Calgary’s Folk Music Festival is returning for its 46th year, and the highlights for this year’s fest are numerous.

Those highlights range from sought-after local bands getting to bring their talents to the folk fest stages, to numerous award-winning international artists such as Michael Kiwanuka, Cake, Moontricks, Madeleine Peyroux, and La Lom.

The Alberta representation at the festival includes the Aladean Kheroufi, the humour and stories in song of Cree/Stoney Nakoda drummer Cedric Lightning, the darker narratives interspersed with the multi-instrumental wizardry of Jolie Laide, and the blues from Alberta’s own Professor of the Blues Tim Williams, among others.

“We’re always just trying to get a really diverse group of artists from all over the world, starting with Canada. This year, we do have a really exciting collaboration with the National Arts Center, so they have a women producers program,” Kerry Clarke, Artistic Director for the Calgary Folk Music Festival.

“We have three artists coming from that program: one from Mexico and two from Canada. So that was a bit different, but really, we pretty much have it like a well-oiled machine. So we’re not looking to reinvent the wheel.”

Clarke said many of the artists have also released new albums in the past year, like Kiwanuka with Small Changes, or Madeleine Peyroux with Let’s Walk.

“Sometimes we’re having artists, whether they have new albums or not. But there are quite a few that are continuing putting out new music, and they can hear it at the festival. Michael Kiwanuka, the last time he was here was about seven years ago—there have been five British Prime Ministers since then, and he’s got some new music,” she said.

Clarke said the other great thing about the festival is that audiences would get to see Canadian artists experimenting with new material and see them perform together with other artists in the festival’s daytime jam sessions.

“The collaborative sessions—sometimes, like years ago, we had Mariel Buckley play with some key country artists, and she’s still talking to them. There’s possibilities that people will be on people’s tours, and opening for them,” she said.

Clarke said Calgary artists, in particular, get a chance to be in front of one of the largest annual Calgary music audiences.

“It is an incredible opportunity, because they are seen by their fans, but they also have access to 12,000 people,” she said.

“That’s an opportunity that I don’t think any other festival affords, and the local artists really appreciate it. We’re trying to find artists that are at that stage of their career where they’re ready to be in front of 12,000 people, and when other artists see them, they say, ‘wow, this is the quality of artists that we have in Alberta, and these are artists that should be heard elsewhere.'”

Folk Fest is set to feature 68 artists for 2025, with 14 from across Alberta, and seven from Calgary. Across the entire spectrum of acts, Clarke said that close to 60 per cent were Canadian this year.

Tuning, not tariffs drive cross-border collaboration between musicians

Clarke said that despite the politics going on between Canada and the United States, the collaborative nature of music and of Folk Fest would continue.

She said many of this year’s artists had been booked long before American voters decided on a Trump administration.

“A lot of our artists are booked well before we knew exactly who was going to be elected, and when they were elected, and exactly what impact that would have. But you know what, there’s a lot of American headliners that are going to bring in people to see Canadian artists,” Clarke said.

“We want to keep collaborations between the two countries, between citizens, between artists. Those conversations are critical, and they’re musical conversations, or artistic conversations, so I don’t think that there’s a time we’re going to say this is what’s happening in the States, and we’re going to stop booking American artists.”

American artists travelling to Calgary also had benefits for Canadian fans, she said.

“When we talk to artists and agents in the States, I think we’re hearing a lot of concern about what’s happening with the administration, and that they’re happy to be coming to Canada. I think it’ll be interesting to see if Americans will want to travel to Canada. The dollar is low,” Clarke said.

“If Canadians might want to stay in Canada and check out really amazing things, and there may be some American artists that they want to see that they now don’t have to cross the border to see.”

That low dollar has been touted by Tourism Calgary as a key driver for engagement with foreign tourists, but it also impacts the festival’s budget.

Clarke said the festival’s reputation allows them to draw in big-name artists, but that dollar difference—one of the worst it’s been in two decades—impacted the number of headliners that Folk Fest could afford.

“The festival is able to attract great artists because we have a really good reputation. We have a decent budget, so we can afford these artists, but it is a juggling act, because you can only put out so many big offers. And then if they all come through, you’d be way over budget,” Clarke said.

She said that the festival would have liked to have booked about five or six more headliners, but that audiences should in no way disappointed this year for who’s playing at Folk Fest.

“It’s a really good lineup.”

For full details on the entire list of Folk Fest artists, along with the dates and stages they will be playing on, see calgaryfolkfest.com.