About Us
Goals and Purpose of the Albuquerque Folk Festival
The Albuquerque Folk Festival is focused on public participation. It is about teaching, not just entertainment. Our goal is to pass on knowledge, skills, and traditions to ensure the survival of folk activities. We enlist organizations and individuals to demonstrate and teach wide-ranging folk activities that include old American, New Mexican, Middle Eastern, and other international traditions. We see the teaching of folk activities as a process of encouraging creative expression and fostering a sense of community. Participation in folk activities can reconnect individuals with their neighbors, and participation in folk activities across cultures may encourage cultural tolerance. We aspire to remind people of the days when they could create their own entertainment by going to the community dance, telling stories to their families, or playing music on the front porch with friends. We seek to create alternatives to the public trend of relying on passive entertainment: participation instead of observation.
The Folk Ethic
The Albuquerque Folk Festival is committed to the Folk Ethic. The Folk Ethic is a focus on self-expression, community, friendship building, and social consciousness. It is about a non-commercial embrace of acoustic music with the focus on open participation rather than virtuoso talent. Enjoyment is sought through personal involvement rather than fame through performances and recordings. Those who are skillful at an activity are willing to teach beginners, for they were once beginners themselves who learned from others willing to help. The Folk Ethic is about enriching others through sharing in folk activities and sharing of each other's resources and is the best form of self-expression.
Our Mission
The Albuquerque Folk Festival provides an opportunity for the public to experience and participate in folk music, song, dance, and storytelling through educational workshops, demonstrations and performances. Folk activities enhance community expression and the continuance of cultural traditions.
The Albuquerque Folk Festival Policy
on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access
The Albuquerque Folk Festival (AFF) is committed to offering participatory festivals that honor the rich cultural diversity found in folk music, dance, and other traditional folk arts. In addition, AFF is committed to making our festivals affordable and accessible to include as many people as possible.
AFF is proud of our tradition of celebrating cultural diversity with the conviction that, in so doing, we foster a community in which our differences make us greater and fill us, not with fear, but with joy in the rich possibilities of appreciating those differences.
We believe AFF can play a role in helping reject the tragedies of social injustice and violence. All forms of racism, prejudice, and intolerance, along with the efforts to sustain them, are the antithesis of the spirit of what we do and who we want to be. Instead, we strive to offer a form of Òradical hospitalityÓ that accepts, with open minds and hearts, the rich traditions, and insights inherent in a united and diverse folk community.
Our fervent hope is that AFF will be part of a healing process. That is why we seek out performers throughout New Mexico and elsewhere that are aligned with the vision of achieving diversity, equity, inclusion, and access.
AFF offers opportunities to lift our voices together in the spirit of community. We resolve to look into our hearts and minds to find the strength to be our best selves and to carry on this community spirit throughout the year. Join us!
ABQ FOLK FEST Special Events
Of course, our major event is the ABQ FOLK FEST. But we also produce other events throughout the year. Check out our upcoming activities!
Board of Directors
The Albuquerque Folk Festival is a 501(c)(3) corporation with a volunteer board of directors. The current board members are:
- Dan Matthews - President
- Michelle Spiro - Vice President
- Dianne Rossbach - Treasurer
- Cleve Sharp - Secretary
- Nancy Brodsky
- Sara Charlton
- Steven Hunyady
- Randy Martin
- Tony Mora
- Dave Para
- Jason Sewell
You can reach the board at .
Advisory Board
In accordance with the Albuquerque Folk Festival's bylaws:
- Jimmy Abraham (past president)
- Pat Aruffo (communications director)
- Bill Balassi (co-event director & vending director)
- Donna Bauer (operations director)
- Neal Copperman (by vote)
- Michael Coy (past president)
- Rose Day (publicity director)
- Richard Eager (by vote)
- Peter Esherick (past president & schedule director)
- Erika Gerety-Libman (past president & event director)
- Kyle Malone (past president)
- Bill Miller (past president)
- Karen Scharf (volunteer director)
- Bruce Thomson (by vote)
Festival Directors
The Festival Co-Directors are:
- Bill Balassi
- Erika Gerety-Libman
They can be reached at directors@abqfolkfest.org or 505-710-9641.
Area Directors:
- Fundraising: Nancy Brodsky
- Logistics: Larry Daughenbaugh
- Marketing: Dave Para
- Operations: Donna Bauer
- Participation: Erika Gerety
- Performance: Jason Sewell
- Publicity: Rose Day
- Schedule: Peter Esherick
- Volunteers: Karen Scharf
- Vending: Bill Balassi
- Communications: Pat Aruffo
- Outreach: Cleve Sharp
Bill and Erika and all of these folks spend an enormous amount of time putting this festival together; like everyone else involved, they're volunteers.
Participate!
If you agree with the folk ethic and our goals and mission, why not join us? The festival encourages many different kinds of participation, from sponsorships and donations, to committee work during the year, to working a few hours at the festival, to performing at the festival, to bringing your family and friends to enjoy all the opportunities the festival offers. Help the festival bring people together!
