Organizers say boost from 50th Alaska Folk Festival means this year’s is even bigger
- Mark Sabbatini
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Traditional week of concerts, dances and workshops starting Monday also features neon, puppets and new documentary about festival’s historic half century
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
One might expect the 51st Alaska Folk Festival to be a bit tamer than the landmark 50-year bash, but organizers say last year’s golden anniversary get-together set the stage for an even bigger week of music, dance and other activities this year.
"The 50th brought so many new members into the fold," said Josh Fortenbery, president of the festival’s board, while he and others were setting up Centennial Hall on Sunday for shows starting Monday evening. "And so a lot of people that were excited about the thing last year — or maybe hadn't been in a while, or never been before — all signed up as members last year. So we have the largest membership we've ever had. And so I think that allows us to keep building every year and make it keep getting bigger and better, without ever compromising the idea that it's always going to be free."
The festival opens at 6:30 p.m. Monday in the main Centennial Hall ballroom with a 15-minute set by the Juneau Community Chorus and is scheduled to close sometime after the 9 p.m. Sunday concert by featured guest performer Willi Carlisle with a traditional crowd singalong of "Goodnight Irene." Other workshops and dance band events are scheduled during the week in Centennial Hall’s other rooms and the adjacent Juneau Arts and Culture Center, plus a variety of non-official and "after-hours" events at venues throughout downtown.
Among the new — or least not previously remembered — features at this year’s festival is a neon backdrop of a guitar and stars, a "50 Years of Folk Fest" that will be screened twice on Saturday at KTOO’s studios, and life-size puppets Carlisle is bringing with him as part of his act.
"We need two people to operate these backpack puppets," said Annie Bartholomew, another festival board member and longtime Juneau musician. "I think it's a raccoon and a king, and they fight each other."
Carlisle, 36, who performed a 15-minute set during the 2019 festival, may also be the first person in such a slot who has returned as the festival’s guest artist, Bartholomew said.
Born in Kansas and now based in Arkansas, Carlisle performs "traditional folk music for 21st century problems," according to a Grammy.com feature following the release of the second of his four current albums. His website proclaims "singing is healing" and "by singing together, he believes we can begin to reckon with the inevitability of human suffering and grow in love."
Fortenberry said that kind of presence is what motivated the invitation from the festival’s board.
"I think just in the current sort of political climate — the feeling of sort of dread and civil unrest and disconnection — his joy and his model of trying to just bring everyone to the fold just really fits what we think we need sort of culturally right now," Fortenberry said. "So it’s just a really apt pick for the times we live in."
The rest of the lineup on the main stage features a multitude of well-known local musicians in 15-minute slots that, as usual, are fully booked with a long standby list (about 85 artists on Monday morning, according to the festival’s website).
This year’s poster was designed by Savannah LeCornu, a self-taught Ketchikan artist who is Tsimshian, Haida, and Nimiipuu (Nez Perce), according to the festival’s website. The poster features silhouetted musicians in a zig-zagging line of northern lights above Juneau’s nighttime cityscape.
Dance music is scheduled Thursday through Saturday evenings at the JACC, with four or five bands performing each night. This year’s feature dance band is The Red Hots, a quartet from North Carolina, with Connor Maguire serving as the featured guest caller for that band and some of the other dance performances.
Bartholomew said her banjo teacher, Riley Baugus, is a member of The Red Hots who has toured with musicians such as Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss.
"He's a great teacher, and the guys he plays with are all really cool," Bartholomew said. "It'll be great getting him to dance and teaching people, and bringing in some authentic North Carolina, old-time dance Appalachian stuff."
She said she’s also familiar with Maguire, having been to dances he’s called in California and Idaho.
"He looks like a lumberjack," Bartholomew said. "I'm afraid he’ll move to Juneau because he'll just fall in love with it. But he's really boisterous and fun."
Fortenbery said he was barely able to squeeze in the roughly 30 individuals or groups wanting to conduct workshops Saturday and Sunday. Offerings range from introductory sessions on music theory and square dance calling to applying for Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Awards, the latter being among the notable new additions.
"This is about the most workshop applications I've ever received," he said.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
