San Francisco Festival of the Mandolins

[Bill Foss]

I haven't seen much publicity on this, thought I would post the link. It's this weekend, Sunday, April 10!

http://www.croatianamericanweb.org/

Artists include:

Marla Fibish Irish mandolin
Aurora Mandolin Orchestra
Grandpa Banana
Gravenstein Mandolin Ensemble
The Axelrod, Cary & Foss Jug Band

Workshops and BYO mandolin orchestra!

[Jill McAuley]

Just got back in from this and it was awesome! Marla's workshop was well worth the price of admission alone - I got so much out of it and was already noticing the difference in my playing when I was outside playing in the sunshine during breaks between performers. I also picked up a copy of the new CD Marla did with Jimmy Crowley, "The Morning Star", played entirely on mandolin family instruments. Bear Paw Fiddles had a table set up with some lovely instruments from their inventory on display. The afternoon brought some enjoyable performances, and great mandolin spotting to be had as well (two Gilchrist A's, a Stan Miller F, Collings MT-2, a Weber Yellowstone F, a Phoenix (not sure which model...) lots of old Gibson A's, to name just a few....). In a nutshell, a perfect Sunday!

Cheers,
Jill

[Ed Goist]

Wow. Sounds like an awesome experience!
Glad you enjoyed it Jill.

[Loretta Callahan]

Ah, events like this make me homesick! San Francisco has a special place in my musical heart ~ from the 60's until I moved away twenty years ago, I got spoiled rotten listening to great music; and a lot of it played out in the sunshine. Marla Fibish, mandolins and Sunshine ... doesn't get much better than that. Also, getting homesick for Berkeley's Starry Plough and their amazing Sunday night sessions with Shay Black.

As rich as Portland is with her own musical wealth, we sure could use a little Sun up here, sigh. Takes real effort to be upbeat with a blanket of grey 24/7 for weeks on end.