Returning for their thirteenth year is SappyFest, Sackville’s festival of art, craft, music, and the fine art of wearing your heart on your sleeve.
Among the first volley of acts announced today include U.S. Girls, Bonjay, the constant Julie & The Wrong Guys, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, the brilliant Jeremy Dutcher who combines his classical training as an opera singer with his native Wolastoq language, Jennifer Castle, Special Costello, the lyrically loquacious The Burning Hell, WHOOP-Szo, Witch Prophet, and that genius who can usually be found singing in the bathroom BA Johnston.
“This is an important moment! This moment of making plans, of deciding to come together, here, in this way, with kind and open hearts: volunteers, organizers, participating artists, the full community of active listeners, those who cook and those who clothe and those who build. When so many things would keep us apart, we choose to come together; when so much of the world is defined by anger, we choose to welcome each other. To make a plan is to claim a hope for the future,” says Steven Lambke, Creative Director for SappyFest.
“We have been making plans! This year we are are thrilled to welcome some of the most exciting and celebrated artists at work today. We welcome artists who moved us with their music at the first note, and for who celebration will surely come. We welcome poets and storytellers, thinkers and dancers. And of course, we welcome back old friends, some who we haven’t seen in far too long a time, with new songs to sing, new stories to tell.”
Also included in this year’s programming readings by Stereoblind author Emma Healey.
SappyFest is an independent music and arts festival produced annually in Sackville, New Brunswick. SappyFest 13 takes place from August 3-5, 2018. Early bird passes for SappyFest 13 on sale now for $95 (taxes and fees included) and are available HERE.