“St. Brigid was a light in the darkest of times, a peacemaker, a woman who provided sustenance and a safe haven for all,”” notes Ivers, a Grammy Award-winning Irish American fiddler. “I’m thrilled to be joining other female artists as part of a livestream concert honoring this beloved Irish saint. May the perpetual flame that St. Brigid ignited so long ago, which still burns in Kildare Town’s Market Square today, live in our hearts and shine through the gift of music and community.” The livestream concert can be viewed on The Association of Irish & Celtic Festivals’ Facebook page.

Along with Ivers and Madden, a flutist and tin whistle player who has been at the helm of the New York-based all-female Irish music ensemble Cherish the Ladies since its inception in 1985, the following artists will be showcasing their musical talents:

The Bowtides (a trio of fiddlers who spent 14 cumulative years – never at the same time – in Gaelic Storm), Ashley Davis (an eclectic American singer-songwriter), Goitse (a multi-award-winning traditional Irish ensemble), Dani Larkin (a singer-songwriter and folk musician from the Armagh-Monaghan border whose music is inspired by the folktales she was raised with, intertwined with elements of traditional melodies and rhythms from around the world in a timeless tradition), Susan O’Neill (SON, an enigmatic singer-songwriter who fuses traditional Irish folk with rock, soul, gospel and blues), Cathie Ryan (an award-winning Irish-American vocalist and songwriter who was the original lead singer with Cherish the Ladies), Clare Sands (a versatile Cork-born fiddler, multi-instrumentalist, composer and singer-songwriter with deep family roots in Northern Ireland and County Wexford, whose sound is rooted in Irish traditional music), and Aoife Scott (a Dublin-based folksinger-songwriter who is part of the legendary Black Family).

The Association of Irish & Celtic Festivals (AICF) is a collective of more than 170 festivals throughout The United States and Canada that aims to bring the Irish culture – via music, education, food and dance – to those not in Ireland in the hopes that those traditions are never lost. Referring to the concert as “a celebration of the female spirit,” Erin O’Rourke from Indy Irish Fest in Indianapolis and an AICF executive board member, said: “We hope that by highlighting this Irish patron saint and her holiday and stories, we can entertain and educate audiences with a program that celebrates her, and some of the best female Irish musicians and dancers across the world.” More information about the St. Brigid’s Day Concert and AICF may be found at irishcelticfestivals.org.

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.”

Among the notable artists slated to perform during the festival are Balsam Range, Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, David Bromberg Quintet, Joe Crookston, Jeff Daniels, Mary Gauthier, John Gorka, Patty Griffin, Eileen Ivers, Christine Lavin, Martha Redbone, Tom Paxton and The DonJuans, Riders in the Sky, The Seldom Scene, The Slambovian Circus of Dreams, Alexis P. Suter Ministers of Sound, Tempest, Trout Fishing in America, and Molly Tuttle.

A number of talented Canadian artists are also on the bill — including Melanie Brulee, Matthew Byrne, Elage Diouf, Earle and Coffin, Jay Gilday, Terence Jack, David Myles, Benjamin Dakota Rogers, Dana Sipos, and The Small Glories. From the UK are Scottish folk-roots rockers Skerryvore (my favorite new musical discovery during the 2018 Folk Alliance International Conference) and Gloucestershire duo The Black Feathers. Limerick, Ireland’s Hermitage Green makes its Philadelphia Folk Festival debut, as do Australian singer-songwriter Tom West and Tuvan throat singers Alash.

Also of note are Michigan-based band The Accidentals (named among Yahoo Music’s 10 Bands to Watch” in 2017), Washington, DC area-based singer-songwriter Crys Matthews (grand prize winner of the 2018 NewSong Music Competition and winner of the People’s Music Network’s Social Justice Songs Contest at the 2017 Northeast Regional; Folk Alliance Conference), Austin, Texas-based singer-songwriter Matt The Electrician, and rollicking, high-energy folk-rockers Scott Wolfson and Other Heroes.

Among the up-and-coming local touring artists who will showcase their talents during the festival are April Mae & the June Bugs, Michael Braunfeld, Meghan Cary & Analog Gypsies, Orion Freeman, Marion Halliday & Trickster Sister, Aaron Nathans & Michael G. Ronstadt, and Brittany Tranbaugh. A Friday morning album release celebration for Kicking Down Doors and Tin Bird Choir will take place on the Camp Stage.

As the names above suggest, the Philadelphia Folk Festival features an eclectic mix of traditional and contemporary music that stretches the boundaries of folk, helping to broaden its appeal and reach a new generation of listeners. National and international touring artists of note as well as emerging ones are on the bill.

In partnership with the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA), a regional affiliate of Folk Alliance International, the festival will also showcase the talents of three up-and-coming young artists/acts –the previously mentioned Benjamin Dakota Rogers and Earle and Coffin, as well as Lula Wiles, a female Americana trio recently singed to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings– during a NERFA Presents Young Folk song swap on Saturday morning.

In addition to musical performances and workshops on eight stages – including an accordion workshop, contra dancing with Groovemama, a Martin Guitar Jam, and a late Sunday afternoon Klezmer dance party — there will be an array of children’s activities in the shady Dulcimer Grove – including craft-making and performances by The Give & Take Jugglers and a number of children- and family-oriented artists. As in years past, many artisans will display and sell their creations in an open-air juried crafts area.

There’s also a festival within the festival for those who opt to camp onsite and enjoy some late-night musical revelry. The 40-acre campground – chock-a-block with tents — is home to a unique late-night scene, with singing by campfires and jamming into the early morning hours. David Dye, host of the syndicated World Café radio program, will host a special Thursday night concert on the Camp Stage — featuring multi-ethnic Latin pop songstress Gina Chavez, contemporary blues guitarist and singer-songwriter Toranzo Cannon, and Scots folk band Talisk — exclusively for all-festival camping ticket holders.

Both day and full-festival passes are available for purchase. Children under 12 will be admitted free with an adult, while discounted tickets are available for youth, ages 12-17

For more information about the Philadelphia Folk Festival and to order tickets, visit www.pfs.org/philadelphia-folk-festival/.

Editor’s Note: As president of the NERFA board of directors, I have the honor and pleasure of hosting the “NERFA Presents Young Folk” showcase on Saturday morning, Aug. 18, at 11 a.m.

Designed to help musicians and music businesses gain greater recognition and be honored by their peers and the public for providing entertainment and service, the awards were open to artists who live in Montgomery or Bucks County or perform there at least six times a year. They are modeled after the Lehigh Valley Music Awards, which also were presented recently (see article in the Awards & Contests section of AcousticMusicScene.com).

Drawing on the diverse musical backgrounds of its band members, RUNA brings a contemporary and refreshing experience to traditional and more recently composed Celtic material. As revealed on Jealousy, its independently released 2009 debut album, and in concert, RUNA’s repertoire is a fusion of music from Ireland, Scotland, the Shetland Islands, Canada and the U.S. and includes both high energy and more graceful acoustic melodies.

Lambert-Ryan, formerly the lead female vocalist in the Guy Mendilow Band, a Boston-based world music group, also has performed as a vocalist with such artists as Moya Brennan, John Flynn, Joe Jencks, Iain Campbell Smith, and Bob Beach. She has had training and experience in classical music and musical theater as well.

With his innovative style of rhythmic playing, Lambert-Ryan’s husband and Dublin-born guitarist Fionan de Barra contributes new dynamics both to the band’s lively tunes and its captivating ballads. He started playing guitar professionally with Riverdance in the U.S. in 2001, has worked as musical director for popular Irish artist Moya Brennan (the voice of Clannad and sister of Enya), tours regularly with Fiddler’s Bid, and has also performed with such notable Irish artists as Solas, Eileen Ivers, Tommy Fleming and Frances Black.

Keeping the beat is Cheryl Prashker, a Canadian percussionist who now calls Philadelphia home. Prashker who also has performed with such artists as Jonathan Edwards, Full Frontal Folk, The Strangelings and Pat Wictor, brings a wide range of percussive styles to the music and adds to the versatility of the band’s arrangements.

More information on RUNA can be found online at www.runamusic.com.

Among the other recipients of Montgomery Bucks Music Awards were Arianne Rox (Best Live Americana Performance), Craig Thatcher (Best Singer-Songwriter), Paint Box Acoustic (Best Duo) and The Puck (Best Venue).

Editor’s Note: As a communications and public relations strategist who promotes select concerts for RUNA, I could not be happier for Shannon, Fionan and Cheryl. I’m also delighted that RUNA will be joining Burning Bridget Cleary, another talented Philly area Celtic band, in closing out the AcousticMusicScene.com Song Swaps at the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) Conference with A Celtic Set this weekend.

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.