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Cardrona Folk Festival 2010
|
ERIC BOGLE and JOHN MUNRO |
GRAHAM WARDROP |
VIC MACDONALD |
This
year marks our 35th consecutive festival in the same venue, the historic
Cardrona Hall and surrounding reserve, and runs from Friday 22nd to Monday 25th
October 2010. We have had some
amazing guests over the past decades, and we were very sad to learn of the
passing of our main guest from 2008, Fred Wedlock, who died of a heart attack
earlier this year. His wonderful sense
of humour and clever manipulation of the English language will long be
remembered by all who met “the oldest swinger in town.”
This
year we have another exciting line up of festival guests, mainly old favourites
who we are always pleased to welcome back.
They are:
The name of Eric Bogle has justifiably become one of the
most well known in the world of acoustic music, and his songs have been
recorded by an awesome array of musicians of international repute. Accolades such as "The most
significant songwriter of the last 25 years", "One of the Greats",
"Delights of a chubby Scot", and "a HUGE talent" meant that
Eric was awarded the Order of Australia for services to entertainment, after
his song "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" became the most recorded
Aussie song ever. Not bad for
"thinly-thatched, tubby, short-arsed Scot from Peebles" as one critic
put it. Although known by the
general public mainly for the songs he has written rather than a performer,
Eric is a master of stagecraft, and has the audience in the palm of his hand
after a minute or two on stage. His
concerts are legendary for the ease with which he can switch from songs of
incredible poignancy to those of outrageous humour. Laughing or crying, concertgoers love him. To quote the Melbourne Age, "I
suspect most of us go along to hear him sing because he puts into words and
music the feelings that we try to keep well hidden within ourselves." As a singer/ songwriter he is totally
honest. Eric Bogle leaves you in no
doubt that he is completely in love with Australia, warts and all, and yet more
and more he writes great songs about international events and mankind's basic
problems. Eric has toured New Zealand
several times in the last 30 years, usually guesting at the Cardrona Festival -
a home from home for him, as the only other Cardrona in the world is 4 miles
from Peebles, where he mis-spent his youth.
On a tour of the UK in 1980 and a half, he met John Munro –
another Scots immigrant to Oz, a master guitarist, mandolin player and no mean
singer / songwriter himself – and thus started a 30 year on/off musical
relationship. Since 2003, Eric and
John have been permanently back together as the duo that put out the beautiful
album released in the 1980's called "Plain and Simple." Just last year they completed a marathon 90-gig
tour of the UK and the USA, which was officially the “Waltzing Matilda No More
Tour,” having decided their days of big tours are over. However luckily for us NZ doesn’t fall into
this category. It will be great to
have them back once again.
GRAHAM
WARDROP (Christchurch):
We seem to have Graham at our festival every second year –
and why not. He is not only New
Zealand’s leading virtuoso guitarist and a superb songwriter; he is also a
really lovely bloke. He is continually
updating his repertoire and has many new songs for us. He has been particularly busy as a
songwriter in the past 2 years and has penned some stunningly beautiful
compositions. One of his latest
projects was being asked to present a concert of Bob Dylan material in Nelson. He didn’t even know any Bob Dylan songs but
in true style of the professional that he is, proceeded to learn a whole heap
of them. The resulting review of the
concert by the Nelson Mail is the best many people have ever seen. Even though Eric Bogle, in the words of his
humorous song, “Just won’t sing any Bob Dylan,” Graham will entertain us over
Labour weekend with a few of the Dylan favourites that most of us remember from
our first days in the folk scene 30 years ago! – but I bet he plays guitar
somewhat better than the original!
VIC
MACDONALD (Dunedin) :
Vic is one of the stalwarts of the New Zealand folk scene
and there is rarely a festival in the country where you will not find him
leading singarounds at some unearthly hour of the morning. He is also an excellent songwriter, and
this weekend, Vic will be presenting some of the great songs he has written
over the past few years, plus no doubt a new one or two. He is also one of the country’s leading
dance callers and will be calling the barn dance on Saturday night, joined by
as many musicians as we can fit on the stage.
As
always there will be several blackboard concerts, so that all singers and
musicians - and children - can let us hear what they can do. And of course no
Cardrona festival would be complete without our traditional PERFORMANCE
POETS session on Saturday
morning. Each year it is getting longer and better and the poetry theme being
picked up by more and more festivals around the country. This year is a special one, with Adrian
Higgins planning to use the weekend to launch his new anthology of New Zealand
Bush Poetry.
By
popular request we will again have our unaccompanied harmony session in the wee
church on Sunday morning and we are hoping to have an excellent last minute
surprise guest to lead this and other singing sessions. We have plenty of space and time for
jamming sessions. Remember to bring
earplugs if you don’t want to hear music in the small hours – after all, this
is a folk music festival, and there is always time for Just One More Chorus.
The
cost for a weekend ticket (Friday to Monday) will be $75 for adults, with
secondary children at $25 (wee ones are free). Bring everything you need, as
all we supply is a flat (and usually dry) paddock, a couple of taps, fine
weather and heaps of music and fun. The new luxury toilets are now working
perfectly but the historic longdrops have also been recently renovated for
festival-goers who suffer from nostalgia or who don’t like queuing! This is a self-catering festival but meals
are available, at a price, up the road at the Cardrona Hotel, along with luxury
accommodation. The ski chalets next door to the site are now almost fully
booked already but there are still a couple of beds left here and at the luxury
“townhouses” up past the hotel. Other
affordable accommodation is available in Wanaka 25 kms away, along with a wide choice of restaurants and cafes. Best book now though. Showers are also available at nominal cost
at the Wanaka motor camp, so if you go down to top up liquid supplies, take
your towel.
Pre-registration
is not yet necessary, though if the festival gets any more popular this may
have to come one day.
See
you there.
Martin
Curtis
For
further information and bookings contact
Martin
& Kay Curtis, 2256 Cardrona Valley Rd, RD2, Wanaka 9382
Phone: 03 443 8152.
Email:
martincurtis(at)clear.net.nz (you need
to substitute the @ sign, to discourage spammers!)
Website: www.martincurtis.co.nz
Last
Updated: 27th August 2010.