Taro Tour Part 4 - Woodford

Last year Taro & I played at Woodford Folk Festival, including the amazing New Year's Dawn concert, and the organisers were so happy that they invited us back this year. (Thanks Pat & Sim!) This year's Woodford was the wettest I've ever seen. It rained for most of every day except the second day. The hilltop events (New Year's Eve and Dawn) were cancelled, and a lot of people including myself skipped the Closing Ceremony. But everyone was there to enjoy themselves and a great time was had by all.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of Taro & my "proper" concerts, just a couple of jam sessions... In all we played 13 concerts - 5 classical sets in Folklorica (our paid gigs), 1 set accompanying singer Menaka Visvanathan, and 7 "chalkboard" shows in the Chai tent, including an improvised collaboration with Butoh dancer Yumiko Nii, an EthnoSuperLounge session (pictured below), and a very exciting tabla duet with Perth-based tabla player Vicky Ramakrishnan.

We also had the honour of performing in the Folklorica up to New Year's midnight. This included the "3 minutes silence" from 11.30pm, a pet project of Festival director Bill Hauritz. Taro was really looking forward to being part of this, and his performance was perfectly timed - according to the clock given to us by the stage manager! Unfortunately that clock was exactly 3 minutes slow, and Taro played right through the festival's 3 minutes' silence!!! Kind of embarrassing, quite disappointing at first, but it's a funny story. :-)

An impromptu jam session in the Gypsy Caravan - including Francis Gilfedder (morsing), Taro, and Aiba (violin)

EthnoSuperLounge in the Chai Tent - Asim Gorashi, his wife Manal, myself, Taro Terahara, Faros (darbuka), Peter Hunt (trumpet), Caleb Trott (sax), Tony (vocals)

How rainy was Woodford?

Very wet, but fun...

My favourite band of the festival - Mukti. Kind of like Shakti, but with more western classical influences, Mukti features guitar, cello, vibraphone/percussion and tabla. Tabla player Vicky Ramakrishnan and myself also gave a tabla duet performance in the chai tent.

Tashi Lhunpo Monks were featured performers in the festival

A spontaneous collaboration between Tenzin Choegyal and shakuhachi player Riley Lee on the final day