Washington Folk Festival Update

In a normal year, the first weekend after Memorial Day would find up to 10,000 people enjoying two days of music and dance at the Washington Folk Festival, a co-production of the Folklore Society of Greater Washington (FSGW) and the Glen Echo Park Partnership for Art and Culture (GEPPAC). While the in-person Festival will not happen in 2021 due to the pandemic, We plan to return in 2022 with the 40th WFF.

In the meantime, a Pandemic won’t stop us from celebrating the very active cultures of our region!  FSGW and GEPPAC will present a livestream concert and dance from Glen Echo.

When:  Sunday June 6 at 7:30 pm

What: A livecast of two simultaneous streams of entertainment from Glen Echo’s Spanish Ballroom and other park locations. There will be no in-person audience or dancers so be sure to tune in from home for this special event

Cost: It's a free festival, as always, but donations are most welcome.  

Register to get the Zoom link

The cyber "doors" will open at 7:00 pm, and while you won't need to find a parking place or struggle to get a good seat, you might tune in early to visit with friends and fellow festival-goers.

There will be two concurrent tracks, each in a "zoom room" accessible from the single link; you can go back and forth between the streams as you choose.

 Concert & storytelling stream

• 7.30 Big Howdy Band (Dede Wyland, Randy Barrett, Ira Gitlin, and Tom McLaughlin), progressive bluegrass band.
• 8.15 Storyteller Tim Livengood.
• 8.30 Phil Wiggins and the Chesapeake Sheiks Trio, NEA Heritage Award winning blues harmonica player Phil Wiggins with Matt Kelley and Ian Waters.
• 9.30 Elena Lacayo and Los Fulanos, bilingual Latin folk band.

Dance stream

• 7.30 Janine Smith calls a mix of English and contra dances, music by Liz Donaldson - piano, Becky Ross - fiddle, Ralph Gordon – bass.
• 8.30 Lynn Baumeister teaches and leads a variety of balfolk dances with music by Millevaches (Leslie Barr, Sarah Gowan, and Bill Quern). 
• 9.30 April Blum calls a mix of English and contra dances, music by Trio Con Brio (Elke Baker - fiddle, Paul Oorts - guitar and accordion, Jonathan Jensen - piano).