Mission Folk Music Festival

Location, location, location

By Carey Ross · Wednesday, July 21, 2010

They say, when it comes to the buying and selling of real estate, it all boils down to three things: location, location, location. While that oversimplifies what is undoubtedly a complex process, it does serve to illustrate an essential truth: the power of place cannot be underestimated.

So, when I say that one of the big draws of the Mission Folk Music Festival is its decidedly gorgeous locale, that assertion is not meant to diminish in any way the quality of the performers to be found there. Rather, it is more a statement to suggest that when one has an excuse to patronize Fraser River Heritage Park—which, as the name suggests, sits nestled on the shore of the picturesque Fraser River—for an entire weekend, one does not turn down such an opportunity.

However, there is more to the Mission Folk Music Festival than just its lovely locale. After all, the event is not just about sitting around and remarking upon the beauty of the surroundings in passive fashion—not by a long shot. In fact, to do so would be to do a great disservice to all the top-tier musicians who have journeyed to the B.C. town to play for your entertainment pleasure.

Much like last weekend’s Vancouver Folk Music Festival, the Mission counterpart plays fast-and-loose with the definition of what constitutes “folk” music—much to the benefit of its adventurous audience. This allows them to invite and embrace musicians the world over from all genres, styles and walks of life.

Take, for instance, one of the more exotic forms of folk to be found at the festival, that of the Moroccan (by way of the United States, Palestine, and Spain) Al Andalus. The band, which fuses classical, jazz and contemporary music, with the rich sounds of the Middle East, is led by expert oudist Tarik Banzi. For those of you not schooled in what an oud is, it’s a stringed instrument common to the Middle East that sort of looks like a fretless guitar with a short neck and a big butt—however, in reality, it’s far more attractive than I’ve made it sound here.

Or, if you like your folk to come with a South American spin, check out Brazil’s Renato Borghetti, for whom folk music consists of the gaucho music of the Rio Grande do Sul in the southernmost part of his homeland. Borghetti performs his brand of folk on a type of accordion called a gaita ponto—and who doesn’t love the accordion in any permutation? But, Borghetti isn’t the only practitioner of South American folk to be found at the festival. He has a Colombian counterpart in the form of Batata y Las Alegres Ambulancias de Palenque, who represent a sort of Afro-Caribbean form of folk (I told you this was a folk festival that bends the rules a bit) that can be found in Colombia’s Palenque de San Basilio, a town of 3,500 that is devoted to keeping alive the stories, songs and traditions of the slave colony they once were and the African region from whence they came. If folk, at its most fundamental, is a form of musical storytelling passed down by the people, it doesn’t get any folksier than Las Algres Ambulancias de Palenque. Africa is also represented at the festival in the form of Kenya’s Kenge Kenge. Self-made instruments, densely layered vocal chants and harmonies, songs full of character and charisma—this is the stuff pop music is made of in Kenge Kenge’s part of the world.

Other parts of the world are also well-represented at the Mission Folk Music Festival—Cuba (Wil Campa y su Gran Union), Finland (Karoliina Kantelinen), New Zealand (Pacific Curls), Polynesia (Te Vaka), and more—however, this being a Canadian affair, the festival’s roster is rife with homegrown talent. From nearby Alberta comes Ian Tyson, who, along with gaining acclaim (and winning the awards to match) in his own country, is also critically lauded internationally for a body of work that spans five decades. Murray McLauchlan, who’ll be arriving from Ontario, has been at it almost as long—40 years—and is well-known for crafting songs that are sharply observant of the world in which he lives, and he’s not afraid to use humor to get his musical point across. And, as a giant part of Canada’s heritage, both musical and otherwise, comes from its French-Canadian side, the organizer’s of the Mission Folk Music Festival has made it a priority to emphasize that folk tradition as well. Toward that end, they’ve tapped the likes of Les Charbonniers de L’Enfer to bring their five-part harmonies to the banks of the Fraser River, as well as Galant, tu perds ton temps (who will sing traditional Quebecois women’s songs), Les Mononcles (who will undoubtedly lift your spirits—whether you need it or not—and might just have you dancing), Le Vent du Nord (a quartet beloved the world over), and more.

And, as with most things that seem to happen just about anywhere, the Mission Folk Music Festival wouldn’t be complete without a little hometown representation. This year, it comes in the form of Robert Sarazin Blake and Jan Peters, a dynamic duo that have been playing music together in this town almost as long as I’ve been writing about it.

While the musical offerings of the festival are almost certainly enough to induce a person to make the journey there, sometimes, much like selecting a patch of real estate to buy, it really is about location, location, location. If that’s what you seek, the Mission Folk Music Festival is a worthy investment indeed.