Northern Maine Music Festival enters fourth year

    The Northern Maine Music Festival is celebrating its fourth year of County and Canadian music at the Northern Maine Fair. The festival is a showcase of the wide variety of music to be found in northern Maine and adjacent Canada, and goes for nine consecutive days, from July 25 to Aug. 2.  
    The philosophy of the Northern Maine Music Festival is to showcase a little of everything music that can be found in Aroostook County. Each night the Music Hall presents a different genre of music, ranging from country to rock, gospel, jazz, fiddle, traditional or bluegrass.  
    The festival will include two new evening events this year. The first Saturday of the festival will be Latin Night, with bossa nova and samba tunes. Monday, July 28, will be the first Celtic Night. All evening events start at 7 p.m. in the Music Hall, next to the Ladies’ Pavilion in the old commercial building on the fairgrounds.
    Other nighttime events that carry on from previous years are Country, Gospel, Bluegrass, Rock and Jazz Nights. Sunday at the Northern Maine Fair celebrates a regional theme, which this year is Southern Aroostook County. Groups from southern Aroostook County  that will be playing in the Music Hall during the afternoon and evening include Heavenly Harpers, Border Harmony and “Tim and Bob.”
    Wednesday night will feature the Wednesday Evening Fiddlers, which usually play every Wednesday in Perth-Andover, New Brunswick. This was the single most popular evening event in the Music Hall last year.
    Another new event this year is the Sunday Fiesta! in an outdoor tent behind the Forestry Building.  
    “The Fiesta! is a great idea,” said Fair President Lynwood Winslow.  
    Winslow noted that the migrant workers are becoming an increasing part of the local agricultural scene and that there has not previously been a specific Spanish-speaking place for them and others to congregate.  The event there will include live and recorded Spanish-language music.
    Warner Archer and Wendell Hudson have assembled a country program in this tent for the first Saturday of the fair. This is an experimental location and environment, as the Music Festival tries to develop plans for a second stage and music program.
    The Northern Maine Music Festival is intended as a serious music festival that presents a wide variety and high quality of northern Maine and adjacent Canada-based music. Kevin McCartney, the festival's originator and chair, sought to organize such a festival but the many details – parking, admission, housing, insurance – is daunting. Such infrastructure is already provided by the Northern Maine Fair, and the music and fair are a perfect match.
    For more information on the Northern Maine Music Festival, contact organizer Kevin McCartney of Caribou at oldiron1@verizon.net or call him at 768-9400.