On April 23rd, The Sound Dunes Swing Ensemble performed at the New England Folk Festival Association’s (NEFFA’s) annual event in Mansfield, MA.   This annual folk festival exhibits and aims to blend dance, music, crafts, and food from many places and cultures.  This year was NEFFA’s 73rd annual Festival and was a great experience for all ensemble members who participated.

The Festival is run by the New England Folk Festival Association, a cultural and educational, volunteer-run, non-profit organization.  The talent of all performers is also provided on a volunteer-basis.   The event is known for its varied social dance program, which includes traditional square dancing, international folk dancing, couple dancing, swing dancing, and more.  SDSE’s performance followed an introductory workshop on swing dancing and most of the workshop participants and instructors remained with us after their workshop to dance to our musical performance.

Our band had an excellent time entertaining the crowd as you can see from the photos of the event which follow…..

Our ensemble was pleased to be joined at this event by Gabe Gouveia, who had generously donated a good portion of the group’s regular repertoire of arrangements, who played keyboard with us (photo below), and his son Jonathan on bass.