House Concerts

2018 Festival Logo Wide

Click on video to see highlights from the March, 2018 festival and a peek into our plans for 2019: Exploring our African roots from Zimbabwe to Appalachia.

Ticket sales for producing a festival typically do not cover the cost of production. And that’s where you come in! FolkWorks depends on your generosity. When you click to donate below, 100% of the money we raise in this campaign will go to pay talented performers and teachers.

Please donate what you can to allow us to present the best diverse musical traditions for this amazing event.

COLUMN OF THE WEEK

November-December 2018

THE PITY OF WAR:

ARMISTICE DAY CENTENNIAL

NOVEMBER 11, 1918-NOVEMBER 11, 2018

By Ross Altman, PhD

Oh the First World War, boys, it came and it went / And the reason for fighting I never did get / But I learned to accept it / Accept it with pride / For you don’t count the dead / When God’s on your side. – “With God On Our Side,” by Bob Dylan

Oh I marched to the battle of the German trench / In the war that was supposed to end all wars / I must have killed a million men / And now they want me back again / But I ain’t marching anymore. – “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” by Phil Ochs

This book is not about heroes—English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them…

CD REVIEW

ARTIST: Michael McGinnis and David P. Jackson

TITLE: Bits and Pieces

LABEL: Shadow Hills Records

RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2018

Profile of a Folk Singer

By Art Podell

Bits and Pieces I don’t know why I felt a loss when I heard that Michael McGinnis has moved from California to Washington State, but I did. A man’s life and work are not defined by geography, but I will miss his presence at folk music gatherings here. Who is he? He’s certainly not at the top of folk music stations’ playlists but to me, when someone says the word ‘folksinger’, Michael’s image pops into my head as quickly as the image of a steaming pizza does when someone says the word pepperoni.

SPOTLIGHT

STRIKING IRON: THE ART OF AFRICAN BLACKSMITHS

Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths, is an international traveling exhibition that combines scholarship with objects of great aesthetic beauty to create the most comprehensive treatment of the blacksmith’s art in Africa to date. The exhibition includes over 225 artworks from across the African continent, focusing on the region south of the Sahara and covering a time period spanning early archaeological evidence to the present day. Borrowed from American and European public and private collections, it features wood sculptures studded with iron, blades, and currencies in a myriad of shapes and sizes, diverse musical instruments, body adornments, an array of ritual accoutrements, tools and weapons, and other important objects that enabled Africans to forage and hunt, till the soil, and assure their own protection and prosperity.

JUNE 3 – DECEMBER 30, 2018

Fowler Museum at UCLA - UCLA North Campus
405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095
310-825-4361

FEATURE ARTICLE

Chris King and the Music of Epirus

Part 1 of 2: A Profile with Christopher C. King

CLICK FOR PART 2: AN INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTOPHER C. KING

By Pat Mac Swyney

Chris King photo “The earth which fed you shall also eat you.” – Epirote Lament

When I first began learning to play traditional music from the Balkans twenty plus years ago, it was the exotic non-western modes and complex rhythms that initially drew me in. While these are still important elements within the musical traditions of the northern Greek province of Epirus, it is the much older tradition of seemingly, simple five note modes, straightforward 4/4 meters, and the wild, descending glissandos that draw in many listeners. Among outsiders with an affection for Balkan music, Epirotika (the traditional music of Epirus) holds a very special place and the mere mention elicits involuntary sighs…an inexplicable internal resonance and profound sense of kef; inadequately defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as “a state of dreamy tranquility.”

INTERVIEW

Chris King and the Music of Epirus

Part 2 of 2: An Interview with Christopher C. King

CLICK FOR PART 1: A PROFILE WITH CHRISTOPHER C. KING

By Pat Mac Swyney

Chris King full business card “Every time the needle hits the grooves, a miracle is performed.” – Chris King

I had the opportunity to chat with Chris this past August, a week before he left on another extended trip to Epirus:

PS: You are well known as an archivist, collector of 78 records and as a curator & producer of a growing number of CD and vinyl compilations from your extensive collection. Can you share how you came to 78 collecting?

CK: I began collecting 78s at the age of 15 when I discovered a small stack of pre-war discs; many black gospel but also some blues, hillbillly, Cajun, within an old shack on my grandparent's farm. My dad also collected music--including 78s but his taste was quite different from mine. And we were both natural-born collectors, so I just inherited the gene but modified the organism.

CONCERT REVIEWS

BILL STAINES IN CONCERT AT CALTECH

Beckman Institute Auditorium

The Pasadena Folk Music Society

October 20, 2018, 8:00pm

By Ross Altman, PhD

New Hampshire has only one of everything wrote Robert Frost, in the title poem to his first Pulitzer Prize-winning collection published 95 years ago in October, 1923—and it’s not for sale. She had one president, one Daniel Webster, one real reformer, only one witch~ and so on. She has only one folk singer and his name is Bill Staines.

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM GOES HIS OWN WAY

At The Orpheum Theatre

With Opener J.S. Ondara from Nairobi, Kenya

Friday October 12, 2018, 8:00pm

GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL

By Ross Altman, PhD

LOS ANGELES (FolkWorks)-Lindsey Buckingham has plenty to say before he ever takes the stage, and I’m not even referring to the lawsuit he filed last week against his former band Fleetwood Mac. Opening for him is African folk singer J.S. Ondara from Nairobi, Kenya via Minnesota—where he immigrated inspired by his adoration of Bob Dylan.

everything but ...

Paramount Ranch, home of the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest and Folk Festival
destroyed by fire

On November 9, 2018 the #WoolseyFire has destroyed the iconic Western Town at Paramount Ranch, a piece of Hollywood history used to film shows like “Westworld” and “M*A*S*H.” It was the site of the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Concest and Folk Festival since 1990. Click here for a short history of the Festival.

TBFC site after