News Capsules for the Acoustic Community
GoGirlsMusic.com, launched in 1996 to promote, support and empower independent women musicians from around the world through networking and events, partners with Concert Window to host its first-ever online music festival on Sunday, April 24. [To continue reading this article, click on the headline.]
Prior to a live broadcast from the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 15, 2016, winners in the 58th Annual Grammy Awards’ American Roots Music Field were revealed by The Recording Academy. [To continue reading this article, click on the headline.]
Kansas City, Missouri may be better known for jazz, blues, barbecue and the Royals. However, more than 2,500 people are expected to converge on this midwestern metropolis Feb. 17-21, 2016, for the 28th Annual Folk Alliance International Conference, a concurrent music camp, and a new Kansas City Folk Festival on Sunday. [To continue reading this article, click on the headline.]
Dan Hicks, a swinging eclectic San Francisco Bay Area-based acoustic singer-songwriter and bandleader, who described his music as “folk jazz,” died February 6 at his Mill Valley home. He was 74 and had been battling liver and throat cancer for two years. [To continue reading this article, click on the headline.]
Several thousand people are expected to converge on New York City, Jan. 15-19, for the annual conference of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP). Now in its 59th year, the global performing arts marketplace and conference will feature more than 1000 artist showcases, a large EXPO Hall featuring nearly 400 exhibitors, networking opportunities galore, daily plenary sessions and keynote speakers, and a wide array of professional development workshops and forums. Plenaries and select sessions will live stream free for industry professionals, artists and the public. [To continue reading this article -- including a listing of folk and roots artists who will be showcasing their talents -- click on the headline.]
Rachael Kilgour, a Duluth, Minnesota-based singer-songwriter, was named the grand prize winner of the 2015 NewSong Contest after performing, along with eight other artists, during a music showcase and competition finals held January 7, 2016 at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium in New York City. [To continue reading this article and view a couple of videos, click on the headline.]
Bill Keith, a noted five-string banjoist who introduced a melodic style of playing the instrument and designed a specialized type of tuning peg that bears his name, died Oct. 23 at age 75. [To continue reading this article, click on the headline.]
Acclaimed actor and folksinger Theodore Bikel, best known for his performance as Tevye in the Broadway hit Fiddler on the Roof, died at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California on July 21, 2015. He was 91. [To continue reading this article, click on the headline.]
Jean Ritchie, the Kentucky-born folksinger, songwriter and song collector who helped to popularize hundreds of traditional Appalachian ballads and spur the so-called folk revival of the mid-20th century in the U.S., died June 1, 2015 at her home in Berea, KY. Ritchie, 92, was surrounded by members of her family, who sang at her bedside during her last hours. [To continue reading this article, click on the headline.]
David Berkeley (Santa Fe, NM), Wes Collins (Chapel Hill, NC), Amy Kucharik (Somerville, MA), Tom Meny (Buda, TX), Anna Tivel (Portland, OR) and Becky Warren (Nashville, TN) have been named as winners in the 2015 Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters. The six winning songwriters were chosen from among hundreds of applicants following performances May 28-29 by 32 finalists during the New Folk Concerts held as part of the Kerrville Folk Festival in the Texas Hill Country. [To continue reading this article and see a photo of the winners, click on the headline.]
Guy Carawan, a folksinger, musician, ethnomusicologist and activist perhaps best known for introducing the anthemic protest song “We Shall Overcome” to the American civil rights movement during the 1960s, died in his sleep May 1 following a lengthy illness. He was 87. [To continue reading this article, click on the headline.]
Folk Alliance International (FAI) has released a white paper entitled Understanding Copyright, Royalties and Practical Applications in Folk Music. Prepared by the FAI board of directors’ advocacy committee and staff, and aimed at helping to foster understanding of this complex issue among the nonprofit organization’s membership, the paper will be presented on Friday, February 20, during the 27th Annual International Folk Alliance Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. To continue reading this article -- which also includes a preview of the conference, winter music camp and music fair -- click on the headline.
