{Michael originally wrote this after attending the Lowell Folk Festival in 2009. For the next couple of weeks, he'll be sharing music from this year's festival.}
The Lowell Folk Festival has happened one weekend in the month of July annually for 23 years. And yes it happens each year in Lowell, Massachusetts, a mill town built on the Merrimack River to catch the river's current to power the making of cloth from cotton thread until that industry moved down south.
In the years after the Vietnam War, a large number of immigrants from Southeast Asia were settled in Lowell with government help. In a continuation of its history,
Lowell is a town that welcomes people from many places. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was Germans, Irish, Swedes, Lithuanians, Jews from Eastern Europe, French Canadians. Today it is Nigerians, Colombians, Filipinos, Laotians, Vietnamese, Cambodians. The list could go on and on. It is truly a melting pot. And as a result Lowell has experienced a re-awakening of its spirit, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, to become a lively destination for arts, crafts and cultural activities.
So on a Friday evening, all day and evening Saturday, and Sunday till 6, usually on the last full weekend in July each year, Lowell thrives with people and music, master craftspeople and many different ethnic foods made by local citizens for the most part. The streets are alive with kids and families, visitors of all ages and backgrounds. And all against the backdrop of beautiful mill town brick. Oh and did I mention that this festival is free? It's actually the largest free folk festival in the U.S. And it moves with about a thousand volunteers.
And let me not forget to tell you about the composting program at the festival. Each of the food vendors supplies their hungry customers with plates, cups, knives and forks that are compostable. All this material is collected and composted and each year you can pick up a bag of the previous year's festival garbage now turned to earth. Cans and bottles etc. are also collected and recycled.
Over the years it seems to me it has become more and more of a world music (and world food) festival even though most of the performers (and cooks) live in the United States. And it is folk music in the sense of traditional music. The musicians (and dancers at times) perform from out of their own backgrounds, their ancestry, whether its Jewish, Senegaleze, Greek, French-Canadian, appalachian, Brazilian, Cambodian, Native American, Balkan, Armenian, Southern blues, tex-mex and on and on.
There are 6 stages set up on the streets and plazas around town and so for two and a half days there is a continual walking to and back between the stages and food courts to catch the different acts and eat the different foods. There is also lively dancing in several of the music locations. Shattuck is a street full of kids games and activities. There are cafes and restaurants with tables and music outside. Street musicians entertain passers-by. There are great museums and art galleries to visit. One of them not to be missed is the New England Quilt Museum with an astounding collection and special displays of older and contemporary quilts. This year they exhibited quilts discovered all over Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Documentation Project.
This year's Lowell Folk Festival, the 25th, will take place July 29-31, 2011.
For more information: Lowell Folk Festival
