Up close with the Port Fairy Folk Festival director
Subscribe
X

Subscribe to Forte Magazine

Up close with the Port Fairy Folk Festival director

The 42nd Port Fairy Folk Festival opens March 9 next year, with a packed program of music from across the globe, including two superb collaborative celebrations of music and community. Forte chat to director of the Port Fairy Folk Festival, Caroline Moore, ahead of next years festival.

Hi Caroline, thanks for chatting to Forte. First of all how’s the festival planning going?

It’s terribly exciting! We’re just putting all the finishing touches on the program times for the artists and locking it all in and ticket sales are going beautifully, so it’s going to be a wonderful event!

What are some new additions to the festival next year?

Every year’s new! Essentially, there’s a whole group of artists who’ve never performed at the festival before. The festival is always a really exciting mix of music and events for all ages, it’s one of the strongest sort of inter-generational festivals in the country, and by that I mean grandparents can come with their 25 year old grandchildren or their five year old grandchildren, and there is something for everyone.

There’s a huge variety of acts on the lineup, what do you think will be some of the highlights?

Oh look, the whole festival is really the highlight. For everyone, it’s really different. My job is actually to program for people of all taste, but keep a real focus on what folk music is. Folk music isn’t just your classic Irish or Australian ballads – folk music is something of every culture.

One of the acts that I’m terribly excited about at the moment (I’m excited about all of them) is Jack Broadbent from the UK who is just incredible, I think he’s going to be outstanding, and then of course we’ve got The Teskey Brothers, which is fantastic and we’ve got Sophie Koh, who’s this wonderful Australian artist of Chinese heritage and she’s performing songs in English and in Chinese. There really is that proverbial of something for everyone really.

How’s your second year of directing the festival in comparison to your first year?

The second year is much more nerve wracking than the first year actually. Last year I was just so excited, I didn’t have time to be scared, whereas this year it’s a combination of absolute excitement and terror of getting it right. But you know, it’s always good to be nervous and I’m right in the zone at the moment of that real thought process of putting the right acts on at the right time, on the right stages and it’s all of those sorts of things.

Why do you think this festival continues to be so successful after 42 years?

It sounds a bit daggy, but it’s genuinely the heart and the spirit and the soul, predominantly produced by volunteers and that really resonates. There’s just this beautiful spirit to this festival that you can’t buy or brand – it’s evolved over the 42 years. It’s everything – it’s the team who put it together and because they put it together so well then the artists enjoy it, and because the artists enjoy it, the audience enjoy it. So it’s that real flow on effect and it’s the intangible factor, it’s that really lovely vibe.

When & Where: Port Fairy – Friday 9th – Monday 12th March, 2018
For more info visit www.portfairyfolkfestival.com

Written by Jasmine Turner

Image by Connie Ann