Getaway

If you love good music and good fellowship, you'll love the Getaway! 

Getaway 2021 will be online this year via Zoom (Oct 8th to Oct 11th)  

The FSGW Getaway, for decades a gathering of friends, old and new, to share music and enjoy fellowship, will be online this year again. We hope you will be able to come and participate and to bring your songs and your presence again this year, via the screen. We pioneered the on-line participatory weekend last year, and enjoyed it so much that we want to do it again. The uncertainty over the COVID-19 pandemic also makes us reluctant to plan a huge in-person gathering this fall (although we might do something small in real life--we'll see how recovery from social distancing goes).

Last year, we had sessions celebrating inland waterways, the many ways of dogs, and the great Scots folk revival. We enjoyed some comic relief, explored the joys and woes of maturing and growing older, and sang of hope and better times, or social struggle and the songs of working people. There were ballads, chanteys and rants against pestilence, plague and disease! Attendees from all over the world sang Irish airs, gave us music hall ditties, and shared Appalachian treasures. We heard songs that get you weeping or laughing every time. Thomas McCarthy, an Irish Traveller, held forth on the songs, history, stories, and tales of his family and his people in a participatory zoom interview. Nora Rodes talked about two influential New England song collectors, Helen Hartness Flanders and Margaret MacArthur, and two West Virginian folklorists, Carrie and Michael Kline, presented oral histories from a West Virginia high school integrated in the 50s and 60s. There was a vocal clinic and a session on improving your guitar skills. It all happened, and a lot more, at last year’s Getaway. Our planners hope to top all that this coming October!

Once again, the Getaway will be free, but once again, we'll welcome your donations. 

Donations will support:

• The FSGW Getaway scholarship fund which is used to assist people with the cost of attending future Getaways.
• FSGW's offerings of a wide range of folk events and programs throughout the year.

You may donate using this link: Donate to the Getaway 

The 2020 Getaway is over, but here's what we did

2020 schedule 

If you have problems reading tables try 2020 Schedule Without Tables

There were 4 videos that were pre-recorded by people who were scheduled to be guests at the Getaway. Those videos were viewable until last October 31 by clicking these links:

Ed Miller Take a virtual musical tour of the land that begot the border ballad with Scottish folksinger Ed Miller. Ed brings his love of ballad, story, and place to this presentation about the places, people, architecture, history and culture reflected in the songs of the Scottish Borders. Every year Ed leads tours of the Scottish Borders. Most of us haven’t had the chance to go, but his presentation will be the next best alternative. This video presentation was filmed in Austin, TX by EJ Jones in May 2020 as part of the virtual Grandfather Mountain Highland Games. He has kindly shared it with the Getaway this year, for which we are grateful.

Elly Wininger Join NY Blues Hall of Famer Elly Wininger for a set of traditional and contemporary blues, as well as some of her heartfelt original material. Look for her new album soon to be released on Adelphi Records.

George Ward George Ward draws on an extensive body of southern Adirondack songs he collected with his late wife, Vaughn, as well as French Canadian and New England music . He also adds songs of his own composition to our ongoing musical tradition, reflecting the lives of the people of upstate New York.

Steven Levine Steven writes: Every year for over half a century my parents enjoyed sharing music and companionship at the FSGW Getaway. Although I am by no means a professional performer, the joy in singing with people that my parents brought back from the Getaway and other similar events has stayed with me throughout my life, and getting together with friends to sing at pubs and in living rooms and on Morris dance tours has been one of my greatest pleasures. I am happy for this opportunity to share some songs I enjoy as part of this event that meant so much to my parents.

Questions?  Contact the Getaway Chair

Previous years schedules

2019 schedule (pdf)

2018 schedule (pdf)

2017 schedule (pdf)