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Cygnet Folk Festival Celebrating Generations |
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Some of the mainland acts for 2007
We'll leave these here until we've got a new lineup for 2008.
The Black Nonnas
When four Italian grandmothers (Nonnas) from WA take to the stage or get loose in the street, no one is safe from their jokes, laughter or singing along with their infectious Italian music. Fantastic, witty stand-up combined with talented musicians, donkeys, caffeine, pasta recipes and body hair. Be prepared for a wildly entertaining cabaret show with edge.
Commedia Viva!
www.commediaacademy.com
Commedia Dell’Arte is traditional Italian theatre and the precursor to pantomime, slapstick and farce. Commedia Viva, from Perth , are Giovanni Margio and Antonio Mazzella who have been delighting Australian and international audiences performing under their stage names of Sanjiva and Giri. Both talented performers who have studied in Venice , Italy as well as Indonesia , Malaysia and India , their shows and workshops look at some of the main characters of the Commedia, using masks, slapstick, Italian music and song to create a witty, engaging, exciting performance with appeaerances from some notorious, archetypal characters.
Danny Spooner
Danny Spooner is a legend on the folk scene in Australia, Europe, Canada, the USA and the UK and a perennial favorite at Cygnet concerts and sessions for his vast repertoire of traditional folk songs, work songs and shanties as well as his prodigious knowledge about the historical background to the songs and styles. Danny’s passion is the expression of British and Australian culture through folk music.
Difficult Women
Lin van Hek & Joe Dolce
Lin van Hek is an author, actress and storyteller, fashion designer, and the extraordinary singers with one of the most distinct and unforgettable voices around and a long background in women’s issues.
Difficult Women is a colourful, enthralling and informative concert that explores the lives of women artists from Mexican painter, Frida Kahlo, to blueswoman, Memphis Minnie, poet Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf and many others that have been marginalised and remain unknown. To be called “difficult” was a badge of pride for many pioneering women of the past. Lin van Hek and Joe Dolce have performed Difficult Women in concerts and folk and art festivals all over the world and, after repeated requests from people lucky enough to see Difficult Women during their Tasmanian tour in the 90s, we are very fortunate to have them back in Cygnet.
Emily Barker
Emily Barker is a singer-songwriter from Bridgetown WA, and she has been touring on the UK festival circuit with her band the-low-country since 2002 where her incredible vocals and evocative lyrics brought her great success on the Americana and Alt-country scene. In 2005 Emily won the Annual WAMI Songwriting Awards for both Country and Regional song of the year divisions.
Golden Fleece
www.move.com.au/artist.cfm/330
Golden Fleece is an Australian vocal ensemble from Mlebourne which performs, collects, teaches and researches traditional Georgian music. The group takes its name from the well known mythical object the golden fleece. Since froming in 1996 the trio has performed concerts and given workshops at many Australian music events and they have performed abroad in Chicago and Los Angeles . The trio Golden Fleece consists of Georgian ethnomusicologists Joseph Jordania, PhD and Nino Tsitsishvili. The third member of the ensemble is German-born Christoph Maubach, a music educator who has specialised in Orff music and movement education. He is a lecturer in music education at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne .
Gorani
Gorani , Australia ’s unique nine voice male singing ensemble specializes in the performance of traditional songs from the incredible vocal choral traditions from Georgia and Bulgaria . Gorani’s broad repertoire ranges through sublime church songs and blissful healing songs to songs of farm workers and their animals, love songs and even a song about horses galloping from Tbilisi to Hobart.
James Keelaghan and Oscar Lopez
Canada 's James Keelaghan has established himself as a singer songwriter with an international following - and a compelling ability to tell the stories of himself and his land. His passion for history has inspired some of his most celebrated songs. James has teamed up with Chilean-Canadian guitar virtuoso Oscar Lopez, renowned for his ability to incorporate flamenco, jazz, blues and even pop sensibilities into his music and together they create a “Celtino” celtic latin fusion that has excited festival audiences all over the world.
Jeff Lang
Singer-songwriter Jeff Lang has built up a reputation for startlingly original performances, working without a set list, allowing the unique energy of each night to shape the songs. Jeff Lang is critically acclaimed as a truly great guitar player. The unusual thing is that the guitar playing never gets in the way of the music, nor overshadows his gift for hauntingly poetic songwriting. As a live performer Lang is only satisfied when something truly inspired takes place. He has delivered show-stopping performances at Austrralian festivals and has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Stage and Acoustic Café, and he has performed at such festivals as the Dublin Blues Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Quebec City Music Festival, Falcon Ridge, Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival, Blissfest, and the Ottawa Blues Fest.
Joe Dolce
Joe Dolce is has performed internationally and around Australia and he is a show stopper with the depth of his performing skills: Social commentary, sweet and soulful vocals and guitarwork, humour, blues harp virtuoso, storytelling and acclaimed songs. He is an accomplished festival solo performer and the best of 35 years of writing.
This will be the first time that we have presented a performer who can boast having a number 1 hit in 15 countries (who could forget his 1980 smash-hit “Shaddap Your Face”?) Apart from giving solo performances showcasing his own powerful material, a blues-harp workshop and backing Lin van Hek in Difficult Women, Joe will be compere of another festival first – a single-song interpretation competiton open to all our performers for the best version of “Shaddap Your Face”.
John Palmes
John Palmes is a singer/songwriter, biologist and fisherman from Juneau Alaska who also plays folk standards, original songs, gospel songs in Tlingit’ (a Native American language), rock, cajun, old-time, classical, jug band and reggae on fiddle, guitar and many others and is a stand-out on the world’s first stringed instrument, the mouthbow. He is a masterful collaborateur and investigator of the Darwinian evolution of folk tunes – tracking melodies such as the Flinders Island tune “Black Cat Piddled in a White Cat’s Eye” back to their source.
John Dengate
John Dengate was the headline act at the very first Cygnet Folk Festival and he’s since gone on to consolodate his reputation as “ace seditionist”. John is a well known elder statesman of satire and sharp political observation on the Australian folk music scene.
Linsey Pollak
Linsey is well known all around Australia as a musician, instrument maker, composer, musical director and community music facilitator. He has been described as wildly innovative and one of Australia ’s most brilliant composer/musicians. His first visit to the Cygnet Folk Festival in 1998 was hugely popular. This year he is coming back to create a Macedonian Gypsy style brass/wind street band.
Monique Brumby
Monique Brumby is a 6th generation Tasmanian legend. Her music features strong melodies, powerful storytelling and encompasses elements of folk, rock, blues and soul. Monique has won 2 ARIA Awards is now forging her career as an independent artist and building her reputation as one of Australia ’s premier performers and songwriters. Monique is set to release her third album Into the Blue and will be appearing at Cygnet with her band Don Farrell, Maryanne Window and Chris Tabone.
Not Quite Latin
Crack Melbourne Guitar duo of Paddy Affley and James Southan Not Quite Latin have been touring and performing together for ten years, playing mostly Latin, Spanish and Flamenco with a touch of traditional Irish thrown in for good measure. Hardly surprising as Paddy’s dad was Declan Affley, another of the headline performers at the first Cygnet Folk Festivals.
Qwerty
Qwerty is an amazing improvising wordsmith Peter Rowe with facilitated communication ans soaring vocals by Terri Delany and live looping of WX5 windsynth by Linsey Pollak. Peter improvises completely new songs by pointing to letters on a qwerty keyboard. The words that Peter taps out are read and sung by Terri Delaney. Her melodies are totally improvised in response to the music that Linsey is creating by improvising and “live looping” (playing, recording and building up complex layers of various sounds) using his WX5 (a midi windsynth).
Southern Cross Trawlers
Margaret Walters and Don Brian from Sydney share an interest in Australian traditional songs, especially those with a maritime content. They have pooled their talents for unaccompanied singing and for trawling through songs books and elsewhere for unusual material and have built an astounding repertoire. “Trawling the Southern Oceans” considers the maritime history of the Southern Ocean (including songs of whalers, sealsers, sawyers and convicts).
Sunas
One of Queensland's premier Celtic groups, Sunas are a four piece ensemble of multi-instrumentalists that will enchant you with vocals, flutes, whistles, guitar, bodhran, bouzouki, mandolin and fiddle. Touring in Tasmania in January and making a special appearance at Cygnet for the Sataurday night Celtic concert.
Steve Turner
Steve Turner's accordian playing and huge repertoire of English folk songs have made him a legend on the UK folk scene. Touring Australia and in Tasmania in the Summer we are very fortunate to have him as a featured international performer at Cygnet.
The Ten Cent Shooters
www.slwise.com.au
The Ten Cent Shooters are one of Western Australia ’s longest established and most popular blues bands. The Shooters are known for their high energy presentation of those early country blues tunes and can play quiet and intimate acoustic concert sets to select small audiences. On the other hand if you have a crowd who wants to dance and have the room and sound system, the Shooters can make the earth shake!