Festival detail

WINTER ROOTS AND BLUES ROUNDUP II: LINE-UP OF CONCERTS, FILMS AND SEMINARS, FEBRUARY 24 – 28, 2011

The five-day Roundup will mesh concerts with film screenings, seminars and thematic workshops at a number of venues including the Yardbird Suite, Metro Cinema in the Citadel complex, Expressionz Café, the Century Casino Showroom and The Blue Chair Café.
Designed to entertain, inspire, inform and educate, the Winter Roots and Blues Roundup features concerts from American guests such as 78 year old Rosalie Sorrels who recorded for the Folkways label, and screenings of award-winning films including “Throw Down Your Heart” documenting Bela Fleck’s musical journey through Africa.

There will be a handful of events that are free, including a Vintage Instruments workshop, a panel on Social and Political Activism in Music, and an exclusive screening of a recent documentary on Folkways Records which will be teamed with Penguin Eggs magazine publisher Roddy Campell hosting an onstage interview with Ms.Sorrels in Ziedler Hall on the Friday evening.
This edition of the Winter Roots and Blues Roundup kicks off Thursday February 24 with “The Women of Folkways” Concert at the Yardbird Suite. Holger Petersen is hosting “The Blues of Folkways” workshop with acoustic performances from David Gogo, Kat Danser, Bill Bourne and John Rutherford. The Round Up will also see artists delivering roots music to students in local high schools. Other participants in the Roundup include Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, activist, singer-songwriter Freebo, who was Bonnie Raitt’s right-hand man for years and on the front lines of “No Nukes” with Raitt and Jackson Browne. Coming from Marin County California is Lowell Levinger aka Grandpa Banana who was one of the founding members of The Youngbloods and who, as Mimi Farina’s accompanist, witnessed the birth and growth of the Bread and Roses program. Levinger, as well as being a fine blues and bluegrass musician, is also one of the foremost collectors and dealers of vintage stringed instruments in North America.
Maria Dunn, fiddle players Lizzy Hoyt and Byron Myhre, the Front Porch Roots Revue, Joe Nolan and Karla Anderson will also be performing in various settings throughout the weekend.
For Complete Winter Roots and Blues II artist information and schedules visit http://www.ualberta.ca/folkwaysalive