Thursday, September 23, 2010

Ormstown Branches & Roots Festival, September 24-26

I’ve got a busy music weekend in Montreal planned that includes seeing Little Miss Higgins on Friday night at Upstairs and David Francey on Saturday night at the Wintergreen Concert’s Series’ 2010-2011 kickoff at Petit Campus.

Meanwhile, about an hour southwest of Montreal, the Ormstown Branches & Roots Festival is taking place Friday night through Sunday afternoon indoors on the Ormstown Fairgrounds. It’s been three years since I’ve been to the Branches & Roots Festival – which I used to enjoy as an outdoor summer festival.

The festival begins with an open stage night on Friday, continues with concerts and a couple of workshops on Saturday, and finishes with a gospel afternoon on Sunday.

Among the Saturday performers are Allan Fraser, once of Fraser & DeBolt, whose song, “Dance Hall Girls,” remains an enduring classic; Clarksdale Moan, an acoustic blues duo who impressed me greatly at the Ottawa Folk festival in August; Ana Miura, one of Ottawa’s finest singer-songwriters; and Yonder Hill, who I described in the Montreal Gazette as “a first-rate Montreal bluegrass unit centred on the stunning lead and harmony vocals of Angela Desveaux, Katie Moore and Dara Weiss.”

The complete Branches & Roots Festival schedule is available on their website.

(BTW, I’ve always wondered where they got the name of their festival.)

--Mike Regenstreif

No comments:

Post a Comment