There’s a brand-new winter festival in town, and it aims to crank up the heat this January in Edmonton. RiverCity Bluegrass festival, running January 17-19, 2025, will all take place inside the Edmonton Inn & Conference Center on Kingsway Avenue.
It’s the creation of a devoted group of volunteer members with the Northern Bluegrass Circle in the city. Featuring nine international, national, and regional bands, RiverCity is aiming to claim a spot on the continent as the hottest January bluegrass ticket going. It will be wall to wall hot fiddlin’, pickin’, and singin’. All agree that it’s high time Canada had a winter bluegrass festival.
Canada’s own, The Slocan Ramblers, out of Toronto and Nashville, jumped at the chance to perform. Fresh off touring this summer at the well-known Rocky Grass festival in Colorado, and recent appearances at the Grand Ole Opry and Station Inn in Nashville, this band is on the move. Says Adrian Gross on the mandolin, “we are bringing new material and it’s going to be a blast.”
The line-up also headlines the wildly successful Kody Norris Show from east Tennessee; the crowd pleasing Spinney Brothers from Canada’s east coast; and the high-energy Francophone-style bluegrass band of Veranda lead by Catherine-Audrey Lachapelle and Léandre Joly Pelletier from Montreal. Bring your dancing shoes. On the regional side, the festival features The Myhre Brothers with no one other than the Grand Master fiddler, Alfie Myhre, along with son Byron and grandson Tanner
Also appearing are several locally based Alberta bands including The Bix Mix Boys, Prairie Sky, The Lonesome Town Painters, and Kayla & Matt Hotte.
Bluegrass music is having a resurgence, with younger audiences who value the purity of the sound, and the technical acumen required to play stringed instruments with pace. Aided by the rise of such Grammy-winners as Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings, what’s old is new and what’s traditional is still beautiful.
That’s why music lovers of roots to country and folk to jazz should check out RiverCity Bluegrass festival January 17-19, 2025.
Tickets now on sale online – single day and festival passes available.
