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The National Folk Festival presents the nation’s finest traditional artists from across the nation representing a broad array of America’s cultural communities. The National also strives to showcase the traditions of cultural communities historically identified with the host city, state, or region, as well as the arts of newer immigrant communities that are contributing to the state’s cultural landscape. 

 

If you are interested in performing at the National Folk Festival, check out How to be a performer at the National Folk Festival.

Capoeira Luanda

Brazilian capoeira

New York, New York

Led by the nation’s premier capoeira master, this ensemble will astound with their display of an Afro-Brazilian tradition that fuses dance, martial arts, and acrobatics.

Eddie Cotton, Jr.

soul blues

Clinton, Mississippi

This master of soul blues will move audiences, body and spirit, with blistering guitar work, stirring vocals, and a hard-driving style rooted in the church of his youth.

The Jerry Douglas Band

bluegrass

Nashville, Tennessee

“Dobro’s matchless contemporary master,” the greatest innovator of the resonator guitar in the last half century—possibly the greatest ever.

Mississippi Mass Choir

gospel

Jackson, Mississippi

Featuring the finest voices in Mississippi churches, one of the country’s great gospel choirs is sure to bring audience members to their feet with its powerful, inspiring, and uplifting sound.

Rahzel

beatboxing

New York, New York

Redefining the possibilities of the human voice, this one-time member of the Roots sparked a beatbox renaissance.

Raiatea Helm

Hawaiian falsetto singing

Honolulu, Hawai’i

One of the preeminent female vocalists from Hawai’i keeping the flame for the islands’ distinctive falsetto singing tradition.

Rebolú

Colombian

Queens, New York, and Tampa, Florida

The foremost Afro-Colombian ensemble in the United States plays the rich, rhythmic, and undeniably danceable music of Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

Rondalla Club of Los Angeles

Filipino rondalla

Los Angeles, California

Arguably the most outstanding Philippine rondalla in the nation, this ensemble is at the forefront of performing and preserving this delightful stringed instrument tradition in the United States.

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