A day at the fest, 2018

The Cygnet yarn bombers have excelled themselves. Everything from garbage bins to trees was decked out in colourful wool at the 2018 Cygnet Folk Festival over the weekend and looked fabulous. Check out this beautiful chair:

This year we bought a day pass just for the Sunday of the festival and spent a long and full day there. We started off with a yoga class in the Cygnet Town Hall. That's where the wholesome stuff stopped. Let's just say my diet for the wasn't healthy, but it was delicious! Coffee with an Eccles cake and a spinach ricotta pastry from The Lotus Eaters for breakfast, a sourdough doughnut from Yeastie Beastie, an organic choc mint ice-cream, a Taiwanese steamed pork bun (from Geeveston), Willie Smith's cider, a currywurst sausage from Silver Hill... oh boy. I'm back on the wagon today. Still have a couple of Christmas kilos to lose.

As usual, the variety of acts at the festival was terrific. We enjoyed indigenous songwriting legend Joe Geia and his band (our choir in Franklin sings one of his most famous songs, called Yil Lull), The Band Who Knew Too Much from Melbourne (singer and accordion player Dave Evans right) and Canadian balladeer Scott Cook and the Second Chances. In St Mark's church, we heard the distinctive sounds of a collaboration between ARIA award winning traditional Greek band the haBiBis and Jewish Sephardic music from the Balkans by Saray Illuminado and later, the harmonies of Queensland duo, Noel Gardner and Alex Bridge. We dropped in on a Scottish tea dance in the town hall accompanied by harp players Van Diemen's Angels and wrapped up the day with Hobart's Bootleg Gin Sluggers in the scout hall in Burton's reserve. All in all a top day out. The organisers and volunteers really did a terrific job.

A long day in the sun: Cygnet Folk Festival 2017

I made very good use of my day pass to the Cygnet Folk Festival early this month. It was a scorching hot day, requiring lots of water and the odd ice cream. I started the day with a ukulele workshop with Tiffany Eckhardt - so much fun!

I caught a few numbers by the Nourish Women's Choir in St James Church then Johnny McIntyre and his band in the Scout Hall, then trekked up to the other end of town to see Bill Jackson and Pete Fidler followed by (the day's highlight for me) Jaron Freeman-Fox & The Opposite of Everything from Canada in the Willie Smiths Cider tent.

Then it was off to Loongana Park, where I sang with the Little Boat Choir of Franklin. To be honest, it wasn't our best gig. We found it hard to be heard with the mic setup and the crowd in the big park... but never mind. It was our first time at the festival and it was great fun. 

After a bite to eat, it was back up to St James College for The Lost Clog, a Lithuanian singing group which was both interesting and a hoot. On my way back to the car I stopped in at the Supper Room above the Cygnet Town Hall to see a 9pm gig by Tiffany Eckhardt and Dave Steel, and I'm so glad I did. They had terrific lineup of songs and it was a beautiful way to wrap up a day full of music and joy.

First timers at the Festival of Voices

As part of the annual winter-time vocal extravaganza that is Hobart's Festival of Voices, 'pop up choirs' perform short sets in various locations around the city. The Little Boat Choir of Franklin is barely a year old and today we took part for the first time. We were assigned two locations for the Sunday morning. First up, the open space in Mathers Place at the popular Farm Gate Market held each Sunday in Bathurst Street. It was a chilly but sunny morning and there was a good crowd sitting around sipping coffee or taking a break from shopping. They even got to enjoy our warm up routine... oh dear!

Then we hot-footed it down to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery where we got to perform in a warm and inviting gallery space with arranged seating and even beanbags! There was no time pressure of a choir following us, so we sang a few more numbers. To the right is our set list... a mixture of the folk, gospel and world music we typically sing. It was so much fun. People commented that it looked like we were having fun. And smiling and having fun is a bit infectious in group singing. That's all thanks to the hard work of our choir director Tiffany Eckhardt who arranges the songs, leads our weekly singing and herds cats (us) to make it all happen. Community singing has grown in popularity in recent years and the health benefits are well documented. Get out and sing!

Little Boat Choir in concert

Our village choir's first big gig is coming up next Saturday night! The Little Boat Choir is a recent addition to the community choir scene in Tasmania. We sing together every Wednesday night at the Palais Theatre in Franklin - new members always welcome. Led by Tiffany Eckhardt, we'll be singing a range of material including gospel, folk and two songs written by local singer/songwriters (and choir members) Sandy Pollard and Anne Toner. Please come along! Gold coin entry fee. 6.30pm for BBQ and drinks, concert starts 7.30pm.