2025 Winnipeg Folk Festival Preview

With this year marking the 50th edition, we also look back on our time covering the festival

Posted by: Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe  •  July 9, 2025 @ 12:12am

Filed under: Festivals

Finally, another Winnipeg Folk Festival is nigh! This is no ordinary year, though... it's the 50th anniversary!! This prairie celebration of music, art, and community has been bringing joy for half a century, my friends.

The 2025 edition of the Winnipeg Folk Festival will take place July 10–13, in Manitoba's Birds Hill Provincial Park. Eager campers will be rushing into the festival campground early Wednesday morning, followed by thousands of other folkies coming throughout the weekend to enjoy a day – or four! – of musicians jamming together, local eateries offering up delicious food, and sharing a lot of smiles and good energy.

WFF has been running for 52 years, but this is its 50th festival because the 2020 & 2021 festivals were cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Showbiz Monkeys has been covering the action since 2009 – almost a third of that time! We've captured the wicked guitar solos, intimate storytelling, uninhibited dancing, and countless other moments through photo, video, interviews, and writing year after year. This is my third time on the Showbiz Monkeys team, and I'm grateful to be returning for this extra special run.

I wrenched myself away from playing "Grieving" (the new single from past WFF performer Leith Ross) on constant repeat, to listen through this year's lineup – and I'm super glad I did. I knew very few names on the roster, so I didn't know what to expect and if I would be excited. But now, as I'm making my schedule for the weekend, I struggling to find a way to fit in all the artists I want to see!

If you're heading out to those field and forest stages (or even if you're not!), you should check out these artists below. (Annual disclaimer: this is only a small fraction of everything I'm looking forward to.) Don't forget your sunscreen and your umbrella, and let's get #FolkFestHappy!

Ye Vagabonds

Saturday, July 12 – 1:00 PM (Bur Oak)

If your friends are like mine, there were a few weeks in November 2023 when they listened to nothing but a new rendition of "The Parting Glass" done by boygenius and Ye Vagabonds. That's when I first heard of the Irish folk duo, having jumped on the same bandwagon myself. Working with the stars of boygenius aside, their music deserves, and has earned, its own buzz. Brothers Brían and Diarmuid MacGloinn make music that feels like a clear blue sky and a gentle breeze, like both heartbreak and hope. For fans of past WFF performers The Young'uns, Matthew Byrne, or Paul McKenna – this act is for you.

OMBIIGIZI

Friday, July 11 – 1:15 PM (Bur Oak)

Can I always make out the lyrics? No. Are the beats optimal for dancing? Not always. But for reasons I'm not sure I can identify, OMBIIGIZI's music keeps me engaged from start to finish and wanting to hear more. It feels cinematic, the kind of tunes that might soundtrack the final credits of a movie (a critical role, by the way), or heck, the whole movie itself. And, if you look up the lyrics ahead of time or just have better ears than me, the storytelling is striking. I missed Daniel Monkman's performance at WFF last year with their band Zoon, so I'm glad I'll have another chance to see them play, albeit in a different iteration. Monkman joins with Adam Sturgeon of the band Status/Non-Status to create OMBIIGIZI (which means "this is noisy" in Anishinaabemowin). Their debut album was produced by Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene and shortlisted for the 2022 Polaris Music Prize.

La Chiva Gantiva

Saturday, July 12 – 7:00 PM (Big Blue @ Night)

I AM SO EXCITED FOR LA CHIVA GANTIVA!!! It must be said in all caps. I had never heard of the band before scanning this year's WFF lineup, and now they are the priority artist on my schedule. This Colombian rock band from Belgium has everything – complex musical layering, heavy beats, and a self-described "explosive live energy." I think their workshops are going to be glorious, particularly when they jam with Melbourne Ska Orchestra and The Zawose Queens on Sunday (July 13), and you know their Big Blue @ Night set is going to GO OFF. Sorry to Noeline Hofmann and Hurray for the Riff Raff, who are performing at Main Stage at the same time...

Bruce Cockburn

Saturday, July 12 – 2:50 PM (Big Bluestem)

Ani DiFranco

Friday, July 11 – 7:35 PM (Main Stage)

Bruce Cockburn and Ani DiFranco = absolute folk legends. While these two are not scheduled to perform together, I'm grouping them together because they shared a stage at one of my favourite live music experiences of my life so far. To set the scene: It was a spring day at the Cube stage in Winnipeg's Exchange District, in 2019, the centennial of the Winnipeg Strike, and it was fully raining. DiFranco and Cockburn each performed incredible sets and then joined up for a couple tunes. Being basically right in front of the stage and sticking it out in the rain created this intimate setting that made every story these amazing activist-musicians told come alive more vividly. It was magical (and it was FREE!). Needless to say, I'm looking forward to seeing these two perform again, this time on a bigger stage, but undoubtedly still special – and their messages no less important today.

Jake Vaadeland & the Sturgeon River Boys

Sunday, July 13 – 4:30 PM (Snowberry Field)

Jake Vaadeland doesn't just create music. He presents an experience. The self-described "retro man with an old soul" from Saskatchewan taught himself the banjo and guitar, and puts on a country party that makes you feel like you've rocketed back in time. In 2024, at just 21 years old, he became the youngest-ever artist to be certified "Road Gold" by selling over 25,000 tickets to Canadian concerts in just 12 months. That same year, he had everyone hootin' and hollerin' at Harvest Moon Festival, another stellar Manitoba shindig. There's not much more I can say; you really must experience it for yourself.

Begonia

Sunday, July 13 – 6:00 PM (Main Stage)

Winnipeg's own radiant icon, who absolute rocks platform Crocs, is always a thrill to watch. Begonia's magnificent voice, paired with her goofy, relatable stage banter, impeccable fashion, and expert emotional songwriting, are a few of the factors that make her such a star. Alexa Dirks previously performed with Chic Gamine before launching her solo career as Begonia in 2017. Later this summer, she's performing in Montreal at Osheaga, Canada's highest-profile music festival. Also, "Fear" is maybe one of my favourite songs ever.

D'orjay & The Lovely Luvies Fam

Saturday, July 12 – 12:45 PM (Snowberry Field)

For the last few years, I've made a habit of checking out the names in small print at the bottom of the lineup. It's often where I find my favourite new artists. When I saw D'orjay & The Lovely Luvies Fam listed as "country", though, I immediately pushed it lower on my priority list. In my defense! There are numerous country artists I absolutely love (see above), but it's a genre that has a lower success rate for me and therefore I don't gravitate towards it as often. But I should not have assumed! Life lesson as old as time, am I right? D'orjay The Singing Shaman (who is, in fact, also a trained shamanic healer), reminds us that country music is Black and it's queer, too. Their introduction reads, "This ain't your granddaddy's country," and well -- with their powerful voice and soul, I think they might just blow off the roof and burn down the barn. Yeehaw!

50th Hootenanny! (Workshop)

Friday, July 11 – 11:00 AM (Big Bluestem)

I cannot wait for the stories that will come out of this workshop celebrating WFF's 50th birthday, remembering its first year, and recounting memories from the years in between. Appalachian banjo partnered with Chinese yangqin hammer dulcimer? Banjo and fiddle tunes that demand dancing, led by the son of the Folk Fest founder (Leonard Podolak)? Poetry, Eastern European klezmer music, and more? Sign me up!

Fred Penner

Thursday, July 10 – 6:20 PM (Main Stage)

Cats. Sandwiches. Dragons. What do all these things have in common? Fred Penner! He's a central figure in the childhoods of so many Canadians, a beloved star of children's entertainment whose music and TV show reached far beyond the country's borders. And he's opening the 50th WFF! A better decision could not have been made. Get ready to sing along and feel like a kid again, in the warmest, coziest way.

A few more...

You may have noticed that my highlights tend to skew energetic. What can I say? I love feeling happy – and trying to run away from any potential sadness and fear! Yay! But I do love so many other kinds of music, too; there's just not enough time and space to cover everything. Listen for yourselves! The beautiful melodies of these more acoustic sets will help you take a breather from the fun chaos of Folk Fest, while relaxing under the beautiful canopy of trees at the forest stages.

Tags: Winnipeg Folk Festival, WFF2025, Ye Vagabonds, OMBIIGIZI, La Chiva Gantiva, Bruce Cockburn, Ani DiFranco, Fred Penner, Begonia, Jake Vaadeland

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