Folk

Ajda the Turkish Queen is a singer-songwriter, performer, and recording artist who has lived in Boston since 1996, and has performed extensively – from clubs and galleries to festivals and churches. Growing up in Texas with a Turkish mother and American father influenced Ajda greatly in her appreciation and straddling of Eastern and Western elements in music and culture. Her music has been called "rootsy yet ethereal", and spans genres such as alternative rock, indie/experimental, goth, folk, and country.

Modular on the Spot is a free and inclusive outdoor concert series created to offer a platform for local modular synthesists to share their compositions and improvisations with the public. The series was started in Los Angeles a decade ago and has since seen chapters sprout up in cities from Boston to Tokyo. 

Festival Kick-Off (11:00 am at Seven Hills Park) & Showcase (11:45 am in Festival Center)

Ten Hill Morris perform the finest Cotswold Morris dances. That is, traditional dances originally from England. They discover, refine, and reinvent these dances to bring that great festive energy to Somerville and the greater Boston area. They’ve performed up and down the east coast and Canada as a group. The members of the group have been hired at festivals in the UK and toured stage shows based on Morris dancing in North America and the UK.

Julie Rhodes is a Boston Music Awards recognized singer/songwriter who fronts a powerhouse band playing gritty, electric blues and soul.

Check out Julie Rhodes on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Teen-Beat's Mark Robinson & Evelyn Hurley have a unique, silly band that concentrates on miniatures. They jump up & sing little 20 second jingles all around Boston, often a capella. Some of the tunes are mid-70s tv breaks for toys or margarine, while others are contemporary commercials for local businesses (and I'm excessively proud to say that Weirdo is one of them). Once in a while they'll also have a tiny tune about something else altogether. Beautiful, crisp vocals, and cheery harmonies, crazy thick echo.

Landing somewhere between the soft mournfulness of Ray LaMontagne and the stark beauty of The Tallest Man on Earth, Boston based singer-songwriter Woundikin delivers his songs in a voice that somehow sounds simultaneously airy and gritty while floating above wild strumming and delicate finger-picking. Often tackling the bittersweet moments in life, his songs offer up grey clouds with silver linings.

IDEAS, NOT THEORIES, is a theatrical percussion company for unconventional percussion instruments that offers several programs featuring Reynaliz Herrera's original music for bicycles and other unconventional instruments.

Kathy Snax is the solo project of Kathleen Mahoney, a Boston-based musician who describes her music as “haunted electropop.” The dreaminess of her ethereal vocals and lushly textured synths are juxtaposed with spacey tape feedback and moments of eerie distortion and noise, infusing her pop melodies with the surreal. 

Check out Kathy Snax on Instagram and Facebook.