CALGARY, CANADA (Top40 Charts) Expect the unexpected at Festival Hall - 1215 10 Ave. SE - this winter and spring as the Calgary Folk
Music Festival presents live performances that encompass music, film, food, theatre, spoken word and even an advice panel.
Inuit vocalist
Tanya Tagaq launches the Show Your
Roots Aboriginal series - which will be presented at both the Hall and Festival - as she, Jean
Martin and Cris Derksen provide the soundtrack to 1922's provocative film Nanook of the North.
Roots and Troubadours includes compelling lyricist and composer Mark Berube with Winnipeg upstarts The Bros. Landreth and Australia's rising roots star Jordie Lane. Both instrumentalist extraordinaire Steve Dawson and Bedouin Soundclash's Jay Malinowski release their new records at their Hall concerts.
Highland folk-noir artist Rachel Sermanni and BC's acoustic alchemists Tequila Mockingbird Ensemble return after wowing folks at last year's Festival. May boasts a first-time Calgary appearance by Los Angeles's flat-picking harmony duo Milk Carton Kids .
The Beyond
Music series continues with HELP! , where a panel of local experts provide real-life advice. The frivolity resumes with the showing of the classic mockumentary A Mighty Wind as audience members recreate the summer vibe seated on festival chairs and astro-turf. The Calgary Collection film explores our folk music community through songs and stories of local musicians, followed by live performances. More revelry will ensue as The Old Trout Puppet Workshop present This
Little Piggie , a grandiose concert of theatrical proportions full of pigs, puppets and pump organs. The Beyond
Music programming is capped off with Chefly Screen Shots , a special "20 for 20" event filled with food, film and music that tributes City Palate Magazine's 20th anniversary.
Toronto's Juno Award nominee and powerhouse singer Shakura S'Aida 's
Black History Month school programming culminates in TD Then and Now , presented by
Black Artists in Dialogue, with performances by Shakura, indie/folk artist The Mountaineer , rap poet dynamo Wakefield Brewster and novelist Suzette Mayr.
February's Birkenstock Ball inaugurates the Festival's 35 th anniversary with performances by 'celtino' kings Compadres (Juno Award winning wordsmith
James Keelaghan and fiery guitarist Oscar Lopez), and roots guitar wizard Wil . New York's iconic confessional urban poet and songwriter Garland Jeffreys continues the legacy festivities with his May concert.
Last year's transcendent
William Parker show will be followed by another stellar jazz show as the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble of
Chicago brings their innovative funky free improvisational music.
Visit festivalhallcalgary.com for tickets and more information.