Kathleen Edwards, Bahamas, and The Trews Acoustic will headline the Peterborough Folk Festival when it returns for its 33rd edition from August 17 to 21, 2022, organizers announced on Wednesday (July 6).

This year’s musical performances begin with two ticketed concerts at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre on Thursday and Friday, followed by a weekend of free music and activities at Nicholls Oval Park for the first time since the pandemic began. The festival also includes a film screening and two weekend after-parties in downtown Peterborough.

Along with the headliners, other performers announced on Wednesday include Odario, AHI, My Son The Hurricane, Georgia Harmer, and Adria Kain, along with local musicians Kelly McMichael, Joyful Joyful, Michael C Duguay, Lauryn Macfarlane, Kayla Mohammed, and Nathan Truax.

“We are truly lucky to have so many amazing talented local in Peterborough,” says the festival’s artistic director Ryan Kemp in a media release. “I don’t think many people in Peterborough are aware that Kelly McMichael and Joyful Joyful were just long-listed last week for the Polaris Music Prize for top Canadian albums in 2022 alongside The Weeknd and Arcade Fire. We are so fortunate as a community to have them both perform at this year’s festival.”

The festival will kick off on Wednesday, August 17th at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre with a screening of the hour-long film We Can Do This, which documents the festival’s concert series at Rolling Grape Vineyard in Baileboro over four nights in August 2021, with performances by Greg Keelor and Melissa Payne, Chantal Kreviazuk, Hawksley Workman, Terra Lightfoot, William Prince, Whitehorse, Brooks and Bowskill, Donavan Woods and The Opposition, and Travis Good of The Sadies. The film was a finalist for the small music festival award at Canada Music Week.

On Thursday, August 18th, there will be a ticketed concert at the Market Hall, with the performer to be announced, followed on Friday by a ticketed concert by Juno-nominated Kathleen Edwards, with tickets going on sale on Friday, July 8th.

VIDEO: “Glenfern” by Kathleen Edwards

VIDEO: “Stepping Stone” – Kelly McMichael

On Saturday, August 20th and Sunday, August 21st, the festival moves to Nicholls Oval Park where musicians will perform on five stages. The weekend’s festivities also include more than 50 artisan vendors, a children’s village presented by Lavender and Play, and a beer garden presented by Cameron’s Brewing.

Juno-winning and Grammy-nominated musician Bahamas (Afie Jurvanen) will headline the festival on Saturday and Odario, host of CBC Music’s Afterdark, will emcee Saturday night’s main stage and perform with his band. On Sunday, Juno-nominated and ECMA award-winning band The Trews will perform as The Trews Acoustic with a full acoustic band.

Jumo-nominated artist AHI (Ahkinoah Habah Izarh) will also perform on Sunday, as well as the 12-piece brass band My Son The Hurricane.

Past folk festival emerging artists Lauryn Macfarlane and Kelly McMichael — who is an ECMA winner for best rock album for her debut full-length album Waves, which has also been long-listed for the 2022 Polaris Music Prize — will also be performing, along with Joyful Joyful (singer Cormac Culkeen and instrumentalist Dave Greno), also long-listed for the 2022 Polaris Music Prize for their self-titled debut album.

“We will have a second announcement in the coming weeks with more national and local artists being added,” Kemp says. “I’m proud to see the lineup come together the way it has so far and I have a feeling many attendees will discover their next favourite artist at the festival this year.”

There will also be after-parties on Saturday and Sunday night at Jethro’s Bar + Stage and the Historic Red Dog in downtown Peterborough, Festival musicians frequently show up to perform at the after-parties.

VIDEO: “Tired of Waiting” – The Trews

VIDEO: “Marrow” – Joyful Joyful

With a record 14,000 people attending in 2019, the Peterborough Folk Festival is seeking 125 volunteers to help with this year’s event.

“It seems that it is more difficult to recruit volunteers,” says the festival’s board chair Malcolm Byard. “We are reaching out to the greater community to ensure we are able to host the event in the same manner as the community has grown to appreciate.”

“If we are unable to recruit at least another 125 volunteers, the festival may not look like it has pre-pandemic,” Byard adds. “If you can help, please reach out. We are a 100 per cent volunteer-organized charity, so we don’t have year-round paid staff to raise sponsorships or recruit volunteers.”

VIDEO: “Way With Words” – Bahamas

VIDEO: “Danger” – AHI

To become a volunteer, donate or sponsor the festival, or become an artisan vendor, visit peterboroughfolkfest.com.

kawarthaNOW is pleased to be a major media sponsor of the 2022 Peterborough Folk Festival.

You may not have heard of flamenco flutist Lara Wong before, but the Canadian musician — who is performing with her trio at the Gordon Best in Peterborough on Friday (July 8) — surprised the world of flamenco in 2021 by becoming the first foreigner and the first woman to ever win the prestigious “Filon Minero” award for best flamenco instrumentalist at the Festival Cante de las Minas.

Spain’s most important flamenco competition. the Festival Cante de las Minas names their choice every year for the best flamenco singer, dancer, guitarist, and instrumentalist. Since the festival began in 1961, no foreigner has ever won in any category, with prizes traditionally going to Spaniards born in the southern province of Andalusia, where flamenco originated and remains ubiquitous.

The 31-year-old Wong, who was born and raised in Vancouver, began playing piano when she was around five years old and turned to the flute when she was around 11. By that time, she was already obsessed with Spanish music. Although she received a degree in classical and jazz flute from McGill University in Montreal, she never lost her passion for the music of Spain.

“I was attracted to the sorrow and the sadness of the music,” she tells CBC’s Gloria Macarenko in an interview. “As a flute player, I never really liked the flute repertoire. It was always too happy and bird-like and chirpy. So I was really attracted to (flamenco’s) dramatic intensity, and also the complexity of the rhythm and the energy.”

In 2012, Wong moved to Spain — living first in Seville, then Granada, and now Madrid — so she could immerse herself in the music of flamenco. Since there is no formal education for flamenco flute in Spain, she learned by playing in dance classes, at informal street jams, and at late-night flamenco parties.

She also studied flamenco singing so she could learn the traditional flamenco melodies and adapt them for the flute, and took private lessons with flamenco flute masters like Jorge Pardo, the flutist who accompanied the late great flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia.

VIDEO: Lara Wong Tria – Canada 2022 Summer Tour Promo

In Madrid, she formed the Lara Wong Trio and released their first album, Rosa de los Vientos (Spanish for “compass rose”), and is now on her first cross-Canada tour.

“As a Canadian artist dedicated to the niche genre of the flamenco flute, it is a joy for me to bring this unique art form to Canadians who have yet to discover the world of flamenco jazz music,” she tells kawarthaNOW in an email.

The Lara Wong Trio performs at 8 p.m. on Friday, July 8th at the Gordon Best Theatre at 216 Hunter Street West in downtown Peterborough. Wong will be performing on flute and bansuri (Indian bamboo flute) and will be accompanied by Spanish musicians Ivan Mellén on percussion and Melon Jimenez on flamenco guitar.

Jiménez, one of the most notable guitarists in Spain’s flamenco and world music scene, is known for his innovative approach to flamenco guitar, translating techniques from the sitar, slide guitar, and African gimbri. He has toured with renowned musicians including Anoushka Shankar, Chuchito Valdes, Jorge Pardo, Richard Bona, Enirque Morente, and Armando Manzanero. This year, he became a finalist in the prestigious “Paco de Lucia” award.

Tickets for the Lara Wong Trio are $22 in advance at eventbrite.es/e/36009779118 or $25 at the door.

For more information about Lara Wong, visit larawong.com.

VIDEO: “Rosa de los Vientos” by Lara Wong

When it rains, it pours — and sometimes that’s a good thing. Back on August 29, 2021, Peterborough Musicfest brought Canadian alt-rockers Sam Roberts Band to Peterborough to headline a free-admission concert, held drive-in style in the Peterborough Memorial Centre parking lot due to the pandemic.

Opened by The Weber Brothers Band, things started out well enough but a few songs into Sam Roberts Band’s set, a violent thunderstorm rolled in from the west and, well, that was that.

As the venue quickly emptied, no one was more disappointed than Roberts himself. Taking cover from the pelting rain, he promised to return to Peterborough to finish what he had started and, in fact, directed his people to make that happen.

On Wednesday, July 6th, Sam Roberts will deliver on that vow, fronting his band at Del Crary Park before a much larger audience as Peterborough Musicfest’s 35th season continues. As always, admission to the 8 p.m. concert is free.

With the 2003 release of his debut double-platinum album We Were Born In A Flame, it was clear right from the get-go that Sam Roberts was destined for Canadian rock music stardom. Six studio albums and 15 Juno Award nominations later, the Montreal-raised singer-songwriter has more than lived up to that billing.

Roberts’ career has been a tale of two trajectories.

As Sam Roberts, the singer, guitarist, and songwriter released two subsequent albums — Chemical City in 2006 and Love At The End Of The World in 2008 — and then, with The Sam Roberts Band, brought forth the studio albums Collider, Lo-Fantasy, TerraForm and, in 2020, All Of Us.

VIDEO: “Brother Down” – Sam Roberts Band

Roberts didn’t return empty handed from his trips to the Juno Awards. At the 2004 ceremony, his arms cradled four of the coveted statues, for Album of the Year, Rock Album of the Year and Artist of the Year for We Were Born In A Flame, and Video of the Year for the tune “Bridge To Nowhere.”

Then, in 2009, Roberts again won Artist of the Year and Rock Album of the Year for Love At The End Of The World.

The 2003 release of We Were Born In A Flame was preceded by a six-track EP, The Inhuman Condition. It included a song that remains a staple of Roberts’ set list to this day. In a 2016 interview with Laura Antonelli of Songfacts, Roberts reflects on the staying power of that song, “Brother Down.”

“I think there’s an honesty to the line ‘I think my life is passing me by’ that we all feel,” Roberts says. “When I wrote that song, I was at a point where my dream of playing music, not just for a living but being able to devote and dedicate my life to making music and not having to work at another job that was going to pull me away from it, was a real thing.”

“But it seemed like it was just slipping away further and further every day. That’s when I wrote that song. Of course, strangely enough, it’s the song that ends up launching our career. I think maybe that feeling of desperation is something that we can all relate to somehow.”

As for his evolution as a songwriter since that early success, Roberts says maturity brings with it a different perspective that’s reflected in the lyrics.

VIDEO: “Hard Road” – Sam Roberts Band

“You start off writing songs as a young person and you’re living in a world that revolves almost entirely around yourself and your own needs and ambitions,” Roberts says. “As you get older, it starts to become less and less about you, especially when you have kids and a family.”

“You start to see the world through other people’s eyes a lot more. Now it’s not so much about me against the world. It’s how do you make the best possible future for your kids to grow up in? So I think, fundamentally, I just see the world completely differently than I used to before.”

Sam Roberts Band’s latest album, All of Us, was released in the thick of the pandemic in October 2020. As a result, new music from that album hasn’t really been played all that much in front of a live audience. Still, in an interview with nightMair Creative published just prior to the album’s release, Roberts says issuing new music during that dark time was the right thing to do.

“Maybe the timing is exactly when it’s supposed to be heard; when people need it the most,” he explains. “I think we have to put aside our own sort of inconveniences at this point and say no, this is the music we feel can do something for people when they need it. It’s therapeutic for us too, to make it and go through the whole catharsis of songwriting and recording and all of that.”

“That’s one side of it, but there’s also this feeling of helplessness in a sense of you don’t know how you can contribute anything when the situation is as dire and puzzling as it is now. So here’s something we have to give; here’s something we can offer. It’s not going to help everybody. It’s not going to make the virus go away quicker but its music and therefore it can be a sort of powerful antidote to any crisis that you might be facing.”

A much-coveted live performer 20 years on, Roberts was among Canadian artists showcased at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. On Canada Day in 2011, he performed before the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Ottawa.

For his Musicfest second coming, Roberts will be joined by Dave Nugent (lead guitar), Eric Fares (keyboards and guitar), James Hall (bass), and Josh Trager (drums).

VIDEO: “Bridge to Nowhere – Sam Roberts Band

Peterborough Musicfest is presenting 16 free-admission concerts during its milestone 35th anniversary season, each staged Wednesday and Saturday nights at Del Crary Park in downtown Peterborough.

Overseen by general manager Tracey Randall and staff, a board of directors, and numerous volunteers, Peterborough Musicfest’s stated mission remains “to provide diverse, affordable live music to enrich cultural and economic prosperity in our community.”

For more information on this concert or the entire 2022 season, visit www.ptbomusicfest.ca or phone the Peterborough Musicfest office at 705-755-1111.