In its 41st year, the Tucson Folk Festival brings a multifaceted approach to its celebration of folk music. The event honors its roots and traditions while also showcasing its evolution by spotlighting a wide variety of artists. 

This year, the free event will be held Friday, April 10, to Sunday, April 12. 

It is put on by the Tucson Kitchen Musicians Association, which also host concerts, workshops and community events throughout the year. 

This year, the folk festival will have performances from 450 musicians on six stages, including national, international and regional artists, emerging singer/songwriters and youth performers. 

It also offers song circles, interactive workshops and a marketplace with local food vendors and artisans. 

Jonathan Frahm, secretary of the Tucson Kitchen Musicians Association, said before the larger festival formed, musicians played in each other’s homes. 

“Forty-one years ago, there were folk musicians performing at dinner parties in each other’s spaces. There was this communal opportunity to perform in these very loose, song circles over a potluck. They were a family. These were the originators of the festival,” Frahm said. “There was Ken Tucker, a flatpicker who taught at UofA for a number of years as a guitar teacher. He was our first board president. This was Linda Lou Reed, Elise Greco, Stefan George, Roger Mikulas, a lot of the names that you see that are still existing within the festival programming.” 

A few of the original founders, including board member Ron Pandy, are still part of the event. 

This year, the festival will showcase an assortment of different headliners. 

One of the main headliners will be Tom Rush, a singer-songwriter who was part of the folk revival movement of the 1960s and the folk renaissance of the ‘80s and ‘90s. He will perform at the Plaza Stage Saturday at 8 p.m. 

David Huckfelt, a Midwest-based folk musician, and his band will be putting on a special performance at the North Church Stage on Saturday at 7 p.m. They will be playing music from Rainer Ptacek, a German-American singer-songwriter who spent much of his adult life in Tucson. Ptackek’s longtime bass player is in Huckfelt’s band. 

This year, the North Church Stage will have evening programming on both Saturday and Sunday, including the Tucson Contra Dance Sunday at 7 p.m. 

Other headliners include Jerron Paxton and Dennis Lichtman, a multi-instrumental duo that spans early 20th century black folk, blues and jazz styles, and Tow’rs, a Flagstaff-based indie folk group led by husband and wife Kyle and Gretta Miller. 

Audiences can also see headliners Remi Goode, CW Ayon, the Brothers Reed, Mariachi Aztlán de Pueblo High School and Rising Sun Daughter. 

Artist Grace Rolland previously headlined the festival with the group Run Boy Run and is now appearing with her solo-collaborative project Rising Sun Daughter. 

Frahm said they try to feature artists that span different styles, sounds and eras. 

The weekend of festivities will kick off with the annual Stefan George Memorial Songwriting Competition, during which eight finalists will compete. They were chosen from a pool of 115 songwriters. 

They will perform original compositions on the Plaza Stage on Friday night, starting at 6:30 p.m. 

The top two contestants will get the chance to perform on the Plaza Stage on Saturday evening. 

This year, the contestant pool includes artists from Arizona, Maine, Illinois, Oregon, California and Colorado. A genre-bending duo called Great Aunt will be coming from Australia. 

Frahm said this is the first time they have had an international finalist in the songwriting competition. 

“We only have one Arizona songwriter this year. We go in blind and judge all of these artists by their songwriting merits in this first round. It just happened to turn out that way. Only Ben Reneer from Phoenix will be joining us… It’s all over the map this year. It’s an international songwriting competition now,” Frahm said. “We named our event after a high-caliber songwriter who helped in its initial years to set the scene. We are so glad that we can really honor the name of Stefan George and remember him through this competition.” 

All of the eight finalists are new to the contest.

Frahm said applicants ranged in their styles. 

“We ran the gamut in terms of artists who applied. We’ve had blues songwriters, songwriters more in the vein of contemporary folk…We’ve had artists who veered more traditional, artists who veered into cultural folk traditions. Carlos Angeles Olmeda from Fryeburg, Maine, is one of our songwriting competition finalists, and he performs rhythmic fusion, Latin acoustic pop music,” Frahm said. 

The songwriters are judged on the originality, structure and arrangement of their songs, along with their stage presence. 

Frahm said the event is designed to not only showcase the artists but to also promote community. 

“These songwriters learn that even though it’s competition, Tucson is what you make of it. We turn it a communal, familial night,” Frahm said. 

Phil Reed from the headlining group the Brothers Reed won the songwriting competition last year. The duo will be opening the contest this year with a special performance, along with playing on the Plaza Stage Saturday at 4 p.m. 

Admiral Radio, a folk/Americana group from South Carolina that won the 2024 contest, will perform a closing set Friday night at 8:30 p.m. They will also be playing on Plaza Stage Saturday at 3 p.m. and coordinating a family show at the Wildflower Stage Sunday at 2 p.m. 

All finalists from the songwriting competition will have a chance to perform more of their original music on the Wildflower Stage on Saturday afternoon, starting at 1 p.m., during the Songwriters in the Round event. 

A new addition on Friday night will be “Spirit of Sonora,” an event held in partnership with the Agave Heritage Festival. It will take place at the Wildflower Stage from 6 to 8 p.m. and feature live music, vendors and tastings of Bacanora and Sotol spirits and regional foods. 

The Wildflower Stage will offer family programming and youth performances throughout the weekend. Audience members can see 14 youth acts from different parts of the region, including the Jam Pak Neighborhood Blues ‘N’ Grass Neighborhood Band. 

Jam Pak will also be hosting their own jam tent, where young artists can play together. 

Frahm said many prominent artists in Tucson got their start at the festival’s young artist showcase. 

The event used to mostly feature local Arizona acts. Frahm said in the last few years, a growing number of artists have come from other states. 

“The reputation of the festival has grown along with the size of the festival. We’re getting quality acts from all over, especially the West Coast and the Midwestern states, who are applying and are willing to drive on in,” Frahm said. 

There are some returning acts who have become staples at the festival, including Ryanhood, Sparrows & the Last Train, Don Armstrong and the Whiskeypalians, Heather “Lil Mama” Hardy, Eric Schaffer & the Other Troublemakers, Wally Lawder and Kevin Pakulis. 

Frahm said the “folk” genre is very expansive and can include a diversity of different types of music. 

“We’ve seen artists use experimental sounds or a bevy of bass clarinet in their music. Adrianne Lenker from Big Thief, Madison Cunningham, Phoebe Bridgers, Bright Eyes, those more modern artists incorporate more rock and indie elements into their music. We’re seeing more of those artists apply to the festival with that new modern sound, as well as those with different cultural backgrounds. We have Klezmer, Balalaika and a lot of Mariachi and Latin traditions showcased at the festival, which is always great to have be a part of the story that we tell,” Frahm said. “There was a collective struggle in the past to label what ‘folk’ means within the scope of the Tucson Folk Festival….What I’ve landed on personally, and where that’s reflected in our festival really well, is that folk music is music that tells a story… Everybody has a different sonic idea of what folk music means, but what you’re leaning on strongly is the storytelling aspect. It may tell a personal story that you can relate or empathize with about family, friendship or community, or it might be a rallying call.” 

This year, they are collaborating with the hip-hop and spoken word community for the first time. Marcus “OX” Williams will be hosting a rhyming patterns workshop on Saturday at 3 p.m. 

Workshops have become a more prominent part of the festival this year. The tents will be on the back patio of JoJo’s and near the Telles Stage. 

Workshops will focus on topics such as songwriting, writer’s block, music and politics, DIY stompboxes, tour booking and routing, harmonizing and storytelling. Ted Warmbrand will lead a workshop Saturday at 4 p.m. on what folk singers can do in the present situation. 

This year, the festival will also be expanding their song circles, which will be held on the pedestrian street north of JoJo’s. The tradition of ballad trees started with Teodoro “Ted” Ramirez, a former board member known as “Tucson’s official troubadour,” and has been continued by Pandy and Jeremy Gilliam. 

“They would literally gather in a circle around a tree. They would draw names out of a hat and say, ‘Okay, Bob, you get to perform your song next.’ It would go in a literal circle. They would refresh the names in the hat and do it again for a few hours at the festival,” Frahm said. 

On Saturday and Sunday, the song circles will be led by different singer/songwriters. 

“This is your opportunity. It’s for any skill level. You don’t necessarily need to bring an instrument, if you want to just sing along. You can get into the church of it all, in a way, the spiritual, community, personal gathering element of the festival and music,” Frahm said.   

Tucson Folk Festival
WHEN: 6-9 p.m. Friday, April 4. Noon-9:30 p.m. Saturday, April 5. 11:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Sunday, April 6
WHERE: Jácome Plaza and surrounding downtown venues, 101 N. Stone Avenue, Tucson 
COST: Free admission
INFO: tucsonfolkfest.org