THE National Folk Festival will be back over the Easter long weekend 2022 for the 55th year, it was announced today (November 18) by festival president Stephen Gallacher.

Gallacher, speaking at the festival launch in Tuggeranong Arts Centre this afternoon, said that the event would introduce exciting new changes that he felt sure would please festival stalwarts while attracting new friends and it would, he predicted, be “better than ever”, with more than 200 acts across 12 venues, as well food and market stalls, workshops, roving entertainment and a program of craft, dance and art.

The changes, he outlined included a second outdoor session bar venue in 2022, more seating and shade throughout the entire event and, more controversially – the  folk community already has a long history of community choirs – the launch of the Folk Family Choir, a new feature, he said, that would embody the “true spirit of The National Folk Festival.”

Artistic director, Katie Noonan, appeared remotely to outline the festival’s exclusive concerts featuring  “a multi-generational ‘who’s who’ of artists”, including Judy Small, who is also the National Folk Festival 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Don Walker and the creators of the first “Australian Women’s Songbook”.

Noonan, whose professional connections (and a $900,000 grant from the federal government) have come in handy in preparing for this festival, said the weekend would be welcoming 35 ARIA Award winners, an ARIA Hall of Fame winner, 12 Deadly Award winners, five Golden Guitar Award winners, three Australian Folk Award winners, one 2020 GRAMMY nominee, five 2021 Australian Folk Award nominees and five 2021 ARIA Award nominees.

“We will open and close our festival with First Nation’s royalty,” she said. On April 15 Uncle Archie Roach’s song “Let Love Rule” will set the tone (in duet with 12-year-old Gubbi Gubbi artist Layla Barnett and the NFF Family Choir). Yothu Yindi will close the festival on April 18.

The star-power would continue with Kate Ceberano, who would celebrate her Hawaiian folk heritage in her “all-lady band”, gypsy-jazz ensemble Cigány Weaver, comedian Josh Pyke, ABC kids favourite Justine Clarke, Lior & Domini, Robyn Archer and Emma Donovan and the Putbacks.

Closer to Canberra’s folkies would be The Spooky Men’s Chorale, Fred Smith, Omar Musa, Canberra family band The Hauptmann Trio and artist Alinta Barlow, who will lead the festival family choir in “My Island Home” in English and Ngunnawal.

The National Folk Festival, Exhibition Park in Canberra, April 14-18, 2022, book here