BRATTLEBORO — The Brattleboro Music Center hosts the 15th annual Northern Roots Traditional Music Festival, Friday and Saturday, Jan. 28 and 29.
Now a cornerstone of the traditional music calendar in New England, the festival showcases a unique variety of northern musical traditions, including Irish, Scottish, English, French Canadian, Shetland, and, this year, Welsh.
Last year the entire event was held online, and in 2022, organizers are again offering the Festival in a different way, with online sessions and two evening concerts.
The first concert, on Friday, Jan. 28 at 7:30 p.m., features Hanneke Cassel and Yann Falquet with high-energy fiddle music from Scotland and Cape Breton; Arthur Davis and Emma Schneider, “the next generation in traditional song”; Rachel Bell and Karen Axelrod performing English Country Dance music on accordion and piano; and Rachel Clemente and Dan Houghton playing harp and Scottish pipes.
The Saturday concert ,Jan. 29, 7:30 p.m., includes multi-instrumentalists Benedict Koehler and Hilari Farrington offering Irish traditional music and Ben Gagliardi and Armand Aromin (the Vox Hunters) sharing traditional songs. They will be joined by Emerald Rae, playing the Welsh crwth (a type of fiddle) and Dan Frank, playing the French hurdy-gurdy.
Keith Murphy and Becky Tracy will join with Yann Falquet to wrap up the evening as “Traddleboro 2022.”
Both concerts will be live streamed.