BOLSTERED by the idealistic slogan, “Five days in a perfect world”, the National Folk Festival has unveiled its program for 2015 in the grand manner.

Festival director Pam Merrigan told those present at the program launch held the National Library of Australia that next year would be the 50th anniversary of the popular event that since 1992 has resided in Canberra, and praised the 1,100 to 1,200 volunteers and the sponsors who made it possible.

In this, the 49th Festival, she said, there would be over 200 acts from around the country and internationally.

From overseas will come the Faroe Islands group Kvonn, while from Britain comes the famous “Warhorse” songman Bob Fox, “a Geordie with a fabulous accent” and nominated as Best Folk Singer in the BBC Folk Awards twice.

Mindful of the Gallipoli’s centenary, Australian and Turkish music would be celebrated alongside each other in a huge event that invited people to “come for the day, come for the weekend, come for life”, or alternatively, as Merrigan put it, “get down and get dirty.”

In what proved something of a love-fest, the director-general of the NLA, Anne- Marie Schwirtlich, happily boasted that the library was proud to be the nation’s largest and most comprehensive repository of folklore material.

Schwirtlich traced the history of collecting material of folk culture back to the 1950s, well before the festival moved permanently to Canberra, especially through the John Meredith collection.

The library, she said, sponsored performers, professional recordings and a free lunchtime show each year, conducted by the “irrepressible” music collector Rob Willis.

As part of the proceedings, president of the Folk Festival board Gabrielle Mackey then announced the 2015 National Folk Festival Lifetime Achievement Award would go to “a true icon of Australian music,” Ted Egan, also by coincidence, recently listed as a National Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia.

ACT Chief Minister, Andrew Barr officially launched the program, noting that it was its 34th year in Canberra, and that it would be representing Canberra in the National Tourism Awards. His Government, he said had provided a package of funding through the Festivals’ Fund. He praised the festival as “an opportunity to try something different, something a little new.” In  Barr’s “view, Canberra was “starting to break through the shackles coloured by events up on the Hill.”

Then it was time for the entertainment, with  West Australian duo Gina Williams & Guy Ghouse introducing us with considerable humour to original songs in the Nyoongar language of south-western W.A., a language that has  only around 150 remaining speakers.

It was left to Canberra’s contemporary folk singer Fred Smith to wind the evening up with his dour accounts of modern life. He promised fans all the he would bring his baby daughter Olympia to his year’s festival, saying, “the National Folk Festival facilitates conversations.”

Among the line-up of over 200 acts will be Kvonn (Denmark), Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas (SCOT/USA), Baka Beyond (UK/Africa), Kim Richey (US), Nuala Kennedy Band (IRE/SCOT), Joe Filisko & Eric Noden (US), The Heartstring Quartet (IRE), Gordie MacKeeman and his Rhythm Boy (CAN), David Francey, Kipori Wolf Woods New Orleans Band (US), Pekka Mikkla (FINLAND), Chris While & Julie Matthews (UK) and from Australia My Friend the Chocolate Cake, Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen, Mark Moldre, The Griffyn Ensemble, Lucie Thorne & Hamish Stuart, The Flying Emus, Shane Howard, The Spooky Men’s Chorale, Jan Preston’s Boogie Circus, Greshka, All Our Exes Live in Texas, Christopher Coleman Collective, Mustered Courage and Sparrow-Folk. Those are just a very few.

Apart from Williams and Ghouse, a program celebrating Australia’s first peoples will include Kutcha Edward Trio, Col Hardy and John Bennett with David Hyams. Special events include “Price’s Café”, a pop-up exhibition which celebrates a unique reconciliation story of the south coast; and “Animals of the Dreaming”, which will see Col Hardy telling stories and songs about animals of the dreaming with real live animals in association with the Taronga Zoomobile.

Oh yes, and there will also be KidzFest, hands-on art experiences and workshops at ArtefACT, poetry, dance and music experiences, workshops and the Festival Parade.

2015 National Folk Festival, at Exhibition Park from April 2-6. Earlybird tickets until March 30. BYO tent, motor home, caravan or hire a tent on-site with Rent-a-Tent Accommodation. Purchase a ticket and share it with friends for as little as $82.50 per day with the “Package of Days” pass. Bookings and details to folkfestival.org.au/