Guest of Honour: Vanessa Cardui
Vanessa Cardui began performing regularly as a solo folk/roots/neo-Celtic artist in the months leading up to the release of her debut solo album, Thought Experiment (November 2011). Thought Experiment is an all-original, intimate album with edgy emotional content.
Since “going solo”, she has performed a wide variety of shows and collaborated with a number of accomplished musicians to transplant the depth and complexity of her recordings to the stage. Some notable performances include Sage Theatre’s IGNITE! Festival (2011), Pride Calgary (2012), Pure Speculation Festival (2012), When Words Collide (2012), celebrated local artist Sora’s Scorpion Moon CD release (February 2013), and the collaborative, semi-theatrical Fates concert series (February 2010 and April 2011).
Official FKO Filk Waif: W. Randy Hoffman
Randy is the driving force that makes filk a strong part of Confluence. He doesn’t play an instrument but is a prolific writer of literate filk music and rarely misses a song contest! Randy has a great reputation as both a filk gardener and as a gateway drug for musicians in related genres to come to the filk side. For those in the music community who have never had the opportunity to meet Randy, you are in for a treat.
Interfilk Guest: Eli Bar-Yahalom
An aspiring fortuneteller once told a very young Eli Bar-Yahalom: “you will have a lot of ambition and potential, but won’t succeed in realizing them”. Since that day Eli, fantasy writer, singer-songwriter, poet, polyglot, mathematician, lecturer, teacher, father and partner, has spent a lifetime battling this prophecy. He isn’t done yet.Eli lives in Haifa, Israel.
The virtual guests listed are our planned guests for 2021. We still intend to have our 2020 guests in person at the first in-person FKO, and our 2021 guests the following year!
Songwriting Contest Topic: “The Light at the End of the Tunnel”
We’ve created an historical document that lists our past guests here.