Texas Folklife Festival

**GRW3** · Jun-15-2012, 8:59am

Every year in June the Institute of Texan Cultures, part of UT San Antonio, hosts a three day event in San Antonio. It's centered on the museum in downtown that was originally built as part of the 1968 Hemisfair. This event brings together many different groups showing off amatuer arts and crafts. Among all the various music and dance groups is our Bluegrass Jam Session group.

We have a weekly casual jam, mostly Bluegrass, every Tuesday night*. As I told the crowd, we play Bluegrass, Country and a little Western Swing so I call it Bluebonnet Grass. Somebody learned of it / heard us and suggested to the festival organizers we would be a good match for the event. We did a three hour set in 2010 which was too much at once, so in 2011 and this year we did two one hour sets.

Brian Walker and I held up the Mandolin Cafe representation pretty well. One or both of us was up front for the whole set as can be seen in the pictures below (I'm in jeans and Brian is in shorts). Our normal jam leader was out of town so I was asked to run the event. I relied on Brian to do a lot of mando and harmony work while I stood back and directed the chaos.

I love this group of people. It's one of the best examples of what music can do to make peoples lives better. We have people with Parkinsons, epilepsy and other maladies in our group. People who performed, and performed well, at the festival. In all, an excellent example of a community effort - part of the folklife.

**Capt. E** · Jun-15-2012, 9:19am

I've attended Folklife several times in the past, always a great event with lots to see and do. The Craft demonstrations are most interesting.
What times do you play this year?

Only drawback is the heat. Make sure you drink plenty of water and wear a hat if you go. My favorite place to stay is The Fairmount, just across the street from the entrance to Hemisfair Plaza.

**GRW3** · Jun-15-2012, 11:58am

Already done Capt... Folklife moved from August to June to escape the heat. Seems like the only result was a hotter June

.

We played from 2-3 and from 6-7. The first set had the stage mostly shaded. The brightly lit picture is from the second set where I was singing the Kentucky Waltz.