The 2025 Lowell Folk Festival, which for the past four decades has shared traditional music from cultures around the globe with audiences in the Mill City, has announced the complete roster of 19 musical acts performing on multiple stages throughout Downtown Lowell July 25-27. More information about the Lowell Folk Festival can be found at lowellfolkfestival.org.
“For me what makes the Lowell Folk Festival so special is the way it connects the community, across cultures, languages, and generations,” said Festival Director Lee Viliesis. “The festival has honored the shared musical heritage and cultural traditions that have come from across the globe to the Merrimack Valley, for nearly 40 years. This year we are excited to welcome artists from right here in our own neighborhood to join with international performers to celebrate keeping these musical practices alive.”
The 2025 Lowell Folk Festival will get a vibrant taste of Carnival thanks to one of Boston’s premier Trinidadian Carnival mas groups, Dynasty Productions Carnival Parade. Founded by Cynthia Coker and her husband Stephen, who both fell in love with Carnival in their native Trinidad and have carried the tradition on since moving to Boston in the early 1970s. Dynasty Productions includes musicians from islands across the West Indies and native Bostonians of Caribbean descent. Dynasty Productions will lead the Opening Night street parade to kick off the 2025 Lowell Folk Festival on Friday, July 25.
Celebrating their 75th anniversary this year, the Bullock Brothers have been performing soul-stirring gospel music throughout New England since 1950. Seventy-five years later they remain a family ensemble of fathers and sons, performing in the style of “jubilee” gospel choirs that emerged in the 1870s at African American colleges like Fisk University. “We've been on a gospel music journey for 75 years and it's not over yet!” George Bullock Jr. proclaims.
For nearly 40 years, the Angkor Dance Troupe has stewarded traditional Cambodian dance and music in Lowell, Massachusetts. Founder Tim Chan Thou and fellow founding members learned classical Cambodian dance in refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border. They brought with them to Lowell a strong desire to practice and perform Cambodian dance and a passion to teach others. The Angkor Dance Troupe is now a nationally recognized institution that has trained over 7,000 students and performed worldwide. They will be accompanied by an all-star ensemble of Cambodian musicians from Massachusetts and Maryland.
Grammy nominated Vasilis Kostas, represents the next generation brought up in the musical traditions of Epirus, a region in northwest Greece known for music with strong melodic lines, mournful lyrics, and slow rhythms. Born and raised in Ioannina, Greece, Vasilis grew up listening to his grandfather sing each night. He took up the guitar to accompany his grandfather, later performing at weddings and local events. A move to the United States to study jazz guitar at Berklee College of Music unexpectedly brought him back to his roots: playing the laouto (a long-necked, fretted lute with four paired strings) for a presentation of Greek music in Spain. Vasilis will be joined by talented rising musicians at the festival.
Hailing from Whitetop Mountain, a small Appalachian community nestled in the rugged Blue Ridge Mountains, Martha Spencer & the Wonderland Country Band is a living testimony to the vitality and deep roots of traditional music in Southwest Virginia. A gifted multi-instrumentalist, singer, and dancer, Martha is recognized as one of Virginia’s most cherished traditional artists. Together with her bandmates in the Wonderland Country Band, she is helping to preserve and carry forward the unique musical traditions of Grayson County, Virginia.
A renowned storyteller and dynamic performer, Gene Tagaban uses interactive stories, music, and dance as tools to entertain, inspire, and heal. Tagaban, whose Tlingit name is Guuy Yaau, is a member of the Tak’deintaan Raven Freshwater Sockeye Clan of Hoonah, Alaska, and the child of the Wooshkeetaan Eagle Shark Clan of Juneau, Alaska. He brings people of all ages and backgrounds into active participation with timeless Indigenous teachings centered on deepening self-knowledge, strengthening interpersonal connections, and developing compassion and respect for the natural world.
With propulsive percussion, dynamic brass lines, and emphatic, emotional vocals, Edwin Perez y Su Orquesta is a high-octane salsa ensemble, leading the renaissance of salsa dura, a New York style that flourished in the 1970s and 1980s and inspires audiences to find both joy and meaning on the dance floor. Bandleader Edwin Perez is committed to reviving the sounds and spirit of salsa dura—music that does not shy away from mixing social commentary with driving dance beats.
Oghlan Bakhshi was raised in a family of musicians in northern Iran and has made it his goal to bring the little-heard music of the Turkmen to the world. This music has a spiritual dimension that rises from the nomadic history of the Turkmen, with guttural singing of the bardic songs bringing the sounds of nature to the stage, while the strumming of the dutar reflects horse hooves crossing the steppe. Performing with guest artist, dutar player and bard Zyyada Jumayeva, he honors the centuries-old traditions while bringing a new approach to the music. Together, these two master musicians are introducing the world to the dynamic music of the Turkmen.
Fado emerged from the cafés in the tight streets and working-class neighborhoods of Lisbon, but there’s a calm, solemn tone that emerges from the music. Not far from Lisbon in Paço de Arcos, Ricardo Parreira grew up steeped in the fado tradition, learning guitarra Portuguesa from his father, renowned musician and scholar António Parreira. Ricardo Parreira has toured internationally with fadistas and brings his deep knowledge to an ensemble of Portuguese Americans singers and musicians, performing alongside Lowell’s own Alison Dasilva, and Pedro Botas and Viriato Ferreira.
Bamba Wassoulou Groove combines two of Mali’s most celebrated musical styles—the traditional songs of the Wassoulou region and modern, electrified Malian guitar music—into a potent new sound. The group was founded in 2013 by percussionist and bandleader Bamba Dembélé in Bamako, Mali’s capital city. But the sextet’s origins reach further back in Dembélé’s musical journey, who performed with two of Mali’s iconic groups, the Super Djata Band and Super Rail Band. Rooted in the original sounds and visions of these two bands, Bamba Wassoulou Groove continues to bring these joyous and unrelenting rhythms to the dance floor.
With their vast repertoire of polka classics, infectious enthusiasm for their Polish heritage, and distinctive twin fiddles—an instrumentation once common in Poland’s mountainous regions—Pan Franek, Zosia & the Polka Towners are beloved by fans of traditional polka music nationwide. The group has always been an ever-expanding family band, now with three generations represented on the stage.
Other performers previously announced for the 2025 Lowell Folk Festival include Cajun legend BeauSoleil, Irish favorites Solas, blues rockers Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials, Bhangra sensation Red Baraat, flamenco dancer and singer LOS RICOS featuring Sonia & Ismael, Colombian cumbia accordionist Yeison Landero, Québécois and Celtic trio Cécilia, and bluegrass group Crooked Road Revival.
The Lowell Folk Festival is produced by the Lowell Festival Foundation, City of Lowell, Greater Lowell Chamber of Commerce, Greater Lowell Community Foundation, Greater Merrimack Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, Lowell National Historical Park, and National Council for the Traditional Arts.
Major support for the Lowell Folk Festival comes from Richard K And Nancy L Donahue Charitable Foundation, Saab Family Foundation/Saab Center for Portuguese Studies, Mass Cultural Council, Gate City Casino, Mass Office of Travel & Tourism, Lowell Cultural Council, Demoulas Foundation, F.W. Webb, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Quality Beverage, John Hunnewell Trust, Middlesex Community College, UMass Lowell, Mahoney Oil/Eastern Salt, Mosaic Lowell, Hilton Garden Inn Tewksbury Andover, Aubert Fay Foundation, Dylan & Pete’s Ice Cream, Enterprise Bank, Joseph P. Donahue Charitable Foundation Trust, Lowell Ink, Suffolk Construction, LAZ Parking, Lowell Sun Charities, Albert E. J. Bergeron Insurance Agency, Progressive Pilgrimage, The Lowell Plan, The Lowell Development & Financial Corporation, Owl Stamp Visual Solutions, All Sports Heroes, Lowell Litter Krewe, Mark-One, 92.5 The River, Lowell Telecommunications Corporation (LTC), Chelmsford Telemedia, Fred C. Church Insurance, WCAP, Marte Media, and Mill City Weather.
The Lowell Folk Festival acknowledges the contributions from exhibitors: Cannabist, Citizens Bank, Lowell Humane Society, NRG, Power Home Remodeling, Neeeco/Mass Save Program, Renewal by Andersen, Reverie 73, Rise, United States Marine Corps, and Vinfen.
For information about the 2025 Lowell Folk Festival, including how to sponsor or be an exhibitor, musical artists and schedules, and other programming, visit lowellfolkfestival.org to stay posted on all updates for the 2025 Lowell Folk Festival.
