In 1965, four Ann Arbor churches sought to create a gathering place for students to provide a creative outlet for talent in music, poetry, and art. They named this new venture The Ark.
Financial support from the four churches gradually ended, and The Ark continued to support itself with admission fees and donations. This ultimately led to a major fundraiser in 1977, the now-annual Ann Arbor Folk Festival. This year marks The Ark’s 50th anniversary and the 38th year of the festival to benefit Ann Arbor's non-profit home for folk, roots, and ethnic music. The Festival will be presented by The Ark and Ford Motor Company Fund, with support from the University of Michigan Center for Campus Involvement.
“The Ann Arbor Folk Fest is our largest fundraiser of the year, by far,” Ark Marketing Director Barb Chaffer Authier stated. “We are not just looking back at the past, but really saying this music is now relevant, and we’re celebrating that as we look toward the future.”
The festival takes place at Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan, to accommodate a large audience (total for both nights almost 7000 people) and is composed of two nights of folk and roots music on Friday, January 30, and Saturday, January 31, 2015, each beginning at 6:30pm. All of the funds raised through the festival will benefit The Ark.
“The idea with the festival is to have some of the bigger names bring in people that may not be familiar with The Ark, or the more up-and-coming names on the bill. Then we can introduce this big audience to these bands, and those bands then return to play their own night, at The Ark, in the spring,” Authier explained.
Many of the 2015 festival headliners were once up-and-coming artists at The Ark.
Lineups
Friday, January 30
-Brandi Carlile
​-Jason Isbell
-Yonder Mountain String Band
-Baskery
​-Bahamas
-Mandolin Orange
-Billy Strings & Don Julin
-The MC will be Steve Poltz.
Saturday, January 31
-Amos Lee
-Ani DiFranco
-Buffy Sainte-Marie
-Holly Williams
-The Dustbowl Revival
-Noah Gundersen
-Laith Al-Saadi
-The MC will be Cheryl Wheeler.
“We have a lot of artists who got their start or when they were lesser known played The Ark, and are now much bigger artists and are headlining this festival, such as Amos Lee, Ani DiFranco, Brandi Carlile, and Cheryl Wheeler, who has MC’d the festival before.”
Authier added, “Billy Strings & Don Julin are Michigan artists from the Traverse City area. We try to have at least one or two artists each year that are regional.
“The music is still the essential thing,” Authier continued. “[The Ark] is a nonprofit venue and we need to make money to stay afloat. But the goal isn’t ‘Does this artist make money?’ The goal is “Does this artist have something to say? Do they make awesome music?’ That’s what we want to support in this region.”
Friday, January 30 and Saturday, January 31. $100/single night ticket, $180/both nights.
The Ark, 316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor.
734-761-1451, theark.org.
