Tag: Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts

Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts, 2

Here are more shots from the Juan de Fuca Festival. Here’s the fiddler from The Burren Boys, left, the group that kicked off our day yesterday.

I loved the music. If you want to hear audio clips, check out the Juan de Fuca website for links that will lead you to performer music. But I also loved the visuals. This was a play of light against Anna Tivel, a gifted musician, singer and songwriter.

Here’s Anna in the flesh.

There used to be a bumper sticker that read, “Use an accordian, go to jail.” Music snobbery, now dated. This woman from The Barbary Ghosts from San Francisco rocked it with sea chanteys, ballads, and drinking songs. I was completely taken with the beautiful detail of this accordian. It wasn’t your father’s accordian, that’s for sure.

Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts, 1


It’s Memorial Day weekend, time for the annual Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts, four days of live music, dance, and art. It kicked off yesterday. We love that you can get front row seats if you arrive early and hear music until your ears get full. We’ve heard great local and regional groups in addition to bigger names from further afield. Four days of virtually nonstop entertainment.

The Shook Twins from Portland, a terrific act with great music.

Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts

There’s nothing like live music. There are a number of venues for it around the Olympic Peninsula, and other events that feature terrific performers, too. But the Juan de Fuca Festival is one of our favorites and the one we budget for. Musicians come from far and wide and there is a great diversity of musical styles. Mary Flower, above, is a guitarist and blues singer who has placed twice in the top three in the National Fingerpicking Championship, the only woman to do so.

Paul Chasman, above, accompanied Mary Flower on Saturday and also performed on Monday. He is a well known West Coast guitarist.

The Portland Cello Project performs nontraditional and classical music – a great mashup of styles, wonderfully interpreted. They give a whole new twist to what a cello can do. One original piece they played was entitled “Robin Hood Changes the Oil.” Great fun!

Sequimarimba!

Last weekend was the 19th annual Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts in Port Angeles. It’s a weekend full of live music and more. There’s free entertainment outside and dozens of live acts inside for paying customers. Sequimarimba played outside on Saturday.

Sequimarimba plays music largely from the Shona culture of Zimbabwe and the group has played together for decades. It was a perfect day for an outdoor performance and marimba music is upbeat and totally addictive. Click here for a link to a video of part of the performance I saw.