The National Celtic Folk Festival (NCFF) has announced the first four musical artists for its 2023 program as the run-in to the Portarlington cultural celebration begins.
Dublin-born singer and bouzouki player Daoirí Farrell and traditional Irish trio the Irish Tudors are the first of the international acts named for this year’s festival, while Melbourne folk duo Charm of Finches and Scotland expat Colin Lillie spearhead the local talent.
The NCFF, now in its 19th year, will bring the best of Celtic culture to Portarlington from June 9-12, and festival director Una McAlindan said she was excited to be able to showcase a full roster of international talent for the first time since 2019.
“We’re still a little bit nervous, what with COVID and all the stopping and starting,” Ms McAlindan said.
“As the biggest Celtic festival in Australia, we pride ourselves on bringing in new, fresh performers for festival goers to enjoy.
“This is the first year, since COVID, that we are back full tilt and we are ready to host more international and national artists this year.
“Some of these artists, most of them, actually, we’ve been talking to since 2019. We’ve been on again, off again so many times, so to get them here is very exciting.”
In addition to the hundreds of musical acts the festival anticipates announcing in coming months, the NCFF will also host a broad range of Celtic cultural and sporting events.
“There will be music, theatre, dance, comedy; there’s a program across the arts,” Ms McAlindan said.
“The Young Writers Association of Melbourne is coming. We’ve got the caber tossing coming back; we introduced that last year in a small way, so we’re bringing that back and building on it this year.
“We’re working with Gaelic Games to bring hurling down here for the first time, we’ll bring lots of dance groups, Celtic martial arts, a whole hullabaloo.”
