Event Review: 2022 Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, Day Three
FAI’s first-ever hybrid conference in late May was a wild (and rewarding) ride for this first-timer. This is the third of an immersive four-part series about my experience.
If you haven’t seen the previous articles, you can catch up on day one and day two here. Otherwise, let’s dive in!
Day Three: History, tradition and gathering (and TikTok?)
The next two days were even more packed with events and performances I didn’t want to miss, so I got started earlier. My first event was a peer session about organizing house concerts.
I’ve only put on one myself, but I was interested in hearing from folks who devote a good chunk of their energy to doing it repeatedly. I came away with loads of good tips in case I decide to make it a more regular thing in my own life, and was blown away by the dedication and generosity of these organizers, who often make no money and only seek to help artists get paying gigs and connect with new fans, as well as enrich their communities with additional music offerings.
Next, I attended a taped presentation (that was also being provided to the virtual attendees at this hybrid conference) on best practices for making video content for artists. As AiA co-founder Jaclyn and I continue to think about ways we can support and promote artists and venues, it was enlightening to hear from experienced artists about what types of videos work best and ways they can be used in musicians’ publicity efforts.
I grabbed lunch and ate standing up, cramming as much as I could before I had to throw the rest away and run to get a seat for my next scheduled event: the keynote presentation. I was somewhat excited about the performance by the artist in residence that would be part of it but wasn’t sure I’d enjoy the speech part—did I need another speech when there were so many musical options? As often happens to me, my assumptions proved foolish. This was no ordinary keynote.
First up was the Artist in Residence, Canadian fiddle player Saskia Tomkins. While she stood without speaking on stage playing violin, her poignant and powerful multimedia presentation featured her voice telling the story of her family over silent video of her face, microexpressions hammering home every devastating and empowering moment, interspersed with photographs, newspaper clippings and other archival material.
Saskia Tomkins. Photo by Carol Roth.
Her grandparents, a Black American GI and an English woman (both married to other people) met and had an affair during WWII. The GI was barred from seeing the child that was born, who was told to write off her appearance as having Spanish blood. Saskia’s mother, grandmother and grandfather experienced different hardships and traumas stemming from racism.
But Saskia’s story is ultimately one of reclamation of heritage and reconciliation of rumors and unshared truths with what she discovered when she delved into her family’s history.
I was privileged to interview Saskia after the keynote, and I learned more: about how FAI’s outgoing ED Aengus Finnan had heard an early iteration of the story and insisted she develop it into something more. Only then did Saskia uncover parts of her story she’d never known, like how her grandfather and his wife sent money to support his daughter, and how it wasn’t the British “half-caste” policy of taking biracial babies from their parents that led to her mother going in an orphanage for a number of years—it was because her grandmother was hospitalized after a horrific incident with her abusive husband.
Each Artist in Residence at FAI partners with an organization, and Saskia connected with the Mixed Museum, an all-virtual, women-led archive that shares and preserves the social history of racial mixing in Britain for future generations. In fact she’s going to provide fiddle accompaniment to more people’s oral histories.
Her project has a life of its own, and she’s actually had to set aside two albums in development to focus more fully on it and see where else she can take it. (You can see it in its current form here!)
After that stunning performance, I was even more on the fence about taking in the keynote speaker—how could she possibly come close to matching the emotional impact of Saskia’s presentation?
But I needn’t have worried. Instead of a conventional speech, jazz chanteuse Madeleine Peyroux delivered a mix of storytelling about her own heritage and snippets of song in her sweet sultry voice, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. Tasked with talking about tradition, she initially challenged the idea of tradition being important, citing the need to sometimes move away from or reverse harmful or stultifying effects of it.
Madeleine Peyroux. Photo by Carol Roth.
But in the end, she came around to the one tradition that she herself believes matters: that of gathering. As she talked and sang about the idea of “gathering,” it got more and more profound, especially in light of the pandemic, when so many of us were starved for physical human connection for so long, and at a conference that had gone virtual in 2020 and 2021 and hybrid this year. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat after these back-to-back emotional wallops.
Luckily I had something considerably less intense next on my agenda: a video presentation followed by live Q&A on TikTok for musical artists. As a mother to tweens, I associate the platform with silly dances, snippets of songs played over and over, and clumsy attempts to pass off things they saw on it as their own humorous observations.
But the presenters at this session—FAI Communications Manager Marisa Kolka, singer-songwriter Kate Cosentino, and Jeremy Carter-Gordon, a member of musical group Windborne—definitely gave me food for thought on the matter, even if I didn’t run out and become a TikToker overnight. In some ways TikTok can reach people in a way that’s more organic and tailored to their interests than the more established social media platforms, and I noted some valuable tips on how to optimize it if I ever do decide to join it. (Not too likely, but much more plausible than before!)
Kate Cosentino, Jeremy Carter-Gordon and Marisa Kolka. Photo by Carol Roth.
If nothing else, at least the panel gave me time to compose myself before I spoke to Saskia! And right after our powerful conversation about her project, I ran to see the official showcase of an act I’d been dying to see for months: Black indigenous Canadian country artist Julian Taylor.
Julian Taylor. Photo by Carol Roth.
As soon as he stepped out on stage, his quiet, slightly melancholy presence put a hush over the room. With a guitar borrowed from conference standout Kyshona (his had been held up at the airport), he sat on a stool alone on the stage and delivered such a captivating performance that you could hear sniffles and see audience members wiping away tears—at one point I looked at the guy next to me, and he met my eyes and we both shook our heads and said “Unbelievable” almost in unison.
Julian has a resonant voice that effortlessly touches your heart and feeds your soul, and his storytelling songs often evoke mourning or nostalgia as he sings about his rich but complicated and sometimes tragic childhood. I’d already noted his private showcase times and locations, and I resolved to see him every chance I got.
I ate a quick dinner (food was never very high on my priority list during this conference) and moved on to my next scheduled event: the official showcase of Minnesota blues singer-songwriter Annie Mack. I know the intense power of her voice—she knows how to belt but often opts for a more subtle slow-burning vibe that I find even more captivating—so I was pleased to be in the same room as people just discovering it.
Unexpectedly, Annie chose to share her set with another Minnesota artist I didn’t know but now love, Amanda Grace, so we got two sets for the price of one—albeit too short; I definitely would’ve preferred a full set from each act!
Annie Mack and Amanda Grace. Photo by Carol Roth.
I thought I knew the next act, Colorado-based Cary Morin, and was excited to see him again. My first encounter with him was an acoustic set with just him singing and doing effortlessly intricate fingerpicking on guitar and his partner Celeste Di Iorio harmonizing with him. But the versatile Americana artist (a Crow tribal member with Assiniboine Sioux and Black heritage) brought his band Ghost Dog, and I was blown away by a whole other rootsy, bluesy rock side of him. One thing I know for sure, I’ll be quite happy to catch him again when I get a chance, whether he’s solo or with his band!
Cary Morin, Celeste Di Iorio and Ghost Dog. Photo by Carol Roth.
Back in my hotel room, my roommate Alice Hasen practiced with a number of other artists, including Gavin Mendonca (aka Creole Rock), Rachel Maxann and Bailey Bigger (a Memphis singer-songwriter whose rehearsals I adored; I’m sad I didn’t make it to any of her showcases). Afterward, Gavin played and sang a couple songs his Guyanese grandmother loves, and Alice improvised an accompaniment on fiddle. It was a small moment that somehow also encapsulated a lot of what I loved about FAI.
Gavin Mendonca and Alice Hasen. Photo by Carol Roth.
After a little bit of down time, the late-night showcases started again, and I was off to the races, mainly to catch familiar favorites again: Sarah King, Alice (with Gavin backing her this time), and Julian Taylor (in back-to-back private showcases in different rooms!).
Sarah King, Alice Hasen, Gavin Mendonca and Julian Taylor (2x). Photos by Carol Roth.
But I did take time to check out one new act at the end of the night, Ash and Eric. The Massachusetts-based married folk duo both play acoustic guitar and take turns singing lead and harmony as they deliver storytelling-rich original songs.
Ash and Eric. Photo by Carol Roth.
It was a warm and homey way to end the night that sent me off to bed (at a downright reasonable 2 a.m.!) to dream of another day of music and gathering.
Want to find out what happened next? Check out my account of Day Four!
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the main music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym T.A. Berkeley!
