Bolton Landing Fabulous Folk Festival

We (Saratoga Faire) performed in Bolton Landing for The Fabulous Folk Festival last Sunday. Above was the poster for the event.

Our setlists included songs and instrumentals from the past and present day including Brian Boru's March, Mulberry Garden/Juice of Barley, Silkie, Crazy Man Michael, The French Report, Come to Me In Dreams, LaRue's Lament, Wind in the Willows, Water is Wide (among many others).

Also performing at this festival was Peggy Lynn, Dan Berggren and Nancy Walker Trio.

Peggy wrote this stunning piece which she has been performing for years called "Lydia". She played it at this festival. The melody is gorgeous and there is a refrain that goes: "Mountain women can be heroes." It stays in my head for a day every time I hear it!

I also tapped my feet to Nancy Walker's version of "Sweet Home Alabama".

After the festival was over, Frank, our violinist was remarking to the show's promoter about how beautiful Lake George was, even surpassing some of the well known gorgeous lakes he has seen in Europe.

We also got a very unusual opportunity by a woman who approached us on the stage after our last set which I won't divulge until/if all band members are informed and are able to perform for it. But it was one of those episodes that is truly unexpected, something you would never even dream about or aspire to (unless you knew about it, which we didn't).

Saratoga Faire band site

Our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

other performers at the festival:

Nancy Walker Trio

Peggy Lynn

Dan Berggren

First Night Saratoga and updates on my website

This is a picture of our band, Saratoga Faire, at First Night Saratoga 2010 (© Ray Bedard). We played to a packed crowd all night and sold quite a few CDs. There are more pictures of our band on our facebook here.

This photo and other music photos of 2009 are also on my website here. You’ll notice that this link takes you to a blog page. I do my own website blog every January summarizing the previous year (in this case it is about 2009). I had been doing that for years before starting a blog here on blogspot in September. Note: the blog on my website won't be repeated here, so take a look if you'd like.

The reason I started a blogspot? I started selling on Etsy. I thought it would be a good idea to announce new work I was putting on Etsy (for on-line customers). This wasn't so necessary for my brick and mortar stores: I didn't feel it was necessary to post on my website (& in fact, I didn't think my website was all that important for the art side of my life, which is why all of the music buttons are at the top).

I felt that people who were interested in my art would go see it in the stores and galleries I have listed on my website. But having an on-line store is a whole other venture. My only exposure to selling on-line is through CDs (but unlike etsy, these on-line stores take care of the actual marketing and selling for me)… and also selling some art and just a few CDs via paypal off of my website.

When I was entertaining the thought of starting a blog, I thought I would only focus on my art for my etsy store, but then realized that unlike other visual artists, there would be gaps in my creations as I often get called away to perform, record, write music, rehearse, etc. So it was only fitting that I should blog about music too. Both are important to me, inspire me and define who I am (and a number of people have remarked to me that I can't just let my singing voice go silent in an art studio all day and night).

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby