Beloved Storytelling Festival for Adults and Children Returns For Its
10th Season

Zeroing in on the Story

Latina storyteller, performance artist, and writer, Olga Loya uses a dramatic mix of Spanish and English to share traditional tales from Latin America as well as stories from her own varied and colorful life growing up in East Los Angeles.

Beloved Storytelling Festival for Adults and Children Returns For Its
10th Season

Finding and Shaping Family Stories

Raised in a Midwestern storytelling family, Steven Henegar celebrates the wonderful variety of stories that we use to share our lives. Funny, touching and relatively honest, Steven calls up the everyday and the fantastic – truth and lies mined from a long life looking around.

Beloved Storytelling Festival for Adults and Children Returns For Its
10th Season

The beloved Tcha Tee Man Wi Storytelling Festival returns for its 10th season on March 6 – 8, 2014. The Festival brings some of the best storytellers from across the country to the Mid-Willamette Valley just as live storytelling continues to gain renewed vigor and respect across the nation. The festival features three days of exciting performances and creative workshops for both adults and children in the Albany and Corvallis areas.

After a two year hiatus, the Wonderkeepers Storytelling Guild has assumed the production of the Festival with the help of dedicated volunteers, local sponsors and contributors, and the National Storytelling Network. Joyce Morgan, founder of Wonderkeepers and a former Festival board member said, “Storytelling creates community, cultural awareness, and a great deal of fun. We knew we had to return this important gathering to the community.”

The Festival continues its tradition of inviting respected national, regional and local performers to share the drama and comedy of their own lives and varied backgrounds, along with the universal insight of myth and legend.

This year’s performers:

Latina storyteller, performance artist, and writer, Olga Loya uses a dramatic mix of Spanish and English to share traditional tales from Latin America as well as stories from her own varied and colorful life growing up in East Los Angeles.

Cowboy poet and storyteller, Joe Herrington, grew up under a big Texas sky and roamed the wilderness beneath it. With the clear eye of a Will Rogers and a voice of campfire warmth, he finds the deep connections between our current world and the day-to-day lives of his rugged characters.

Raised in a Midwestern storytelling family, Steven Henegar celebrates the wonderful variety of stories that we use to share our lives. Funny, touching and relatively honest, Steven calls up the everyday and the fantastic – truth and lies mined from a long life looking around.

Alex Hargreaves and Nathaniel Smith join with Sarah Jarosz to form the Sarah Jarosz Trio.

SARAH JAROSZ is a 22- year-old, Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who hails from just outside Austin, TX.  A recent graduate from the prestigious New England Conservatory, she released her third album, Build Me Up From Bones, for Sugar Hill Records on September 24^th.  Over the past four years, Jarosz, who musically fits comfortably where contemporary folk, Americana and roots music intersect, has covered a remarkable amount of ground thus far.  She has toured the United States extensively, as well as Canada and the UK, taped Austin City Limits and the BBC Series The Transatlantic Sessions and appeared on A Prairie Home Companion.  Her two previous records (Song Up In Her Head andFollow Me Down) received high praise from outlets including Rolling Stone, New York Times, USA Today, Paste, Mojo, Acoustic Guitar and American Songwriter, and she has received multiple Grammy and Americana Music Association nominations.

Sarah is supported on the road by stellar musicians Alex Hargreaves (fiddle) and Nathaniel Smith (cello).  Hargreaves recently completed the prestigious Berklee Global Jazz Institute at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and has been tapped to perform and record with such musicians as Jerry Douglas and jazz master Danilo Perez.  Smith has toured for years with renown Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster and, more recently, in various configurations with Jeremy Kittel.  Jarosz, Hargreaves and Smith, who met at various music camps when they were much younger, have been performing together since 2010; the sheer joy they express on stage during performances is contagious.  Hargreaves and Smith are both featured on Jarosz’s upcoming release Build Me Up From Bones.

The Flow

• Rita Brown: vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards, pennywhistle, banjo
• Bill Smyth: electric guitar, vocals, keyboards
• Mike Grattan: bass
• Jed Irvine: drums

The Flow is the union of an acoustic duo and a hard rock band. Rita Brown (Corvallis Gazette-Times favorite female vocalist,  2010) and guitarist/songwriter Bill Smyth toured the Pacific Northwest between 1997 and 2003, playing everything from  children’s shows to retirement centers. They recorded two CDs and during this time managed Oregon’s longest running folk  coffeehouse. Rita was also the guitarist and lead singer for the eclectic all-girl trio Crooked Kate, while Bill played with popular  Albany band 49 Fingers and contributed guitar, keyboards and cross-dressing to “Rocky Horror Show” and other local theater  productions. Bassist Mike Grattan and original singer-drummer Don Thorp were members of the powerhouse rock outfit Knockout John,  and met Rita and Bill while gigging together in a Joe Cocker cover band. In 2008, Rita, Bill, Mike and Don formed The Flow.  Don moved on in 2009, shortly after the completion of the band’s first CD, All Things Flow. Fortunately, virtuoso drummer Jed  Irvine had just arrived in Corvallis and The Flow snapped him up. In the bargain came Irvine’s wife, the singer Laurie Barshay,  who joins in on harmony from time to time.  The Flow’s quest for a permanent keyboardist is epic and eternal. The role has been filled at different times by Susan Peck,  Charlie Parker and Fumi Funahashi, and is presently shared by Rita and Bill using bionically enhanced prosthetic limbs. The Flow took a hiatus in 2011 as Rita and Bill spent the year working and playing in Europe and aboard a research ship on  the Indian Ocean. Inspired, the band re-united and began the 16-month task of producing its second CD, Spring Wind. The  Flow is now firmly in performance mode, raising the roof at local venues and on winery stages (which admittedly don’t have  roofs) around the Willamette Valley

“We’ll be playing a concert/dance at the Unitarian Fellowship this coming Saturday.  It’s an “originals only” show, so we’ll be pulling some new and old things into play that you likely haven’t heard before.  Some snacks and non-alcoholic drinks will be provided.”

Portland FolkMusic Society presents Singtime Frolics

a spring weekend of singing, jamming, learning and sharing at Portland FolkMusic Society’s annual retreat.

Registration is now open!
Early registration ends Feb. 22

click HERE for more information

Semmy Stahlhammer is First Concertmaster at the Stockholm Royal Opera, faculty member at the Stockholm Royal Music College, and appears as solo artist on 20 CD recordings. His CD anthology, Swedish Turn of the Century, was chosen as “Records of the year 2000” by Sweden’s largest newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Semmy also leads the “Stahlhammer Klezmer Classic Ensemble”, an ensemble founded by Semmy’s grandfather around 1910, in Poland.

He will join cellist Isabel Blomme’ and Sergei Teleshev in a performance of kelzmer music (sometimes called “Jewish jazz).  He will also speak about his father, Mischa.  Semmy wrote a memoir, Codename Barber: My Father’s Story, based on Mischa’s reminiscences of the Holocaust and documents that attested to his service.  The Wartime experiences of Mischa Stahlhammer will be the topic of Semmy’s talk when he appears in Corvallis.

Hoolyeh and Friends 9th Annual Folk Dance Party

Anyone who likes to folk dance is welcome!

Bring snacks, refreshments, drinks and stories.
Bring your memories to share!
Costumes are encouraged and besides, they are fun!

CAJUN CELEBRATION OF SUMMER!
Music, Painting and Dance

Join renowned fiddle player Kelly Thibodeaux and learn Cajun style fiddling (no prior experience necessary – fiddles available for all), paint a bayou tapestry, do the two-step, sample Cajun cooking and more to celebrate the start of summer with a Cajun party. All ages welcome!

Registration limited to 15, so register early.

The regular Hoolyeh 3rd Sunday dance has been cancelled for tonight only.

Portland FolkMusic Society presents

Singtime Frolics

a spring weekend of singing, jamming, learning, sharing and good food at Portland FolkMusic Society’s annual retreat.

click HERE for more information

Hoolyeh and Friends 10th Annual Folk Dance Party

Anyone who likes to folk dance is welcome!

Bring snacks, treats, refreshments, drinks and stories.
Bring your memories to share!
Costumes are encouraged and besides, they are fun!

Hambo Workshop
with John Scott

Hambo is not a dance you can learn in  5 minutes.  It takes instruction, time and practice.

• This class is for beginners, or anyone who wants tips & practice opportunity with coaching.
• No partner is needed!
• The May 6th evening contra dance will feature several live HAMBOS to practice your skills!

Family Play Day in Portland