the idea: start a folk festival out in Hillsdale New York

the ideator: Anne and Howard Saunders

My first time at Falcon Ridge was in 1994.  Or at least that’s what my father tells me, at the time I was just under a year old.  Apart from two years of summer camp, I have gone every year since then.  This makes me what the festival-goers affectionately call a “Falcon Ridge Baby.”

But this year, the 25th year of the festival, was different.  This year I not only volunteered, I introduced performers on the workshop stage and even go to perform there.  I got up on stage during Vance Gilbert’s Performance Skills Critique workshop and played through my newest song, The Pretty Girl Game.  More about that incredible event later.

Every year I go back to Falcon Ridge, I discover a new part of it.  Recently, these parts have been the late night unofficial stages like Budgie Dome and The Lounge or the song swaps like the wonderful Front Porch.  I’ve been making my way to the Front Porch, like a little lost puppy, for the past four years or so.  This year, however, was the first year I really wished a camera was there because what happened when I played Try was something I will always remember.

It’s these side pieces, the workshops that get up and comings on stage, the unofficial stages, the communities that develop around all of it that make the festival.  Someday I’ll hopefully get up on stage for more than one song, and that’s when I’ll be one of those people who can say that I’ve been going for 30 years.