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Cardrona Folk Festival 2009
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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:

 

ERIC BOGLE and JOHN MUNRO (Australia):

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.

 

 

Thursday Night Special Concert :

 

On Thursday night 21st October we will be running a special concert in the Cardrona Hall, featuring Eric Bogle, John Munro, Graham Wardrop and Martin Curtis.      This is being staged so that the local Wanaka and Queenstown music fans can have a chance of hearing our weekend guests, as it is likely that we will be completely full up with weekend registrations and have no room for casual concert goers on Sunday.     A few weekenders may wish to come a day early to get another chance at hearing these musicians.   You are welcome to do so if we have any tickets left – but please note that this concert is NOT covered by your weekend ticket and will cost an extra $25.