ENTERTAINMENT: Beyoncé banjo player on Westport bluegrass festival lineup

NOTHING warms up the cold days of early spring like having something fun to look forward to – and here in Mayo, nothing says summer like the Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival.
With top-class ticketed concerts, a host of workshops, countless free gigs, music sessions around the town and more, this weekend-long festival has been attracting musicians and music lovers from all over Ireland and across the world since 2007.
Over the past year, the festival committee have been working hard to curate and bring to life their most ambitious festival programme to date, and tickets for the main concerts went on sale last week on westportfolkbluegrass.com.
This year sees a very special pre-festival concert on Thursday, June 6, with Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell. This billing is quite the coup for long-time festival director, Uri Kohen, as Giddens – already a huge name in folk and bluegrass circles – has recently been discovered by the rest of the world for her red-hot banjo playing on Beyoncé’s insanely catchy new song ‘Texas Hold ’Em’.
Founder of The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Giddens has a deep commitment to African-American string-band traditions and is keen to spread the word about the Black origins of the banjo. She is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant, and the current artistic director of the Silk Road Ensemble. Coincidentally, she also has roots here in Co Mayo.
Powell is well-known as a longstanding champion of Appalachian and Cajun tradition. He’s a frequent member of the Transatlantic Sessions, has toured regularly with artists such Joan Baez, Levon Helm, Eric Clapton and Loretta Lynn, and his original song ‘Waterbound’ has been recorded more than 100 times.
The festival then kicks off on Friday night concert on June 7 is supported by The Crooked Road – Virginia Hermitage Music Trail, and will feature Dirk and Amelia Powell, as well as Martha Spencer and Wonderland Country Band.
The Saturday-night concert sees bluegrass bands from the US take centre stage, with three fantastic acts – Remedy Tree, Chris Luquette and Rick Faris and The Wayfarers – on the bill.
While all of the above-mentioned concerts will take place in Westport Town Hall Theatre, the Sunday night concert – known as ‘The Folky Thing’ – will take place in the Yard Bar at Matt Molloy’s Pub, and will feature the wonderful Irish singer Pauline Scanlon.
Tickets are also available for a fiddle workshop with Natalya Zoe Weinstein (Zoe and Cloyd), and a banjo workshop with Tom Nechville of the highly regarded Nechville Banjos. Both workshops will take place at Westport town Hall.
The festival’s traditional square dance, which will take place on the Sunday afternoon in the Clew Bay Hotel, see dancers do their thing to music from Alaskan old-time band Big Chimney Barn Dance, while the dance will be called by Phil Jamison.
The last ticketed event is the Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival’s famous Mystery Gig – admission is just €5, but tickets can only be bought for on the door just before the gig.

For more information on this year’s line-up and tickets to the main shows, visit westportfolkbluegrass.com.