Mid-Winter Singing and Folk Festival takes the chill off

For 18 years, this has been a local custom.

Just when winter is feeling eternal – about a month after Christmas, about a century before spring – people get together and sing. They listen a little; some strum or pick. But mostly, they sing.

“It’s an amazing feeling, in our fragmented world,” said Dan Chouinard, a song-leader. “Everyone is pulling together and doing the same thing. That’s wonderful.”

He leads community sings in Minneapolis, but finds the Mid-Winter Singing and Folk Festival unique.

Sally Potter had savored the singing tent that Pete and Toshi Seeger started in New York, then went further: At first, the festival had two days of singing, in East Lansing’s Hannah Community Center.

It became popular … but maybe too much of a good thing. “People were starting to pick out one or the other of the two nights,” Potter said.

So she switched: Now Friday nights have a concert – “someone who needs that big space” of the 500-seat Hannah auditorium; on Saturday afternoon and evening, people start singing.

This year, the Friday concert features fiddler Liz Carroll. “She’s hard to get,” Potter said. “We started working on this a year-and-a-half ago.”

Carroll “grew up in Chicago’s Irish community, which is huge,” Potter said. Traveling to her parents’ homeland, she finished second in an All-Ireland fiddle championship in 1973 … finished first the next year … then became only the second American to win the all-Ireland Senior Fiddle Championship.

Onstage with her, Potter said, will be step-dancer Nic Gareiss – “he lives in Lansing, but performs around the world” – and harpist Maeve Gilchrist. “These are three world-class performers.”

The fiddle duo House of Hamill, will be the opening act. Then on Saturday, the public gets to sing ans strum and such. The afternoon workshops are:

• Two that include instruments. At 12:20 p.m., ukelele buff Ben Hassenger has “four-chord magic” for ukes and other instruments. At 1:40, a “spontaneous folk ensemble” will be led by Mark Dvorak, who also has a kids’ concert in the morning. “He’s sort of like the Mr. Rogers of music jams,” Potter said.

• Back-to-back songwriting sessions, at 1:40 p.m. (lyrics) and 3 p.m. (music). They’re by Joel Mabus, a longtime folk star. “Joel is a god to some of us, a mid-Michigan treasure.” Potter said. “The guy has lesson plans, hand-outs. It’s a two-hour master class and it’s free for students.”

• Three singalongs. At 12:20 p.m. is the Catbird Seat duo of Wanda Degen and Kay Rinker-O’Neil. At 1:40 is Sara Elizabeth Wallace; “she’s an opera singer, but she loves American standards,” Potter sdaid. And at 3, Kitty Donohoe leads an Irish hour.

• And – returning after a five-year break – the Festival Choir. Anyone can show up at 3 p.m. and spend 90 minutes with Rachel Alexander, molding, “Lord, Give Me Just a Little More Time.” The choir will sing it that night, in what otherwise will be pure singalong.

Winding through that will be Chouinard. He’ll lead the songs at night and be the accompanist for Wallace and for the choir. “I love accompanying,” he said. “It has that aspect of collaboration.”

And it reflects the days when his grandparents would sing French songs from their youth in Quebec.

Choinard grew up in the 1970s rock scene, as “sort of a kid who enjoyed everything.” He loved ‘20s and ‘30s standards, but also played keyboard in a rock band. When the family moved to a Swedish community, “I was persuaded to get a small accordion.”

At a small Minnesota college, Chouinard ranged from rock bands to piano bars and sing-alongs. Then it was on to Minneapolis, a city that’s been full of music – from Prince to Bob Dylan to jazzmen to the Lutheran choir singers Garrison Keillor talks about – and now is full of sing-alongs.

Chouinard leads several, with new ones emerging. One new group, he said, hopes to strictly use popular songs from the ‘90s and 2000’s, “but it’s not that easy.”

Those songs often had high-tech backing; some require vocal gymnastics. So people return, he said, to the Beatles or Dylan or the classics of the ‘20s and ‘30s or the folk tunes of America’s past. “I love that feeling of something that builds an instant bond, uniting a lot of people.”

If you go

What and where:

• Mid-Winter Singing & Folk Festival

• Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbot Road, East Lansing

Tickets:

•Evening tickets are online (tenpoundfiddle.org) or at the door; each night is $20, $18 for Ten Pound Fiddle members, $5 for students

• Saturday morning children’s concert is free

• Saturday afternoon wristbands ($10, for workshops in three time blocks) are at the door. Students are free Saturday afternoon, but still need a wristband

The concerts

• Liz Carroll, 7:30 p.m. Friday, auditorium. With dancer Nic Gareiss, harpist Maeve Gilchrist and the House of Hamill fiddle duo

• Children’s concert by Mark Dvorak, 11 a.m. Saturday, Banquet Room

Community Sing

• 7:30 p.m. Saturday, auditorium, lyric sheets will be available here … and for most of the workshops

• Dan Chouinard will be the leader; also, the Festival Choir will do a song

Workshops (12:20-1:20 p.m. Saturday)

• “Nostalgic Hellos and Goodbyes,” the Catbird Seat (Wanda Degen and Kay Rinker-O’Neil)

• “Fantastic Four-Chord Magic,” for ukeleles and other instruments, Ben Hassenger

Workshops (1:40-2:40 p.m. Saturday)

• “Spontaneous Folk Ensemble” (instruments welcome), Mark Dvorak

•“Songwriting, Part One: Mostly Lyrics,” Joel Mabus

• “American Standards,” Sarah Elizabeth Wallace.

Workshops (3-4 p.m. Saturday)

• “Songs of Ireland,” Kitty Donohoe

• “Songwriting Part Two: Mostly Music,” Mabus

• Festival choir learning a song, “Lord, Give Me a Little More Time,” which it will perform that night, Rachel Alexander