Sounds like it’s a big deal for Tassie

NEXT

weekend’s 2018 National Folk Festival will take on a distinctly Tasmanian flavour, with at least a dozen Tassie acts set to perform in Canberra over the Easter period.

A five-day celebration that showcases music from around the world — including folk, blues, roots, jazz, bluegrass, Celtic, choral and country — the National Folk Festival will this year feature 200 international and Australian acts, playing at more than 750 individual events across 18 venues.

The National Folk Festival was first held in Melbourne in 1967 and moved between different Australian cities and towns for 26 years, before putting down roots in Canberra in 1993.

Each year the festival gives a nod to its wandering history by featuring the best folk acts from two “feature states’’. This year those states are Victoria and Tasmania.

Tasmanian acts set to perform include The Chordwainers, who play instruments made by worldrenowned leather sculptor Garry Greenwood.

In Canberra next Friday night (March 30) they will perform against a backdrop of pictures taken by Tasmanian landscape and wildlife photographers, as well as images of Greenwood’s Mt Barrow workshop.

The Chordwainers will be joined in Canberra by Hobart gypsy jazz fusion group Frumious; “forbidden banjo” band The Black Swans of Trespass; soulful singer Claire Anne Taylor; Hobart husband and wife duo Meyers and McNamara; bush dance band The Tassie Devil’s Own; the Grassroots Union Choir of Tasmania; haunting Hobart ensemble Silkweed; duos Ryan Garth & Emily Wolfe and Teri Young & Randal Muir; and former Tasmanian musicians Daniel J Townsend and Luke Plumb.

The 52nd National Folk Festival will be held in the ACT suburb of Mitchell from March 29 to April 2. For details and bookings, go to www.folkfestival.org.au