Category: Stories From the Road

The announcement of Fru Skagerrak (NOR/DEN/SWE) and Liam Gerner (AUS) is set to deliver a musically dynamic experience of contrasts against the classic backdrop of Australia’s Small Halls. Armed with matching love for the stories of our time, these two gifted outfits are joining the call of rekindling the time-old tradition of gathering in the local small hall for a special night of live music, storytelling and community connection.

Excited to create their inaugural musical pairing for the Summer Tour 2019, Fru Skagerrak and Liam Gerner are preparing for a unique tour of Australia’s small halls.

“We can’t wait to change our woolen beanies for Australian sun hats and come visit your vast continent, said Anna Lindblad of Fru Skagerrak.

“We’re super excited to meet all the small communities and see the out of the way places!”, said Ms Lindblad.

Featuring first in the inaugural Festival of Small Halls Departure show at the Woodford Folk Festival, the Summer Tour 2019 returns to Tasmania for the third time on January 4th. Fru Skagerrak and Liam Gerner begin their journey in the northern wilds of the state at the Stanley Town Hall before looping eastwards to the likes of Wynyard, Rowella and Meander and continue south to the beloved Cygnet Folk Festival. After plunging down to the southernmost town in Australia, the party heads north to Australian institution Illawarra Folk Festival, the kick-off into two weeks through inland, central and northern New South Wales.

The music of Fru Skagerrak takes you on a journey through Scandinavia; from lowlands to mountains, from slow airs to lively polkas, in major and in minor, and everything in between. Fru Skagerrak – ”Lady Skagerrak” – are three master musicians – one from each Scandinavian country: Maja Kjær Jacobsen from Denmark, Elise Wessel Hildrum from Norway and Anna Lindblad from Sweden.

In 2011, these three globetrotting musicians met for the first time at Tønder Festival, Denmark’s biggest Folk Festival, in a roaring session that had engulfed the backstage bar. Through the mayhem of tunes you could feel a certain Scandinavian groove, and in that moment the connection between these three fiddlers was clear. After meeting at Tønder Festival for three consecutive years, Fru Skagerrak finally saw the light of day in August 2014.

The trio brings together the diverse traditions from each of their homelands, which surround the Skagerrak strait. Through a repertoire of traditional tunes, new compositions, and songs in their respective languages, they express their kinship and love of their shared heritage. The result is an explosion of the sounds that exist in Scandinavian music today.

Steeped in blues and country music, Liam Gerner left the Adelaide Hills to try his luck in London. The young guitar slinger quickly made a strong impression and earned a crust opening for Paul Weller, Jason Isbell, Drive by Truckers, Paolo Nutini and many more.  Liam then headed to the US, joined Texan country rocker Ryan Bingham’s band and experienced frontline American roots music. Returning to Australia in 2014, Liam released his debut album ‘Land Of No Roads’, a startling collection of original songs he composed while touring with Bingham and cut with some of LA’s finest players and his follow up ‘Liam Gerner and the Sunset Pushers’ (2017).

Since then Liam has been touring relentlessly throughout Australia, New Zealand and the USA.  Now based in Melbourne, Liam has developed his songwriting, collaborated with local musicians and formed The Sunset Pushers, a band as fluid and soulful as his songs.  Liam tours extensively in Australia/New Zealand and is an in-demand guitarist working touring and recording with The Eurogliders, Pnau, Pnau & Elton John, records with Empire Of The Sun, and Vika and Linda Bull.

Liam Gerner and his collaborator Nashville based Luke Moller recorded ‘The Bulletin Debate’ a collection of poems Liam turned to song. The poems were written in 1892 between Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson, printed weekly in the Bulletin newspaper and reflect their differing opinions about our relationship with the Australian bush. This album will be released in 2018.

To find out if the tour is visiting a town near you, or to grab your tickets, head to festivalofsmallhalls.com. If we’re not, please extend the invitation. As always, we’d love to come visit.

For more information visit: www.festivalofsmallhalls.com

 

 

 

Twenty regional, rural and remote presenters are readying their halls for the upcoming Festival of Small Halls Spring Tour. They’re recruiting their teams, they’re sprucing the halls and they’re perfecting the scones. Importantly, they’re also supporting members of their community living through the drought.

A Festival of Small Halls show is pretty easy on the pocket – they never cost more than $25. But in drought, every dollar counts.

If you’d like to show support, you can buy a ticket for a farmer and help out a mate you haven’t met yet. If you’ve been to a Festival of Small Halls show, you know they fill you with joy and remind you that the whole community is in it together. We hope this will give some relief and support to those farmers going through challenging times.

If you’d like to Buy A Ticket for A Farmer, it’ll go into a pool for Festival of Small Halls hosts in outback areas like Barcaldine, Georgetown, Goovigen or Clermont to distribute directly to the farmers across our country doing it hard right now. They’ll make sure that your generous gift is given straight to those most in need of a little magic in their lives right now.

Click Here To Buy A Ticket for A Farmer

In an exciting coup for Woodfordia’s Festival of Small Halls, we can announce that the Summer Tour 2018 will feature Canada’s two-time JUNO Award winner, Old Man Luedecke and Australian folk festival favourite Lucy Wise.

These incredible musicians bring a lifetime of stories and an unbelievable swag of talent to twenty community halls across regional, rural and remote Queensland and New South Wales this summer.

Heading from the lush green setting of Mullum Music Festival to the all-out celebration of Woodford Folk Festival, we’re honoured to once again bring you this annual celebration of community, our treasured gathering places and of course, bunting.

From the music rich maritime province of Nova Scotia on the east coast of Canada, a banjo songster like Old Man Luedecke is a rare type of musician. A songwriting one of such hopeful goodness, rarer still. A two-time JUNO Award winner, Old Man Luedecke’s songs are melodic gems blending old time sensibilities with an unusual vision and poetic sense. His music belies someone more than slightly ill at ease with modern life and he performs with a gentle and endearing charisma, stories littered with a canny oblique humour; he’s a sly entertainer with almost a hint of contemporary vaudeville about him and he plays a mean claw hammer banjo clearly derivative of the old time and Appalachia. He’s a revelation!

Lucy Wise has delighted audiences across Australia and internationally with her soulful voice, masterful storytelling, and intricate ukulele, guitar and Appalachian dulcimer playing. Lucy grew up with a lot of musical instruments around the house, performing at Australian folk festivals with the Wise Family Band until she moved to Melbourne in 2009. Having toured two albums and and two EPs in Australia, New Zealand, USA and the UK over the past 8 years, Lucy has developed a great reputation for her songwriting, which weaves together traditional folk and pop influences with a strong focus on storytelling.

To find out if the tour is visiting a town near you, or to grab your tickets head to the festival of small halls website. If we’re not, please extend the invitation. As always, we’d love to come visit.

 

Acclaimed Canadian multi-instrumentalists Madison Violet and rising Kimberley star Harry Jakamarra will join the Festival of Small Halls tour in 2018, playing 20 community halls across outback Queensland and New South Wales throughout October and November.

The harmony of family is strong between these talented musicians – Juno-nominated Madison Violet met in Toronto in 1999, only to find out that their fathers sat next to each other in high school, nearly 2000 kms away. That longstanding history has tied the duo’s harmonies as tight as only family can sing. Over the past decade and a half, the pair have taken to genre-bending, moving effortlessly from folk to pop to electronic to Americana.

Harry Jakamarra and Elwood Gray are brothers from the wild Kimberley, Mad Max-type adventurers excited to hit the road in search of a fresh sunrise. Harry has recently completed recording an EP with the legendary Jeff Lang, and counts Missy Higgins and John Butler amongst his fans.

This is the tenth Festival of Small Halls tour in Australia and is partnering with Queenscliff Music Festival to present our much-loved regional music tour in collaboration with 20 community halls across outback Queensland and New South Wales.

Buy your Festival of Small Halls tickets here