Northwest Folklife

[Michael Ducky Raley]

at Seattle Center.

[Bruce McCaskey]

Much depends on the weather, the current forecast isn't encouraging for the outdoor entertainment but I hear it's supposed to be decent on Sunday. I've grown spoiled by the good weather for the four-day event over the last few years. Between the featured performers on the schedule and the impromptu buskers there are literally hundreds of people performing over the course of the event and many thousands of spectators. My biggest complaint is that too much happens at once, at any given moment that are typically five or more stages of performers and at times as many as eleven or twelve.

 

On the topic of concertinas, Tom Lawrence said he was going to be playing at noon today (Friday) at the Roadhouse so I fear that's already past, but there are other concertina related performances yet to come.

 

If you're there on Saturday afternoon you'll have a chance to hear Bertram Levy on his bandoneon at 3:15 PM, he'll be appearing along with another member of his quartet Tangoheart. He tells me that they were asked to fill in for a cancellation at the last minute so the other two members of the quartet weren't available. Bertram says he'll be bringing his concertina along and playing with some of the old-time musicians after his on-stage performance. I'm really looking forward to that, I've been learning Bertram's method for some months now but I'm still just stumbling in the weeds compared to his mastery of the instrument. It'll be a good opportunity to hear some of the "fiddle style" approach to music as detailed in his upcoming tutor. He knows a lot of those old tunes from the southeast.

 

Monday morning at 11 AM Kevin Gow will be performing alone; in the schedule it's titled "What Kind of Concertina is That?" and from the title I imagine he'll have his big duet in addition to his Anglo. At 12:20 he'll be on stage with the other members of his group "City of Crows" doing Welsh music.

 

Christine Roe plays Anglo and when I spoke to her in March she said she'd be performing at Folklife. I can't recall the name of the group she's going to be with so don't know where to find her on the schedule.

 

Refer to the Folklife Schedule for more details, and note that there's a nicely formated PDF version one can print from that page. Things start getting pretty busy from mid-afternoon Friday and on through the weekend.

 

My wife and I will be in and out over the course of the weekend. We don't have a set schedule, rather we roam and settle where the music calls to us.

[Michael Ducky Raley]

thanks for the tip about Bertram. the rain was manageable today, later in the afternoon the complaints from performers were about the cold. Your right about the bustle of it, around the core stages, there wss too much of a density of noise for most of the time.

[Michael Ducky Raley]

I put one picture up on angloconcertinaplayers ning site , from when I stopped by the oil spill booth

to pose with the octopus dude