A Tribute to Sisters Folk Festival
þ PRESENTED BY þ
Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce
City of Sisters
The Nugget Newspaper
& Participating Advertisers
PHOTO BY ROB KERR
A word from Sisters Folk Festival
Executive Director Crista Munro...
“Resilience”
PHOTO BY ROB KERR
PHOTO BY ROB KERR
PHOTO BY ROB KERR
It’s only September, but if I had to
choose a Word of the Year for 2020, it
would be “Resilience.” How could it be
anything else? Webster’s Dictionary defines
resilience as “an ability to recover from or
adjust easily to misfortune or change,” and
change we’ve had in spades this year.
It would be all too easy to completely
write off 2020 and the upheaval it has
brought into our lives. But life is full of
contradictions, and our current tribulations
— while tragic — have also served a posi-
tive purpose by bringing the things that
are the most important to us into wicked-
sharp focus.
Before March of 2020, could any of
us have imagined a spring without con-
certs or a summer without festivals? I
know I couldn’t. But as the world learned
more about COVID-19, including how
it spreads and the havoc it can wreak on
the human body, we sat and watched in
utter shock as the plug was pulled one by
one on so many of the things that bring
us together in celebration of our shared
humanity: sporting events; graduation and
wedding ceremonies; live theater; and con-
certs of all sizes. These things we once took
for granted became distant, fond memories
seemingly overnight, even as we found our-
selves needing them more than ever before
to help ease our feelings of isolation.
It’s been six months since the effects of
COVID-19 began to be felt on our collec-
tive psyche, and, as humans will, we find
ourselves venturing out of our shelters a
little more in search of safe and innovative
ways to experience these events that are so
important, once again. We are looking for
ways to feel connected to one another in
real life and real time, and not just through
the miracles of modern technology.
With that in mind, the Sisters Folk
Festival staff and board are thrilled to pres-
ent Close To Home 2, with four daily sets
of live music from eight performers and
groups from around our state and region
at the Sisters Art Works outdoor venue
Friday-Sunday, September 11-13.
Sisters Folk Festival has been build-
ing a strong community through power-
ful shared experiences since 1995. This
weekend would have been our 24th annual
folk festival, but — like every other large
gathering in Oregon — the event was
postponed to 2021. Instead, this weekend
we are bringing fewer artists and audience
members together in our own backyard
for a physically-distanced “mini-festival”
that follows all of the protocols recom-
mended by the Oregon Health Authority
and Center for Disease Control. Each day’s
attendance will be strictly capped at 250
people, including all event personnel and
audience members. You won’t see people
greeting their festival family with big bear
hugs like they do in “normal” years. But
inside the seating pods, there will be lots
of toe-tapping and plenty of ear-to-ear
grins in response to the sheer joy of being
in the presence of live music after such an
unimaginably long hiatus.
We thank you for your continued sup-
port as the Sisters Folk Festival organiza-
tion learns how to navigate as safely as pos-
sible in this new COVID reality, bringing
audiences together to see, hear and feel the
power of live music. We are reimagining
what a live concert can be during this time,
and finding ways to capture the energy of a
live audience while broadcasting these per-
formances to the world via the power of
the Internet.
We are evolving.
We are surviving.
We are resilient.