folkwaysAlive! University of Alberta in partnership with

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and Peter North

together with Festival Place present

Winter Roots Roundup IV

Winter Roundup Now Under One Roof at Festival Place!

As we head into the fourth edition of Winter Roots the partnership has grown with the addition of Festival Place as the 2013 venue and new partner in the event.

The foundation for Winter Roots has been based on the Folkways Record collection housed at the FolkwaysAlive! resource centre on the University of Alberta campus. The vision for Winter Roots has been the creation of a series of performances, conversations, school workshops and film screenings that entertain, enlighten and educate. Winter Roots continues to draw on tradition while embracing the evolution of form and interpretation.

Over the past three events Winter Roots has been proud to present a number of artists rooted in tradition, but these have been artists who have expanded on the tradition rather than only emulating what has come before them.

The late David Rea, Alvin "Youngblood" Hart, Peter Case, Rosalie Sorrels, Mark DuFresene of Roomful of Blues fame, Lowell Levinger aka Grandpa Banana, Roy Forbes, Cindy Church and Mark Hummel are some of the artists who provided audiences with engaging performances that captured some of the journeys of roots music over the past century.

One of the mandates of Winter Roots has been to showcase Alberta-based artists and Kat Danser, Joe Nolan, Lizzy Hoyt, Jim McLennan, Byron Myhre, Terry McDade, Front Porch Roots Revue, John Rutherford, and Dave Babcock and the Nightkeepers are a few of our homegrown artists who have delivered superb performances in past years.

Winter Roots II & III presented critically acclaimed films on gospel blues legend Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Bela Fleck's journey to West Africa, iconic folk-singer Phil Ochs, David Bromberg's career, and the work Canadian harmonica ace Mike Stevens has done with kids in native communities in Labrador.

Winter Roots has taken folk, blues and bluegrass music into Edmonton area schools and we plan on expanding that compartment of the event in the coming years.

With the combination of Mickey Hart and his extraordinary eight-piece band, a rootsy tip of the hat to the expanded songbook of the Grateful Dead, the pulsating and percolating sounds of Ghana's African Showboyz, Maria Dunn and Ellen McIlwaine digging deep into the songs that capture the spirit of the Women of Folkways the presence of renaissance man John Cohen, one of the founders of the New Lost City Ramblers, plus another slate of fine films, there will be much to keep you engaged and uplifted while the performances and workshops of Winter Roots IV are taking place, and there will be much to take away from Festival Place that will hopefully provide future inspiration to all of us.

The Producers of Winter Roots