Washington Folk Festival 2006

Jennifer Cutting's Ocean Orchestra onstage: Jennifer, Dave Abe, Grace Griffith, Lisa Moscatiello, Rico Petruccelli. You can't really see Chris Stewart and Bob Mitchell was offstage, as they didn't need bagpipes for this song.

Here's Grace and Lisa on the Potomac Palisades stage. Grace was back after having had brain surgery to help control her Parkinson's disease, sounding and looking great -- we ran into her in the craft tent, she was very friendly -- and we saw Lisa briefly at House of Musical Traditions' tent where we bought the kids frog and owl percussion instruments. Lisa had to sing in Donegal Irish and Breton and joked that next Jennifer was going to make her sing in some more obscure language. There was a sound problem with the keyboard at one point in "Song for the Night Sea Journey" and the fiddler picked right up with the melody line to accompany Grace -- I was impressed with how fast they recovered.

...and Jennifer and Steve Winick (an alumni of my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania), her colleague in the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center, who sang a song they had worked on together in French, and they did the New St. George's "The Mermaid" and "The Water Is Wide" in Breton and English.

We also went to see Robert Lighthouse, a Swedish born folk singer, who was accompanied by a guy with a washboard contraption sort of like armor so he could play his own chest. This was on the Cuddle Up stage.

Hoag, Kelley and Pilzer playing Scandinavian music on the Crystal Pool Stage.

One of the yurts at Glen Echo Park where the artists in residence do their thing and show their wares. Younger son thought this one looked like a hobbit home on account of all the plants growing over it.

Here is a more typical, less overgrown yurt.

And here is the inside of a yurt where pottery is crafted and taught.

An angora rabbit in the craft display in the bumper car pavilion at the folk festival last weekend.

A woman spinning yarn out of the angora rabbit fur.

The remains of the amusement park: the Crystal Pool...

...popcorn stand and theaters...

...and the Cuddle Up ride, now a stage and seating area.

And Glen Echo Park's pride, the Dentzel Carousel, circa 1921.

Detail of one of the horses...

...and the mirrored decorations and paintings...

...and the Wurlitzer band organ.

RETURN TO MY PHOTOS / RETURN TO THE LITTLE REVIEW