2023 Emcees
Friday Night Emcees
Beau Wheeler
“One of Vancouver’s punchiest indie singers.” Fish Griwkowsky, Edmonton Sun.
Beau Wheeler is a queer non-binary composer and singer based in Vancouver, Canada. Blessed with a set of pipes that would be the envy of Torch and Twang era kd lang or a young Robert Plant, Beau is about to release two new albums of music that capture the breadth and diversity of their musical vision.
Theirs is a music that encompasses a wide spectrum of human experience. With songs that touch on love, loss and redemption, and an unflagging ability to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again, Beau, who recently came out to the world as trans, is one of Canada’s brightest lights and an artist to watch out for.
Their music pulls no punches as it shines a light on gender, surviving cancer, and the all too human experience of love in a way that turns the dark and sour stuff of life into something beautiful and hopeful. Beau’s songs remind us that ‘we’ve all been there’ and that no matter how low you are feeling that there’s hope. You’re not alone. Pain and joy form equal parts of life’s equation. The essential magic of Beau’s work lies in this unflinching ability to fearlessly open up and bring a room full of strangers together to share and heal from the vulnerabilities that we all feel.
Mark Haney
Named one of the Globe and Mail’s “Canadian Arts Heroes of 2020” for his work during the pandemic as Artistic Director of Vancouver’s Little Chamber Music, Mark Haney is deeply motivated by issues of identity, culture, and community.
Mark and his work were the subjects of John Bolton’s acclaimed 2016 docu-drama Aim for the Roses, named after Mark’s 2010 album. In June 2022 Omnis Temporalis, a musical reconstruction of the acclaimed cartoonist Seth’s award-winning graphic novel George Sprott, was released by Montreal’s Drawn and Quarterly Publishers in a deluxe vinyl edition featuring elaborate packaging and design by Seth. Mark is the Manager of Arts and Culture for the City of Mission.
Saturday Night Emcees
Tori Jewell
Tori lives on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Secwépemc in the Interior of BC. Working and/or volunteering behind the scenes, Tori has been involved in live music and festivals for over 20 years.
She has contributed to Salmon Arm Roots & Blues, Mission Folk Music Festival, and the Vancouver International Children’s Festival, and enjoys making music with a trio called Making Do with Sharon and her mom, Diane. She also works as an Indigenous Education Worker during the school year and volunteers as a board member at Carlin Community Hall.
Strangely
An independent cabaret musician and writer based in the Northwestern United States, Strangely plays, sings, juggles, dances, makes magic, tells stories, and creates magic on the accordion.,
When not traveling the globe, planning festivals, or making wooden boats, you might find him on an Antarctic excursion regaling scientists with songs about ice and the cold. And boats.
Sunday Night Emcees
Jacinda Oldale
Jacinda Oldale (a.k.a. JakeMo) grew up over the bridge in the Matsqui prairie and was raised on the Mission Folk Music Festival, where her love of music and community know-how was nurtured.
“I was a lone child
from the coyote prairie
I was a wild one
pluckin’ words and blackberries,”
from her song, Coyote Prairie.
She feeds/serves the people with her sacred, scrumptious songs; razzamatazz rhymes and soul-stirring love soups that please and delight.JakeMo is a Foodoula/Wedding Celebrant/Poet/Songwriter/Singer in Raw Honey, the East Van women’s folk-soul band. She is “two scant cups starlet, one cup common sense.”
She is honoured and giddy to be co-emceeing Sunday night with Steve Edge.
Steve Edge
Born in England, Steve Edge arrived in Canada in 1981 and in 1987, founded, with other musicians, The Rogue Folk Club, after he had started a Folk Music radio show on the UBC campus network. He is also one of the founders of this very festival!
Under Steve’s leadership, the Rogue Folk Club started at the Savoy in Gastown and eventually moved to the WISE hall in East Vancouver until 2003 when it moved to Kitsilano’s St. James Hall, becoming Rogue Central. These venues, as well as others such as the Chan Centre and CBC, over a period of 28 years, have afforded local audiences, much enjoyment provided by thousands of Canadian and international performers in a wonderful variety of acoustic folk, celtic, roots and blues music, in effect, produced by Steve, forming a high quality, year-round folk festival in the City of Vancouver. Through Steve’s initiative, the Rogue has become a vital part of BC’s vibrant entertainment scene.