By Dirk Van Susteren
posted
Sep 6, 2012
RANDOLPH-Meet Kevin Dunwoody, consummate community volunteer.
Consider his years as the music director of Randolph's popular New
World Festival, and a simile may pop to mind.
He's like a chef, you could say, the one who reaches boldly for
the cayenne or Tabasco to spice things up, in this case his annual
musical stew.
Dunwoody over the years has added dashes of hot Cajun and Zydeco
to the blend of French-Canadian and Celtic flavors, the hallmarks
of the town's end-of-summer bash.
Or how about a sports metaphor? Though slight of build and age
55, Dunwoody could be viewed as the football lineman, one who plays
a key but largely unheralded role.
Quite simply, he often goes unnoticed.
"He phoned up and asked would I come and do 'that
waulking-of-the-cloth thing,'" reports Norman Kennedy, of
Marshfield, the internationally known Scottish weaver, storyteller
and singer.
"But to tell you the truth, I can't quite (picture) his face,"
confesses Kennedy.
For the record, Kennedy said "yes" and will celebrate the
traditional Scottish methods of cloth shrinking, involving group
song, at the festival on Sunday, Sept. 2. It's the event's 20th
anniversary.
Mark Greenberg, the musician, radio host and expert on
traditional folk music, will be an emcee at the festival, yet he
can't place Dunwoody either.
He can place the festival itself, though: "It offers a great
opportunity to hear related kinds of music, mostly from the British
Isles and Canada, but also a mix of other traditional styles of
music and even newer and more experimental things."
The New World Festival, which features some 20 bands and
individual performers, attracts hundreds of visitors to Randolph's
downtown each year. It began in 1993 in part to boost the town
spirits after a rash of fires that over the course of a few years
damaged or destroyed huge chunks of the historic downtown. Dunwoody
and has wife Marie lost their business in one of the fires.
"We had owned a bookstore for eight years and were hit by fire
number two (three total), and it was just time to let it go," says
Dunwoody, who had carpentry as a vocation to fall back upon and
music (he plays bodhran and harmonica) as an avocation to further
embrace. He now handles all music aspects of the festival,
something that occupies him 12 months a year, and near full-time in
August.
Dunwoody, a transplant, grew up in New Jersey near the Pine
Barrens, where he hung out doing a lot of hiking and camping. He
also hung out in the family's finished basement, as D.J. and
amateur music promoter. "Our basement was the place for the
parties," he says.
He met Marie, who co-directs the festival's children's program,
while in college. The two moved north to escape the malls and
burgeoning residential development, eventually settling in
Brookfield just next door to Randolph.
The festival got its start in July of '93 when Dunwoody and a
handful of others, all traditional-music devotees, met in a
Randolph restaurant, the August Lion, after the third downtown fire
and sketched plans for the first fest three months later, on
Columbus Day Weekend.
As it turned out that October weekend was a poor choice. It
snowed, and portable heaters were needed in the dance tent. The
non-profit festival group found itself $1,000 in the red that first
year.
But the enthusiasm for the event only grew, proving that money
wasn't everything. The community tried it again in '94 on the
Sunday of Labor Day Weekend, and an annual tradition was hatched.
The festival is now largely self-sustaining though it gets
financial help from local business sponsors and the Vermont Council
on the Arts.
"We're hoping for 2,000 festivalgoers this years," says
Dunwoody. "We now see people from Boston, New York, Montreal,
Philadelphia and Albany who mark this on their calendar, and come
each year."
The 12-hour festival starting at noon has three basic venues:
105-year old Chandler Music Hall, a downtown landmark; the historic
white steepled Bethany United Church of Christ and the food/dance
tent. Food is a big draw, and over they years there's been hot
stuff, such as jambalaya, gumbo, Italian sausage, chili, chorizo
and andouille. One can chow on burgers and veggie wraps and salads
and soya noodles and kabobs and tamales and barbecued corn and
smoothies and sweets of all shapes and sizes. Plus pies … apple,
cherry chocolate, key-lime, you name it, more than 100, baked by
the parishioners of St. John's Episcopal Church.
Not to mention Vermont craft brews.
There also is handcrafted jewelry for sale, plus jams and
sweaters and pickles and puzzles. The children's program features
face-painting, mask-making, story telling, puppeteering and
singing.
But it's the music that takes center stage, thanks to Dunwoody's
consummate skill at rummaging around to find talented musicians,
sometimes relying on CDs that arrive in the mail unexpectedly,
word-of-mouth and YouTube views and other forms of Internet
searches. He has sources in Quebec who give him leads. He also goes
on road trips to hear and meet musicians in person.
Among the celebrated musicians and groups he's coaxed to Vermont
over the years: the late Jerry Holland, beloved fiddler and song
writer from Cape Breton; the late Johnny Cunningham, the Scottish
fiddler; John Doyle, Irish guitarist and singer; Barachois (now
disbanded), the Acadian band from Prince Edward Island; and
Dentdelion, a Quebecois band from Quebec.
No one can accuse him of forsaking Vermont's own bands and
musicians. Among the many who have performed over the years are
Mango Jam and Yankee Chank, both offering up those romping Cajun
and Zydeco flavors; Peter Sutherland of Middlebury, the fiddler and
mandolin player, and Sarah Blair, fiddler of Montpelier.
"Music is obviously a total passion for Kevin," says Blair. "He
is always looking for people who are not necessarily well known but
who are really fine players.
"He also seems to love groups that have special connections
among themselves, like families or groups of young performers who
especially like playing together."
Dunwoody concedes he can be sheepish asking certain musicians to
play in Randolph because the venue is so small and the festival's
finances so limited. He doesn't pay much, but "everyone just seems
to cut us a financial break," he says.
He adds that Randolph's intimate setting seems especially
popular with performers.
Dunwoody, sitting on the porch of his home, surrounded by potted
and hanging plants and Buddhist prayer flags, recalls a night years
back when the Montreal band, Le Volee d' Castors, not interested in
the long drive home after its performance, set up sleeping tents at
the outdoor hockey rink but then began playing instruments and
singing with three other bands around a gas lantern until
daybreak.
"The police came down to check to see if everything was okay,
saw that it was and left," says Dunwoody.
Dunwoody has a host of tales, of near crisis, of successful
attempts at pulling things off at the last minute.
Back in the early days of the festival, he had another band of
young performers, also from Montreal, all lined to play. Their
inexperienced manager, however, had failed to secure U.S. working
papers, so they likely would have been turned back at the
border.
Dunwoody, in Montreal, gathered up the band's instruments and
drove the equipment across the border unnoticed in his own car, so
the band members could then, as regular U.S. tourists, enter
Vermont in a second vehicle.
It was a caper he would never try or sanction today, he
emphasizes. "That was way before 9-11."
Becky McMeekin, executive director at the non-profit Chandler
Center for the Arts, whose music hall benefits financially from the
festival, has worked with Dunwoody for years.
Without resorting to simile or other style of comparison
McMeekin says she "can't imagine anyone" more dedicated to his
community. "Kevin never looks for the spotlight," she adds.
