The Portland Folk Festival is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of the world's folk and traditional music, and to the vibrant community, forward-thinking quality of life, and spectacular natural beauty of our treasured home of Portland. With one foot firmly rooted in preserving and celebrating the lessons of the past, and one in working toward a sustainable future, we are dedicated to the study, evolution, expression and celebration of the music of the people.
The Portland Folk Festival will offer a rich and diverse sampling of music, culture, art, craft, food and thought. The festival aims to connect artists and encourage exploration and collaboration by curating with a mind toward upholding as well as redefining our ideas of the nature of folk music. Each year the Portland Folk Festival will contribute to several local non-profit organizations dedicated to arts education, sustainability and food safety, and furthering Portland as an international hub of community-minded innovation.
About the Founders:
Slim Moon, Amanda Stark and Chantelle Hylton Simmons
Slim Moon, Development Director:
Slim Moon is the founder of the legendary indie label Kill Rock Stars. Over the years he has worked in music in nearly every way imaginable - musician, record label owner, producer, roadie, booking agent, retailer, manager, festival organizer. Along the way, he has helped nurture the careers of dozens of bands and solo artists including Elliott Smith, Sleater-Kinney, The Decemberists, and Thao Nguyen. Raised in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, folk music is Slim's first and most enduring musical love.
Amanda Stark, Managing Director:
Amanda Stark was immersed in politics and folk music from an early age. Growing up in Canada, her interest in writers like Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie and the beat poets drew her to the spoken word and folk movement in the United States in the early nineties. She spent several years touring internationally in the political punk folk band, Stark Raving Chandler, and went on to work as booking agent, promoter, publicist and artist manager. Amanda has worked with many exceptional artists, including Dan Bern, The Be Good Tanyas, Geoff Berner and Bitch and Animal. With a great appreciation for the wonderful festivals she has attended, and a grass roots approach to music business, Amanda has brought a long held dream of building a folk festival to her adopted home of Portland, Oregon.
Chantelle Hylton Simmons, Artistic Director:
The daughter of a jazz singer, Chantelle was raised on live music. While developing a career in news journalism in the spring of 2000 in Portland Oregon, she threw a party at the Medicine Hat Gallery, and was hired on the spot to take over the booking. Over the next 7 years in Portland she booked a show every night in almost a dozen music venues. In 2005 she started her own concert promotion company, Blackbird Presents, and with partner Mike McGonigal founded the Halleluwah Festival of Enthused Arts. In spring of 2007 while on vacation in New York City, she was offered the Senior Talent Buyer position at Knitting Factory, and spent almost 3 years in NYC until she missed Portland too much to stay away. She still books Brooklyn's Northside Festival (350+ bands over 4 days in more than 30 music venues), but can now do so from the 6 acres she and her family are developing into an organic farm and retreat space in Woodland, Washington.
Contributing Members:
Hoyt Emerson, Organizer, Technical Consultant
Hoyt Emerson is by all accounts obsessed with the proliferation of music and music minded people. After a number of years playing in bands, working for corporations, managing small business and trying to learn a little of everything, Hoyt settled down and created the music blog THWBRO.COM to promote regional and national music. He has since lent his web music expertise to record labels like Kill Rock Stars and Arena Rock Recording Co. His relationship to local and regional music eventually led him to artist management and is now a part of Shotclock Management, helping artists such as Sean Flinn & The Royal We, Tom Schraeder and Kelly Blair Bauman.
Weinland Creative, Website Designer
WEINLANDcreative | sensible.clean
http://weinlandcreative.com/
WEINLANDcreative is a freelance web design/development company based in Portland, Oregon. By earned reputation, we are able to choose what jobs we take and are lucky enough to only work on projects we believe in. WEINLANDcreative works with a team of freelance creatives located in and around Portland, Minneapolis, and Brooklyn. We are proficient in web design, development, e-commerce solutions, photoshop & image retouching, professional lifestyle and product photography, php application development, flash presentation, branding, identity development and production, screenprinting, silkscreen, and all things new media…WEINLANDcreative also works in affiliation with Two Penguins Productions. Two Penguins Productions is one of the northwest’s premier film & video production companies. Their clients include GQ Magazine, Blackbook, Stoli Vodka, Microsoft, TV Guide Magazine, Widmer, and more. WEINLANDcreative and Two Penguins partner on many projects a year and would like to recommend this dream team for your project! In every way possible we focus on decreasing our environmental impact, increasing our green consiousness, and establishing a positive impact on our ecology.
Riot Act Media, Publicists
Riot Act Media is a boutique publicity firm that expertly launches creative, communication-based campaigns for clients in the independent music, film and arts worlds—as well as for non-profit and corporate entities—through its office in Portland, OR.
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