THERE’S an overwhelming sense of relief that, after two years of postponements, the National Folk Festival will go ahead over Easter, but along with relief come apprehensions, too.

For the high-profile artistic director Katie Noonan, a polymath musician, five-time ARIA award-winner and former music director of the Commonwealth Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies and artistic director of the Queensland Music Festival, is not exactly a folkie.

Noonan, who has performed jazz, opera, symphonic music and pop/rock for over two decades, admits she came to folk late, but on her appointment she told “CityNews”: “I’m fiercely proud of Australian music. I want to remove the cultural cringe across the arts… we really are world-class leaders and it’s time we believe we are.”

She’s plainly been aware that in taking on one of Canberra’s (and the nation’s) most popular festivals, she has to find a balance between the more traditional view of folk music, which is rooted in the community, and her own professional instinct to look at a higher-profile cohort of musicians.

In a venture made possible by Australia Council and federal funding, Noonan has gone to the biggest music agencies in the country and engaged First Nations stars such as Archie Roach, Emma Donovan and Yothu Yindi. 

Surprisingly, on the list is Kate Ceberano, better known as a popular singer but whose Filipino father immigrated to Hawaii and through that connection inspired in her an interest in Hawaiian folk music.

Other A-list appearances will be Lior, Justine Clarke, Jeff Lang, John Williamson’s daughter Amy and country music artist, Catherine Britt. 

Daily curated concerts devoted to the music of musical legends Don Walker, Joni Mitchell and Australia’s Judy Small will see familiar faces of Robyn Archer and Queenie van de Zandt, also not known as folkies, back in town.

Certainly, there are dozens of familiar faces, such as the Paverty Bush Band, shakuhachi player Riley Lee, kora player Miriam Lieberman and WA/Noongar musicians Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse and a host of local artists. 

As well, Noonan has striven to put her stamp on this festival with two large-scale community choirs, the National Folk Family Choir conducted by Tobias Cole, which will sing at the opening concert and the National Folk Festival Choir, conducted by Stephen Taberner, of the Spooky Men’s Chorale, playing at the closing gig.

Questions of what constitutes “folk” have arisen, to which Noonan has said it depends on your definition. She has engaged Canberra’s Hauptmann trio and Phoenix Quartet, who mostly play classical music, but do dip their toes in elsewhere.

With criticism from the broader folk community licking at her heels, at the launch Noonan was keen to talk up the broader aspects of the festival. The popular session bars will continue, along with dances, balls, storytelling, poetry, a village square marketplace, busking, art installations, circus and a children’s program, all intended, she says, “to inspire the next generation of folkies”.

Whereas in 2019, 1635 people camped at Exhibition Park, in the covid-restricted environment, this year the organisers were able to get 50 per cent of that number and most spaces are already booked out under these conditions. 

The elephant in the room is the funding question. Last year under the federal government’s “Rise” funding, intended to combat the negative effects of covid, the Folk Festival received $900,000, broken down over two years of $450,000 a year, but previously ran on minuscule funding and a huge team of volunteers – this year about 1000, board president Stephen Gallacher estimates.

The challenge is that after the $900,000 runs out, the core organisers of the festival will have much to show for the 30 years since the event came to the national capital. 

In the end, at the heart of “The National”, is music and as Noonan has said: “Music is home, it is a safe place where everyone is welcome. It is a tool to explore our identity, to ask questions and to better ourselves as humans.”

National Folk Festival 2022, April 14-18, Exhibition Park, book at  folkfestival.org.au

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