The gentle strum of guitars, the harmony of crowds singing in unison and the thunder of feet stomping were heard at the Champaign-Urbana Folk and Roots Festival, which ran Thursday through Saturday in downtown Urbana.
The CU Folk and Roots Festival is an annual three-day festival that features folk artists and music and dance workshops, or open-to-all lessons. Various venues, including the Rose Bowl Tavern, Gallery Art Bar, Community Center for the Arts and the Urbana Free Public Library, held concerts and workshops.
Carrie Chandler is the festival director, whose role consists of booking the venues and scheduling the concerts. Chandler started as a University veterinary physical therapist by day and musician by night, getting her start at the festival 10 years ago when she was invited to perform there.
About four years ago, she became the talent buyer for the Rose Bowl before being brought in as the CU Folk and Roots Festival director two years later.
According to Chandler, volunteers provide some venues while the festival purchases others. As a nonprofit organization, the festival receives a significant portion of its funding from sponsors and donations.
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“Festivals are really difficult to sustain in this economy, so the fact that we’re able to do an event like this that offers a lot of free programming, especially, is amazing,” Chandler said. “That is simply because of all the sponsors and donors and people that support this.”
One of the events, held at Gallery Art Bar on Saturday, was called “Bluegrass Jam with the Sullivan Sisters.” There, any and all folk musicians were encouraged to perform alongside the folk duo. The sisters’ sound was soft and acoustic with no singing involved.
The various musicians stood in a circle, playing their instruments and singing. There were guitars as well as basses. Many audience members were tapping their feet and swaying gently to the music. When the musicians played the song “I’ll Fly Away” by Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss, much of the crowd sang along.
“It was soul-soothing, that there’s a place you can go and be with community, be with artists, listen to some music, and just kind of get it — get away from the wild world that we live in now,” said audience member Cheryl Weber.
Although this was her first time attending the festival, Weber was familiar with Gallery Art Bar. She reads poetry there every Wednesday and brought her daughter to the festival to see it. However, Weber was no stranger to folk music.
“It just kind of brings back music from my youth, and so it’s just, it’s a nostalgic sound to me,” Weber said.
CU Irish Session performed on Saturday as well at the Rose Bowl. The band was made up of many instruments, including flutes, violins, an accordion and a harp. Guests sat at the provided multi-colored picnic tables, where they sat quietly.
One of these audience members was Isabel Zuniga, a University graduate student studying writing. She said CU Irish Session was her favorite band at the festival.
“I study Ireland at the University, so it’s pretty cool to come and see it,” Zuniga said.
She added that, as someone who spent a year in Ireland, she feels the band’s music is authentic to the culture. She felt the festival helps foster connections, especially with a large population of non-University students in attendance.
“It’s so fun to see the community all together,” Zuniga said.
