Family Folk Machine/Senior Center awarded Iowa Arts Council grant!

The Family Folk Machine and the Senior Center were just awarded a large grant from the Iowa Arts Council to undertake a songwriting project, “Wasn’t That a Time?” with the Awful Purdies during the 2016-17 program year. The project will begin with a lecture/performance by the Awful Purdies on August 28 at the Johnson County Historical Society. The Purdies will present an introduction to songwriting and demonstrate how to conduct Story Circles. The FFM will host Story Circles in September and October, and in January and February the Awful Purdies will lead the FFM in a series of songwriting workshops. The project will culminate in a joint FFM-Awful Purdies concert on the main stage at the June 2017 Iowa Arts Festival. We can’t wait to get started!

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Sing, People, Sing! this Sunday, 3-5 at the Senior Center

Everyone is welcome to join us for the last session of Sing, People, Sing! where we have been getting to know the new sing-along book “Rise Again.” This Sunday we’ll be focusing on the end of the book, with chapters called Seas and Sailors, Sing People Sing!, Struggle, Surfin’ USA, Time and Changes, Travelin’, and Work. We’ll meet at the Senior Center this Sunday, June 26, from 3:00 to 5:00. I’ve been collecting song information from all our sessions to help put together a good song list for our fall Family Folk Machine program.
Hope to see you this Sunday! All singers and instruments are welcome.

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Front Porch Music Festival, June 11

The Family Folk Machine is pleased to participate in this year’s Front Porch Music Festival. The festival has lined up a spectacular variety of musical acts for several porches scattered throughout the Longfellow neighborhood. It will be a great day to stroll through the streets. The FFM will sing some of our best group numbers from this spring’s concert from 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. at the porch at 604 Grant Street. If you’d like to check out the whole schedule, look here:

Schedule of Events

Here’s a Little Village article from last summer about last year’s festival, if you want to get a sense of the inspiration behind the event:

Front Porch Music Festival to serenade Iowa City neighborhood

Hope to see you there!

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Community Folk Sing this Saturday, June 11

Saturday, June 11, we will gather at Uptown Bill’s (where it will be COOL) to sing together from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. This is the fourth of five sing-alongs moving sequentially through our new songbook, Rise Again. This session will focus on these chapters: Musicals, Old-Timey & Bluegrass, Outdoors, Peace, Play, Pub Songs, Rich & Poor, and Rock Around the Clock. Bring instruments! Come enjoy a cool soda or milkshake! Hope to see you Saturday.

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