Folk Festival celebrates a world of music

The big band sound of New Orleans will highlight this year's University of Chicago Folk Festival, intermingling with folk music from around the world in three concerts and a mini-matinee. The festival will be held on campus Friday, Feb. 6, through Sunday, Feb. 8.

In addition to the concerts, free workshops, jam sessions and dancing will take place in Ida Noyes Hall from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8.

Three evening concerts of traditional American music will be held in Mandel Hall, one on each day of the festival. A special mini-matinee has been added to the program this year, featuring Chicago blues artist Little Smokey Smothers and the Regonald McCracken and the True Voices of Christ Concert Ensemble. The mini-matinee will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, in Max Palevsky Cinema.

The Treme Brass Band will lead off the first concert with the feel of New Orleans, uniting old masters and young innovators in the swinging sounds of street parade anthems and funeral marches at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6. The band will be followed by Vince Combs and the Shadetree Bluegrass Boys; Little Smokey Smothers; Laurence Nugent, Denis Cahill and Larry Gray, playing traditional Irish music; old-time string band Benton Flippen and the Smokey Valley Boys; and the Cajun combo of Vorance and Kevin Barzas, Horace Trahan and Leo Abshire.

The Saturday concert will begin with Art Stamper, an old-time Kentucky-style fiddler, at 7:30 p.m. Following his lead will be the jazz-tinged Yiddish melodies of the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble; the fandango of the Masters of Mexican Folkloric Dance with Sones de Mexico; Vorance and Kevin Barzas, Horace Trahan and Leo Abshire; Treme Brass Band; Laurence Nugent, Denis Cahill and Larry Gray.

Sunday's concert starts at 6:15 p.m. with Benton Flippen and the Smokey Valley Boys, followed by the Masters of Mexican Folkloric Dance with Sones de Mexico; Vince Combs and the Shadetree Bluegrass Boys; the Regonald McCracken and the True Voices of Christ Concert Ensemble; and the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble.

Tickets for each day are $15, $7 for students and children. Mini-matinee tickets are $8, $4 for students and children. Tickets are on sale at the Reynolds Club box office or by phone at 702-7300. For more information, call 702-9793.