In keeping with this years’ celebration of Crossing Rhythms Flamenco, Irish and Indian dance traditions will take pride of place on our revamped concert stage. The Crossing Rhythms theme also includes some amazing adventures in percussion, featuring some of the country’s top players taking you on a global journey through African and Indian polyrhythms, the hypnotic broken rhythms of the Balkans, Quebecois foot percussion, thunderous Irish hard-shoe dancing and lots more.

An unprecedented number of stellar international performers from four continents encompass Scottish vocal brilliance, Quebecois instrumental exuberance, West African kora virtuosity, Latin passion and a swag of inspirational songwriters and musical storytellers.

Combined as ever with extensive children’s and youth programs, the 2010 festival will be a genuine all-age event guaranteed to delight and inspire the music lover in all of us. This could well be our hottest lineup ever – don’t miss a bar of it.

Genticorum (Quebec) The runaway hit act of the Canadian folk circuit bring you exuberant tunes, songs and foot percussion from the vibrant Quebecois French Canadian tradition. (visit www.genticorum.com)

Eddi Reader (Scotland) Scotland's goose-bump-raising queen of traditional and contemporary song has journeyed from the chart-topping 80s band Fairground Attraction to becoming one of the world’s most feted exponents of Scottish balladry. Her all-star trio includes Irish accordion star Alan Kelly and brilliant English guitarist-songwriter Boo Hewerdine.

Vin Garbutt (England) Teesside’s favourite son - troubadour, songwriter and the folk world's most hilarious raconteur.
James Keelaghan and Hugh McMillan (Canada) - multi-Juno-award-winning songwriter and storyteller and unforgettable golden-voiced singer of memorable song-stories.

Nano Stern (Chile). Exciting young singer and multi-instrumentalist with a global repertoire and charisma to burn.
Beppe Gambetta (Italy) - flat-picking guitar wizard with a bluegrass soul, guaranteed to hold audiences in the palm of his hand.

Arte Kanela Flamenco (Australia) - unsurpassed passion, fingerwork and footwork from this breathtaking flamenco troupe. “The best concert act of their type in the country”…The Australian.

Mara! (Australia) Australia's foremost world music band, melding jazz with Balkan and Middle Eastern roots, featuring stellar saxophonist Sandy Evans and the amazing voice of Mara Kiek.

Sally Dastey (Australia) After making her name with Tiddas, Sally’s warm and generous performances keep her in the front rank of Australian festival performers.

The Chipolatas (England). This exhilarating street theatre act has been mixing circus, music theatre and comedy over an 18 year career spanning 43 counties and six continents. Back to Fairbridge by overwhelming popular demand.

Tetrafide Percussion with the Spice Dance Ensemble, (WA). Perth’s globe trotting percussion virtuosos team up with a spectacular troupe of dancers to celebrate the stunning beauty of Indian classical dance.

Dva (Aust-Germany). Linsey Pollak (woodwinds and electronica) and Tunji Baier (percussion) - breathtaking improvisation taking you to a whole new place.

Greg Sheehan (Australia) – Byron Bay’s inspirational percussion master.

And many many more to be announced very soon.

Steve Barnes
Artistic Director

Fascinating festival facts for trivia buffs: Fairbridge Festival is (we think) the fourth biggest community folk/roots festival in Australia after the Big Three (The National, Port Fairy and Woodford) in audience numbers. About 8,000 individual people came in 2008, making up around 25,000 day attendances. This is the 17th festival, the first being in 1993. The festival takes about fourteen months to plan. About 350 acts apply to perform, out of whom we pick about 100. Of the 87 musical acts on the bill, only ten percent played Fairbridge last year, and about half are completely new to us. We have around 400 individual performers playing 319 separate gigs. Among the artists we have 13 Peters, 12 Johns and one Xave. More artists come from Fremantle than from anywhere else, one comes from Banjul (Google it), and none, sadly, comes from Tittybong. We have somewhere around 200 volunteers on site working a total of 67 person-days (those are like dog days only longer). If we ran all the shows at the festival one after another, night and day, in the same venue with no breaks, the festival would last for slightly more than ten days. If we took all of the strings off all of the guitars at the festival, joined them end to end and stretched them around the equator then they wouldn’t reach and none of the guitarists would be able to play. This is the first blurb in the history of the festival which contains all of the following words: “theology”, “pumpkins” and “kantele”. One of the sentences in this blurb is untrue, but not this one. The person who compiled these statistics badly needs to get a life.