1st Annual New Bedford “Roots & Branches Fest” to offer acoustic music by and for the people

“Summer in New Bedford has become synonymous with the sounds of acoustic music downtown and a brand new festival is expanding on that tradition. On Saturday July 22, the 1st annual NB Roots & Branches Fest will present a day of acoustic music by and for the people. Our 100% free public festival will include 6 performance areas that will host local and regional performers of true traditional music, indie folk, acoustic roots rock, contemporary singers, songwriters, and further flung compositional & exploratory acoustic music practitioners.

In our 4 indoor spaces, NB Roots & Branches has 24 performers lined up in unique concert settings that connect listeners with sounds they resonate with at local locations they’ll love. Our indoor stages are more than stages. Each “stage” will be a neighboring small business acting as a unique listening concert venue for the day. Within our 6 hours of music, you might catch rising songwriter Molly O’Leary in the comfort food go-to, Destination Soups, turned comfy house concert locale, Or you might choose to dance to local favorites The Jethros at the Pour Farm turned retro folk speakeasy, or take in chamber folk arrangements by Pebbles of Rain in the fashionably bohemian venue provided by the always chic Calico.

The festival’s outdoor traditional music performance areas will be hosted in downtown New Bedford’s Wing’s Court which directly abuts our concert venues. In those spaces, authentic experiences of 6 different traditional music cultures will include some scheduled events where festival goers can directly participate in the music making. Bring your fiddles and your voices, and you can be a part of a true living traditional music experience with Old Time Fiddle Session, an Irish Seisun, or one of a number of group singing sessions that include shape note, shanteys, and songs from the ancestral past. In addition to authenticity and connectedness through participation, our traditional music areas will have performances that represent the demographics of the city and the region as a whole with exciting opportunities to connect our shared present through our various rich and diverse pasts.

Wing’s Court is a large and beautiful multi-use space with room enough for the festival to provide a family activity area as well. Activities will be available in the central step down space between the 2 traditional music areas for families with kids and the young at heart.

Festival organizers are in direct contact working with New Bedford creative strategist, Margo Saulnier, the city’s tourism department, and dNB Inc to ensure a successful, professionally produced festival that has a direct positive effect on the community. In addition to making the festival free to all and ensuring the various diverse folk communities of the city are represented on the performance schedule, this festival aims to have a favorable impact on the downtown district we’re occupying. We’re designing a festival that not merely acknowledges, but rather aims to directly benefit and involve the small business in the neighborhood of our event.

In excess of 90% of performers have been booked already, but there is still some leg work to be done. A full schedule including performance times will be available to the public by mid-March. Check in at www.southcoastlessons.com/rootsandbranches for more information and schedule updates!”