As I enter my fifth year living and thriving here in Western North Carolina, I’m also sliding into a space of reference and observation where I can now compare and contrast those subjects I continually cross paths with throughout my travels. 

Of which, I find myself running around in numerous musical circles, from Asheville to Franklin, Hot Springs to Murphy. And when you’re writing about all of these talented and unique acts, one thing sticks out — how far they’ve come.

Peru: We travel to different countries. It’s our fifth festival this year, already two in France. We like a lot of the people, so friendly. The people is really friendly, the place is really beautiful. We think you have a different city not like other festivals and different in this part of the country, and we love it so much.

After talking with staff, volunteers and last year’s groups, Folkmoot Executive Director Angie Schwab decided that this year, she wanted to give performers more of a chance to experience contemporary American culture.

In May, the auditorium in the Folkmoot Friendship Center was dedicated to a man instrumental in establishing Waynesville and its environs as one of the most important centers of folk culture in the nation.

Just prior to the 2016 Folkmoot Wanderlust Gala, Folkmoot staff, sound technicians, photographers and performers scurried about behind the stage.

I noticed it two rows behind me.

Sitting at the cold, hard tables of my eighth-grade science class in the fall of 1998, I thwarted away my boredom by gazing around the room, sometimes at the clock slowly ticking away on the wall, sometimes at the cute girl at the next table I’d hope to someday kiss at a middle school dance.

Rolf Kaufman has been a fixture on the Folkmoot scene since before it even began, bringing people from foreign lands together and welcoming them to Western North Carolina much as he himself was welcomed here from a foreign land 70 years ago.

Dillon Ingle will only be the third music director in Folkmoot’s 33-year history.

I turned around with 25,000 faces looking towards me.