Every year, the free Lowell Folk Festival shows that a weekend-long immersion in traditional music, dance, and food can be as entertaining as it is enriching. The festival, which fills the streets of downtown Lowell, begins on July 25 with the sequins and multi-colored feathers of Boston Caribbean Carnival favorites Dynasty Productions as they lead a parade of nations. The celebration won’t let up until party band Red Baraat plays a final brassy set of North Indian bhangra on July 27.
As unique as its musical mix may be, the folk festival’s food offerings are just as special. Nearly every one of the 19 food booths are run by a local ethnic nonprofit organization. There’s Brazilian cachorro-quente (extravagant hot dogs), Laotian papaya salad, Greek spinach pies, plump Polish pierogi, and Cameroonian canda stew. The Filipino food booth can be identified by a long line that can stretch from Boarding House Park to Lowell High School.
As you plan your journey around the globe, check out a few of the festival’s musical highlights, who will each perform multiple times over the course of the weekend. If you can’t make it to Mill City, three of the four stages will be streamed live via Lowell TeleMedia Center and Chelmsford TeleMedia.
Solas
Reviewing the 1994 Lowell Folk Festival, the late Boston Globe folk critic Scott Alarik marveled at a one-off Irish music group put together by multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan and his ability to “wonderfully bind ancient traditions to new sounds and ideas.” He added that the “superb” fiddler Winifred Horan’s “intricately percussive stepdancing” was a constant show-stopper.
The group went over so well in Lowell that by the next year it had become a band called Solas, which would become one of the most important Celtic music acts of the 21st century. Solas are on a 30th anniversary reunion tour that includes originals Egan, Horan, and accordionist John Williams.
Other Lowell favorites making encore appearances this year include Chicago’s electric blues guitar marvel Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials, and BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet, the band that spearheaded the Cajun music renaissance.
Angkor Dance Troupe
Lowell is home to the nation’s second largest Cambodian-American community, and the city’s heralded Angkor Dance Troupe have been showcasing the riveting movement, costumes, and music of the Cambodian court dance for close to 40 years. Angkor’s performance will acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge’s rise to power — which resulted in the death or exile of virtually all of Cambodia’s artists, writers, and musicians — as well as celebrate the fact that the country’s rich cultural heritage managed to survive and thrive in the Cambodian diaspora.
On Saturday, in addition to performing at Boarding House Park, members of the troupe will participate in the “From Courtly to Contest: Centuries of Dance” workshop at the Richard K. and Nancy L. Donahue Stage at St. Anne’s Churchyard. The session will also include Solas member Kevin Doyle and the dazzling flamenco duo Los Ricos, who were dancers and choreographers for Madonna’s “Rebel Heart” tour. Other acts who reflect Lowell’s immigrant heritage include French-Canadian trio Cécilia and the master Greek laouto player Vasilis Kostas.
Bamba Wassoulou Groove
Lowell is also home to a diverse and vibrant African community. The city hosts a three-day African festival every June, and the Cameroonian Sahel is one of the many downtown eateries that will get a boost from festival foot traffic. This year’s folk festival features a variety of African culinary traditions with Cameroon and Liberian offerings, as well as a mixed-African food booth.
Lowell will also present the first area appearance by Bamba Wassoulou Groove, a thunderous Malian outfit that boasts twin electric guitars and a magnetic frontman, Ousmane Diakité. They’re such a perfect fit for the dance floor that they’re playing the Rockland Trust Bank Dance Pavilion twice.
On Saturday afternoon, the band is part of a workshop at the Saab Family Foundation Stage at Market Street called “Dance to the Music: South America to South Asia” with Red Baraat and the two Latin acts on the lineup: Colombian cumbia accordionist Yeison Landero and a salsa orquesta led by singer Edwin Perez.
Oghlan Bakhshi
Over its 38 years, the Lowell Folk Festival has often featured traditions that are rarely heard in New England. This year’s hidden treasure will be the sounds of Turkmen, the historically nomadic ethnic group found in the steppes of Turkmenistan, as well as parts of Iran and Afghanistan. Oghlan Bakhshi grew up a child prodigy in Iran — his stage name means “child bard” — and has been on a mission to bring Turkmen music to the rest of the world. Now a graduate student at Brown, Oghlan Bakhshi is bringing this musical heritage to American stages, where it hasn’t been heard in decades.
He’ll be joined by Zyyada Jumayeva, who also strums the two-stringed dutar and sings Turkmen bardic ballads from a woman’s perspective. Sunday’s “Generations in Tune” workshop will feature a combination that could only be found at the Lowell Folk Festival: Oghlan Bakhshi, Boston gospel treasures the Sons of the Bullock Brothers, and the sprawling twin-fiddle polka family unit called Pan Franek, Zosia & the Polka Towners.
Ricardo Parreira & Friends
Fado, the mournful tavern ballads of Portugal, is a big tourist attraction in Lisbon, but it’s also thriving in the diaspora. Major artists like Mariza (who returns to the Berklee Performance Center in November) tend to be grand divas, but there’s also a strong male fado tradition exemplified by Pedro Botas, who will join guitarist Ricardo Parreira in a performance that also includes Lowell’s own Alison Dasilva. A Portuguese cuisine food booth is also returning after an absence of several years.
LOWELL FOLK FESTIVAL
Throughout downtown Lowell, July 25-27. Free. lowellfolkfestival.org