Annual Hiawatha Traditional Music Festival Goes VIRTUAL this weekend!
Hiawatha Music Co-op Offers Free Admission to Participants
The Hiawatha Music Co-op’s VIRTUAL Annual Hiawatha Traditional Music Festival begins at 6:00pm EST this Friday, July 16th-July 18th. For more than 40 years, the Hiawatha Music Co-op has brought people together in Marquette, Michigan, for an annual weekend of live performances, workshops, and jam sessions featuring a variety of traditional music genres such as bluegrass, country, Cajun, Irish/Celtic, old-timey/Appalachian, blues, folk singer-songwriters, and gospel.
The Co-op Board of Director’s made the difficult decision following member, volunteer, community, and contractor feedback to postpone the 2021 in-person Festival to 2022 and proceeded with plans to present a Virtual Festival. The Annual Hiawatha Traditional Music Festival is a time to connect with friends and family, old and new, and enjoy a live music-filled weekend in the heart of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Co-op Board, staff and production team have created a Virtual ‘space’ to present the Festival in hopes of embracing the feeling of ‘community’ enjoyed at past in-person Festivals.
Access to the Virtual Festival will be provided at no cost to participants through grant funding. Donation options will be posted on all forums. Participants will also have an opportunity for interactive chats, trivia questions, and Membership give-aways. The hashtag, #myhiawatha will be used to post images of individual or group gatherings. There will be two formats to watch the Festival concerts. The Co-op invites participants to visit our Facebook Group “Hiawatha Traditional Music Virtual Festival” at https://www.crowdcast.io/e/hiawathafestival21 OR or Crowdcast forum to register at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hiawathafestival21.
The Virtual Festival promises to present the same quality of local, regional, national, and world traveling musicians. The three-day event will kick off at 6 pm EST on Friday, July 16th with The Eagle Spirit Dancers, featuring Roberta Shalifoe, a member of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, followed by Grammy-nominated, Bruce Molsky at 7 pm. Not-your-average ‘man with a guitar’, Chicago Farmer will perform at 8 pm followed by family band and flatfoot dancers from Eastern Kentucky origins, Zoe Speaks, at 9 pm. On Saturday morning, round up the kids for a 10 am show with another local Marquette favorite, singer/songwriter, Papa Crow followed by long time Festival children’s parade leader, Frank Youngman, and a VIRTUAL Children’s Parade, featuring pre-submitted participation videos of the Hiawatha-born song, ‘Pickles in Love’. Saturday night will start off at 6 pm again with Marquette’s own singer/songwriter, Troy Graham, followed by Grammy Award winner and two-time Emmy nominee, Dom Flemons at 7 pm, and Virginians, the Martha Spencer and Whitetop Mountain Band at 8 pm. Closing Saturday’s festivities will be the Teen Scene band, a four-piece Midwest roots band, Dig Deep, at 9 pm. The Festival will conclude on Sunday morning with the traditional Sunday morning Gospel Hour, featuring Zoe Speaks at 9:30 am and Michigan-based trio with seamless vocal harmonies, The Sweet Water Warblers at 10:30 am. All events will be streamed on the Crowdcast video platform and the Hiawatha Facebook Group. The Hiawatha website will also provide instructions on how to tune into the Virtual Festival and the links to use.
“As we come together ‘virtually’ as a community, all are welcome to listen, dance, sing, and celebrate all that Hiawatha has become in the last four decades and everything that is yet to come,” said Julie Foster-Lindquist, HMC President. “To help us all feel connected, we would love to see what everyone’s home Festival looks like. The Co-op invites attendees to use the social media hashtag #myhiawatha the week before, during and after the Virtual Festival to share photos and stories of their Festival celebrations.”
HMC President Foster-Lindquist further added, “On behalf of the rest of our Board of Director’s, the Co-op would like to acknowledge and extend our gratitude for grant awards from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation Stages Survival Grant and the Michigan Small Business Development Center Upper Peninsula Region that made this Festival possible.”
For additional information, contact the Hiawatha website at https://hiawathamusic.org/2021-virtual-festival-general-info/, or email info@hiawathamusic.org, or call 906-226-8575.
