Texas Folklife is thrilled to announce the 3rd Annual Festival of Texas Fiddling! This year's event will be held on Saturday December 2nd, 2017 at Twin Sisters Dance Hall in Blanco, TX. The festival day program includes a symposium, presentations and showcase concerts by master fiddlers from styles across Texas. The evening western swing dance features Texas favorites Bobby Flores and the Yellow Rose Band.
Tickets: $10 for day program, includes all day-time activities of the festival. The evening dance is separate and costs $20 at the door - all proceeds go to band.
Children twelve and under are free for the day events.
*** Buy a $10 festival ticket online and receive a FREE Festival of Texas Fiddling CD and bumper sticker at the door! ***
Festival Tickets:
Bobby Flores Evening Dance Tickets $20
More Information: http://thefestivaloftexasfiddling.com/
3rd Annual Festival of Texas Fiddling Schedule
Saturday 12/2/2017
Twin Sisters Dance Hall
6720 US-281, Blanco, TX 78606
Morning Free Session:
10-11:00 Texas Fiddle Symposium Discussion and Q&A: Foster, Weed, Reish, Sparks, Margolies
Morning Ticketed Session:
11:00-11:15 Festival Welcome
11:15-12:15: Howard Rains and Tricia Spencer
12:30-1:00 Jack Phillips (with Mark Rubin)
1:15-1:45 Huapango dance lesson by Tomas Salas and Rachel Murray, music by Trio Paseador Hidalguense
1:45-2:30 Trio Paseador Hidalguense
2:45-3:15 Erik Hokkanen
3:30-4:30 Brian Marshall
Texas State Music Office Free session:
4:45-5:45 Belen y Tocayo
6:00-6:30 Plenary of all fiddlers from day program + Ana Lisa Portillo (1-2 tunes each)
6:30-6:45 Texas Master Fiddler Award ceremony
7:00-7:45 Texas 2 step dance lesson with music by Brian Marshall
Evening Dance (separate ticketed event)
8:00-> Bobby Flores and the Yellow Rose Band
Showcase Performers
Bobby Flores and the Yellow Rose Band - Traditional Country & Western Swing (Evening Dance - Separate $20 ticket at the door)
Howard Rains and Tricia Spencer – Texas Old Time Fiddle
Brian Marshall – Texas Polish Fiddle
Erik Hokkanen - Polka
Mark Rubin – Upright Bass
Belin Escobedo y Tocayo – Tex-Mex / Tejano Fiddle
Trio Paseador Hidalguense – Son Huasteca
Jack Phillips – 12 year old Western Swing virtuoso, accompanied by Mark Rubin
Ana Lisa Portillo - teacher; musician, Vista del Futuro Charter School
John Fabke - Record label manager, musician Spring Fed Records - M.L.S; folklore; archives
Symposium Participants
Daniel Margolies - Ph.D, History & American Studies
Greg Reish - Director; Professor - Center for Popular Music,MTSU Ph.D, Musicology
Patrick Sparks - Past-President & Co-founder TDHP, M.S., Structural Engineering & Hist. Preservation
Dan Foster - historian; musician
Joe Weed - Documentary film maker, producer, fiddler, recording artist, and writer
Festival Partners:
Festival of Texas Fiddling
Texas Folklife
Humanities Texas
Twin Sisters Dance Hall
Center for Popular Music, MTSU
Texas Music Office
About Texas Fiddling:
Texas has the most diverse fiddle traditions of any state in the union. The Festival of Texas Fiddling is the first and only festival that brings all of the great traditions of fiddling in the state together in a truly historic Texas dance hall.
Fiddle music is Texas music. There are the popular and widespread styles of fiddling in Texas which are copied all over the world but never equaled, such as Texas contest style fiddling, country, and western swing. But the state also features unique historic styles which are lesser known but every bit as great, such as Creole and Cajun fiddling, Old Time, Mexican-American, and Texas Polish. And since Texas is actually one of the most ethnically diverse states in the country, there are newer styles played in Texas today as stunningly varied as Gypsy fiddling, Finnish fiddling, and Mexican Son Huasteca. The Festival of Texas Fiddling showcases all Texas styles and is an unmatched opportunity to hear the best fiddling from the state played today.
There really is no equal to the array of regional and ethnic varieties of fiddling here. Along with all that fiddling comes some of the best dance traditions anywhere—from Texas two-step to all the many varieties of Texas polkas to square dancing, the official Texas state folk dance.
Goals of the Festival:
The overarching goal of the Festival of Texas Fiddling is education about all styles of fiddling and fiddle associated music played historically and currently in the state of Texas connected with preservation, presentation, performance of the music in a historic space of a traditional Texas dance hall An additional foundational goal of the Symposium is to establish an annual galvanizing event that will facilitate and promote the sustainability of all varieties of fiddling in Texas through collaborations with humanities scholars, local and state-wide organizations, musicians, and community leaders.
Other specific goals include:
- Presenting the history of diverse styles of Texas fiddling in terms of cultural and regional development, technical innovation, recording history, and reception over time and space
- Fostering new understandings of the cultural context and history of traditional Texas dance halls, and the promotion of these halls
- Highlighting the living cultures that sustain fiddling across Texas with presentations on the history, dance, and stylistic choices associated with the different fiddling traditons
- New consideration of the development of unique instrumental accompaniment styles for Texas fiddling
- Dissemination of scholarly findings about Texas fiddling to new audiences
- Creating collaborative synergies between scholarly researchers, musicians, dancers, and listeners
