A fixture on the Bow Valley music scene, Seth Anderson returns for an intimate evening at artsPlace accompanied by Kitty Thompson on cello. The performance will be on the heels of Seth touring across Canada and the US this summer, as well as the recording of a new album. Expect a few unreleased songs to be featured on his upcoming full length to appear on the setlist!

An artsPlace and Canmore Folk Festival regular, Irish was born in Ireland and now resides in Charlottetown, PEI. Her latest release, Little Bones, gained her recognition around the globe, including a 2020 JUNO nomination for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year, seven Music PEI 2020 nominations, including Album of the Year, Entertainer of the Year, and SOCAN Songwriter of the Year, and a Canadian Folk Music Nomination for Solo Artist of the Year.

From the Great Northern Plains, Little Miss Higgins struts and serenades her way onto any stage playing music brewed in early country blues, jazz and folk. A Playing, touring, collaborating and recording for over 15 years, this musician and mother now navigates her time through performing and parenthood.

In Austin Texas in the 1970’s there was Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. Fast forward 40 years and you have Canadian songwriters Richard Inman and Zachary Lucky picking up the thread that Townes and Guy left behind.

Storytelling through song is a fundamental duty of traditional music and Matthew Byrne does this brilliantly. His repertoire has been shaped by his musical upbringing in Newfoundland and Byrne supports this tradition with powerful vocals, polished guitar work, and a presence that fills the room.

5x JUNO nominee and 7x Canadian Folk Music Award winning Mando maestro Andrew Collins finds himself – through no actual fault of his own – at the epicentre of Canada’s burgeoning acoustic/roots music scene. He didn’t invent it – but he's certainly been a contributor, having co-founded seriously noteworthy Canadian bands like the Creaking Tree String Quartet, the Foggy Hogtown Boys and, more recently, his namesake Trio.

Returning to artsPlace, Canmore native Mike Tod is a wry and raspy tenor who sings with conviction and candor. He sings well-worn traditionals, researches their roots, and shares them in a fashion that feels authentically of another time, while still firmly planted in the present.

Punching through the walls of tradition, The McDades’ Celtic-rooted music fuses the spontaneity of jazz improvisation and infectious global rhythms. The Juno Award winners’ cutting edge sound is the perfect complement to their fiery performances.

Welcome to the mythic world of Sons of Town Hall, the international, waterborne duo of George “Ulysses” Brown (UK) and Josiah “Chester” Jones (US). The pair transcends time and space, dressed in threadbare Victorian outfits, they meditate about the ocean, and sing songs that beg you to sing along.

Canmore Folk Festival veteran, David Francey is a Scottish-born Canadian carpenter-turned-songwriter, who has become known as “one of Canada’s most revered folk poets and singers” (Toronto Star). A truly authentic folk singer, Francey is a documentarian of the working person who never imagined earning a living from his music. But when he was in his 40s, his wife, artist Beth Girdler, encouraged him to share his songs and sing in public. The reaction was instant.

Veterans of the Canmore Folk Festival, The Slocan Ramblers (2020 IBMA Momentum Band of the Year Award Winner & 2019 Juno Award winner) are Canada’s bluegrass band to watch. Rooted in tradition, fearlessly creative and possessing a bold, dynamic sound, The Slocans have become a leading light of today’s acoustic music scene.

Joe Newberry and April Verch are masters of their traditions. Tunes, ballads, stepdancing, and original songs by way of Canada and the Ozarks ring like silver and shinelike gold. With beautiful harmony singing, breathtaking instrumentals, and exquisite dancing, these two hit the stage in perfect rhythm, making audiences remember why this music existed in the first place.

There’s no other band around like Gordie MacKeeman and His Rhythm Boys. Led by fiddling wiz Gordie “Crazylegs” MacKeeman, the roots quartet features all-star pickers and singers, with everything from down-home country to reckless rockabilly to intricate bluegrass. Now the boys are back with their latest release, Dreamland. Crowds all over the world stare in awe as Gordie plays with joyful abandonment.

Irish virtuoso guitarist Shane Hennessy has established himself as one of the leading guitarists on the world stage, known widely for his fingerstyle, flatpicking, and percussive guitar-playing approaches. His energetic live performances and his cinematically-vivid compositions tie in influences from Bach to Billie Eilish – and everything in between.

Returning to Canmore after performances at the Canmore Folk Music Festival, roots powerhouse duo The Small Glories are Cara Luft & JD Edwards, a musical tour-de-force partnership planted on the Canadian Prairies. Their material is welcoming in terms of subject, folk-pop melody and instrumentation - songs of love, loss, and environment, delivered with soaring, interwoven vocals on various combinations of stomping clawhammer banjo, guitar and harmonica.

Resonant, acoustic chamber folk with an otherworldly edge, and a lyric presence that cuts deep. Prism-clear vocals and strings, anchored in the ancient mountains, reaching out beyond the earthly. Raine is part prairie songstress, part storyweaver; Each song has a story, delivered between songs with humour and grace.

Four ferocious players, masterful composition, and a genre-bending sound — JUNO award-winning The Fretless is a Canadian quartet that has firmly taken its place on the map to a progressive form of “trad”.

“Today I saw the future of Folk – Festival goers flocking in their thousands towards the main stage to witness the young musical phenomenon from Australia dish out an absolute show-stopper at the evening’ send.” – Firefly Column, USA

From the deepest roots of Canada and its very earliest musical traditions come Nova Scotian sisters Cassie and Maggie, putting their own 21st Century stamp on the Celtic soundtrack of this nation. Exciting and innovative, their talent is surpassed only by the sheer joy they exude in performance.