Dear Friends,
I have tasted hudut cooked by Garifuna elders and watched Tibetan monks create intricate sand mandalas over the course of a week. I have listened to traditional Bulgarian folk songs played on a Gaida and have danced alongside Polish troupes. I have read Peruvian folk tales and sat in traditional Mongolian yurts. No, I am not a seasoned traveler who has traversed the world. Instead I have taken in each of these experiences not far from my campus residence at Rutgers University as part of the Festival staff. My work with the Festival has opened my eyes to the world just beyond my front door. Working with the community leaders, cultural groups, and scholars who come to the Festival has awarded me a tremendous amount of experience in learning from different people of different backgrounds. These relationships are those that I will take with me for the rest of my life.
I have eagerly looked forward to Festival morning every year for the past four years, but this year is a little different. This year’s usual excitement is mixed with a bittersweet twinge of sadness. It is a feeling that comes from accepting that this is my final year on the student-staff of the New Jersey Folk Festival, a group that I have been a part of for the past four years since my very first semester at Rutgers.
We, as a student staff of fifteen Rutgers undergraduates, are responsible for continuing the Festival’s mission of celebrating the diverse multicultural and indigenous folk life of the state. Our team began work in the fall and worked tirelessly throughout the spring semester under the direction of our Founder and Executive Director Dr. Angus Kress Gillespie and Associate Director Michelle Yasay in order to put the Festival together.
This year the New Jersey Folk Festival honors John Weingart with our 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award. We wish to recognize Weingart’s nearly forty years of producing the radio show “Music You Can’t Hear on The Radio.” The core of what makes John Weingart’s folk music radio show unique may be that his love for folk music and his love for radio evolved simultaneously. As a result, his goal every Sunday night is both to play music he thinks wonderful and to create great radio.
This is a very special Festival as it marks our fortieth year of being able to bring such rich cultural traditions to the heart of New Brunswick. Our humble Festival has connected with generations of people over these past decades. Speaking from my experience, I grew up coming to the Festival with my family and volunteered all through high school when my sister was on the Festival staff. Hundreds of thousands of people such as myself have taken part in the Festival, keeping our work significant.
As I take in this day, I reflect back on my time on the Festival staff. I have met lifelong friends and I learned things that no other University experience could ever teach me. I look forward to coming back to the Festival in the coming years as a very proud alum; proud of what I have put into the Festival and proud of what those who come after me do to preserve this great tradition. As we celebrate the fortieth year of the Festival, we celebrate the people who have dedicated their energies and talents into assuring such a rich cultural event every year. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to those Festival staff and volunteers who make this event possible every year as I am truly grateful to every person I have had the opportunity to work with these past four years.
The Festival represents the nexus between the “Jersey roots, global reach” Rutgers University strives to promote. For me, it represents my biggest contribution to my school during my undersgraduate career, connecting childhood memories to collegiate endeavors and future career goals.
Happy anniversary, New Jersey Folk Festival. Forty years looks good on you. Please come back and visit us April 25th of next year as we celebrate the maritime culture of New Jersey.
Gabrielle Rossi,
Festival Manager