What is The Cygnet Folk Festival? The Hub and the Wheel.

by Steve Gadd on Wednesday, August 25, 2010

What is the The Cygnet Folk Festival?
Understanding Cygnet's role as the Hub of Folk and Acoustic Music in Tasmania.

Tasmania has no official State Folk Festival..In the past the nearest we had to such a festival was
the long departed Longford Folk Festival. That festival broke new ground and set the standard for
large folk festivals around the country. Despite its success a decision was made to end the Longford
Festival as it had become logistically difficult for a small group of enthusiasts to run.
Several years prior to Longford's demise Hobart's vibrant Folk scene had already lost its
massively popular venue at Salamanca Place to fire early in 1975.
Following the last Longford Festival the Folk scene in Tasmania was without a centre.
When Longford had run its course Cygnet was just a small festival put on by performers and lovers
of folk music. These people were mostly located in the Huon Valley.
For a number of years Tasmania's folk scene was sustained by a handful of small venues in Hobart
and Launceston along with the small Cygnet Folk Festival. Later a sister festival to Cygnet began at
Georgetown in the North of the state.
Cygnet however expanded. Its increasing strength and the quality of its acts generated new ideas,
enthusiasm and opportunities in the area of folk music and dance.

Folk music and culture has always been many faceted. Longford introduced traditional Australian
Bush revival bands, ground breaking multi-cultural and world music acts, popular singer song-
writers and great dances.
Cygnet maintained these and added to them numerous community groups, street acts, choirs,
performance poets, workshops, local arts groups and children's events etc.
The Festival's food stalls and sausage sizzles became major sources of cash for local organisations.
The local school children began to perform at the festival both on stages and in talent competitions.
The Festival weekend began to be important for the Town and the region commercially and
culturally with accommodation being booked months prior to the Festival weekend. Around the
state new bands were formed to be ready for each Cygnet Festival. Further, musicians meeting at
the festival often went on to establish lasting musical relationships.

With the expansion of the Festival and its growing influence in Tasmania the feeling of the Festival
began to change. Its range of stake holders kept growing as did the number of agendas and goals it
was expected to satisfy.
Some loyal attendees longed for the old days where the festival was one or two stages, a tune
session and a singing session, with most of the players being locals. Others lauded the greater
variety and scope of the later festivals. What seems to have escaped many observers of the Cygnet
Folk Festival is that a lot of the elements it has always contained have now taken on a life of their
own. The Cygnet Folk Festival has in a way given birth to a variety of off-spring.

Consider the following; the delightful Koonya Folk Festival, folk and blues festivals on Bruny
Island, The Fleadh, The Craic, The Pelverata Pick, The Tasmanian Songwriters Collective, The
Richmond Shindig, The Brookfield Winery open mic acoustic nights, big community groups that
meet regularly such as the Tasmanian Heritage Fiddle Ensemble, The Appalachian oriented Old-
Time String Band, Huon and Hobart based drumming circles, ukulele groups, community choirs
that now have their own spectacular festival in the 'Festival of Voices', The Danceholics and the
regular Folk Federation Dances, monthly sessions of Tasmanian traditional tunes with The
Verandah Coots, regular Celtic Dances at Battery point.
Then there are the musical and dance projects conducted within schools by people such as
Catherine Faires-Morris, The Rays, who initiated the institution of the Schools Dance Event, and
the Valley Strings School run by the Gadds.
There is also a healthy world music scene where Latin drumming and dancing, Balkan tunes,
Flamenco, bellydance styles and many other forms thrive. While, in Cygnet a healthy arts, music
and cabaret culture, along with regular folk music sessions, continues all year round.
Each of these amazing events function as a spoke in a wheel. Cygnet folk Festival which seeded
many of these other events, directly or indirectly, through its example, is now the Hub of this
wheel.
Each January the Festival comes around and heralds a new turn of that wheel with new spokes
reaching out to further enrich our grassroots cultural and social life.
Next January’s Festival will be on the Weekend of January 14-16.
Tickets available from Centertainment from mid September.