turk, Hope Machine, The Edukated Fleas, Stout, and the Walkabout Clearwater Chorus.

Produced by and benefiting the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., a nonprofit, member-supported organization launched by Pete Seeger and others to preserve and protect the Hudson River and its tributaries, the festival celebrates environmental activism and education. It features seven stages with live music and performance artists, a Green Living Expo, riverfront activities, environmental workshops and exhibits, and booths run by educational and activist organizations. The Sloop Clearwater and Schooner Pioneer will also be there during the weekend, affording visitors the opportunity to sail on the Hudson. Roving artists and jugglers, children’s crafts and activities, juried crafts and the Circle of Song (where audience participation is the focus) also are on the docket.

For more information and to purchase tickets in advance, call 845-418-3596 or visit www.clearwater.org/festival.

The 30th annual Old Songs Festival takes place June 25-27, at Altamont Fairgrounds in Altamont, approximately 10 miles west of Albany. Produced by Old Songs, Inc., a nonprofit organization based in the New York State Capitol Region that seeks to keep traditional music and dance alive through this festival, as well as twice monthly concerts, monthly dances and educational programs, the festival will feature an array of folk, Celtic, blues, old-time and world musicians, as well as storytelling, dance, juggling and more.

Among this year’s performers are Canadian singer-songwriter James Keelaghan, Canadian trad. quartet Gadelle, talented husband-and-wife duos Kim & Reggie Harris and Matt & Shannon Heaton, percussionist Billy Jonas, gypsy jazz artists Babik, Tony Barrand, John Roberts, Jeff Davis, Debra Cowan, Sally Rogers & Howie Bursen, Cathy Barton & Dave Para, Susan Trump, and Moscow Nights (a trio performing traditional Russian music).

Main Stage concerts are slated for Friday and Saturday evening, as well as Sunday afternoon, while eight stages will feature music and dance on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Contra dances featuring music by Fennig’s All-Stars and Grand Picnic follow the Friday and Saturday night concerts on the main stage.

A very participatory event, the Old Songs Festival also features “sacred harp” or shape-note singing (and choral singing) on Saturday and Sunday mornings with Tim Eriksen (who directed the shape-note singing for the film Cold Mountain) and Peter and Mary Alice Amidon, as well as lots of festival performer-led and impromptu jam sessions. The family-friendly event also features a children’s area, as well as a wide array of artisans, vendors and food.

Individual day tickets and all-festival tickets (with or without camping), and senior citizen and student discounts are available at the gate. For more information, visit www.oldsongs.org.

Celebrating the music of the late instrumental virtuoso Merle Watson and his father Doc Watson, the “traditional-plus” music festival features sounds of the Appalachian region and beyond — ranging from bluegrass and Americana to old-time, country and roots music. It takes place April 29 – May 2 on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

Among the more than 100 acts performing on 15 stages during the festival — in addition to Doc Watson and his son Richard — are The Avett Brothers, Bearfoot, The Belleville Outfit, Diercks Bentley, Roy Book Binder, Brave Combo, Sam Bush Band, Elvis Costello and The Sugarcanes, Dailey and Vincent, Donna The Buffalo, The Duhks, Great Big Sea, The Greencards, John Hammond, David Holt, Jeni and Billy, Si Kahn, The Lovell Sisters, Taj Mahal, Harry Manx, Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers, The Travelin’ McCourys, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Missy Raines and The New Hip, Red Molly, The Tony Rice Unit, Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, The Steeldrivers, Rhonda Vincent and The Rage, and The Waybacks.

Unique musical collaborations and spontaneous jam sessions have been highlights of MerleFest since its inception 23 years ago. The festival also features the finals of the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest, instrument contests, a Friday night songwriter showcase coffeehouse and open mic, heritage crafts by regional artisans, children’s activities, and plenty of pickin’ opportunities.