Lowell Folk Festival

The annual Lowell Folk Festival begins this Friday night and runs through Sunday. All weekend, downtown Lowell will be filled with musical performances, craft demonstrations, and ethnic food stands. The types of music and performers that may be heard include an African/Cuban Ensemble, American Piano Styles, Appalachian Bluegrass, Azerbaijani Music, Blues, Bulgarian Vocals, Cajon Music, a Cape Breton Fiddler, Greek and Near Eastern Music, Irish Music, an Italian-American Brass Bank, Klezmer music, Korean Dance, Drumming and Music, Music of Mali, Mexican Calentiana, Quebecois Music, Rockabilly and a Slovenian Polka band. Craft demonstrations include Abenaki baskets, a blacksmith, a boatbuilder, Byzantine icon painting, duck decoys, hooked rugs, Nantucket lightship baskets, an Oud maker (an Oud is a stringed instrument in the Lute family and is played by Greek, Armenian and Middle Eastern musicians), Penobscot clubs, Portuguese instruments, Portuguese lace, a Puerto Rican Cuatro maker, a steel pan tuner and Ukrainian egg art. Ethnic food will be sold by the African-American Merrimack Valley Branch of the NAACP, the African Cultural Association, the Armenian Relief Society, Iskwelahang Filipino, the Holy Trinity Hellenic Orthodox Church, the Hellenic American School PTA, Jamaican Celebration of Life, Laotian American Community of Massachusetts, the Lao United Church of Christ, the Wat Lao Mixayaram of New England Inc, the Wat Buddhabhavana of Massachusetts, the Lowell Southeast Asian Water Festival, the Lowell Latin Catholic Community of St Patrick’s Parish, the Lowell Polish Cultural Committee and the Portuguese American Veterans Center. As you can plainly see, there is something for everyone, so please come to Lowell this weekend. Detailed information about the festival, a schedule of performances and directions and parking information are available at http://www.lowellfolkfestival.org/