Since its 1987 debut as the National Folk Festival, the Lowell Folk Festival has drawn acts from across the world for a free musical extravaganza. This year, on July 27th, 28th and 29th more than 23 acts were performed on six stages around downtown Lowell. The festival attracted over 10,000 attendees. This festival is sponsored by the National Art Council and featured several internationally acclaimed artists performing on various instruments as it has been in the past. Several of the instruments have been featured for the first time this year.
Durga Krishnan of New England School of Carnatic Music gave two solo veena concerts to the accompaniments of Sri Narayanaswamy (from India) on the mridangam and Dan Reck of Amherst on the ghatam. All the three instruments and the Carnatic Music were featured for the first time at this festival and were very well received with audience of a few hundred in each venue. Krishnan also presented a dance ballet performed by the students of the Nrithyanjali school of dance of Jothi Raghavan's on a story of Shiva, Ganga and Gowri with live music accompanied by her students Nandini Vijayakumar and Amritha Mangalat on the veena and Sri Narayanaswamy and Dan on mridangam and ghatam. The music for this dance presentation was composed by Durga's guru veena maestro the late Dr. Chittibabu some 36 years ago. The special feature of this chosen music was it had no lyrics, but the choreography of the music itself told the story. This was presented on the main stage which is a rarity for a first time invitee. Durga Krishnan also joined a group of international string artists representing their respective countries and instruments to do a workshop. On being invited to this festival Krishnan says “what a privilege it is for me to be on the stage with these world class musicians and present our Carnatic Music and the instrument Veena to the audience"!
The Lowell Folk Festival is now billed as the nation’s “largest free folk festival†and rated one of the top 100 events in the U.S. by the American Bus Association.
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