This Quarter
ere are our weekly listings for the spring months. Watch this list for further details to be filled in and other possible updates.
| 4/4 | Return to the Light: Songs for lengthening days, featuring a new album by local musician Diana Gameros, the trio Hearthfire, Ayla Nereo, Birch Book, more. |
| 4/11 | Protest Songs: Recent topical songs by Crys Matthew, Jesse Welles, John Gorka, Dave Gunning, and Kemp Harris. Plus live music performed by Seattle-based singer-songwriter Jim Page. In the second hour, we remember Phil Ochs, the radical 60s protest singer on the 50th anniversary of his death. |
| 4/18 | Earth Day: “Our power, our planet.” This life that we are one with. Oakland’s Wildchoir; communal chant leader Max Ribner from Portland; Australians Xavier Rudd, Olivia Rosebery, Murray Kyle; Shimshai & Susana from Mount Shasta; more. |
| 4/25 | Bandits, Tricksters, & Desperadoes: Music by Solas, Steve Tilston, David Olney, Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick, Paul Brady, Kate Rusby, Guy Clark, Woody Guthrie, Ry Cooder, Mary McCaslin, Bruce Springsteen, Loreena McKennitt. |
| 5/2 | Scottish Fiddlers Live: Members of the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers will perform live in the KALW studios ahead of their Stravaig concert at The Freight on May 9th. We’ll also feature selections from Meridians, the latest recording by Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser and cellist Natalie Haas. |
| 5/9 | Songs of Rivers and Seas: Ajeet, Ima Nazca, Murray Kyle, Tori Amos, Dougie MacLean, Kitka. |
| 5/16 | Weavers: Carla Sciaky, Karan Casey, Mae Bird, Kornog, Carolyn Hillyer, Lotte Walda, Murray Kyle, Dineh musicians. |
| 5/23 | In Memoriam, part 2: Remembering musicians who passed away in 2025 (that we overlooked in part 1). Danny Thompson, Jesse Colin Young, Eddie Adcock, Will Scarlet, Rory McNamara, Amadou (of Amadou & Miriam), and Brian Wilson, as well as some musicians who recently passed—Bob Weir, Ralph Towner, Roy Bookbinder, and Bay Area percussionist Pete Devine. |
| 5/30 | Ballads and Stories: Robin Williamson, Damh the Bard, Lady Moon, Faun, Rhiannon Giddens, Jack Gladstone, Aaron Smith & the Coal Biters. |
| 6/6 | On Air Folk Festival: Our semi-annual musical extravaganza returns with five hours of continuous live music performed by some of the Bay Area’s finest talent, hosted by JoAnn Mar, Kevin Vance, and Peter Thompson. |
| 6/13 | Summer Solstice: Songs in tune with the season, featuring new music by Muscogee poet-musician Joy Harjo, Italian-American singer-songwriter Amanda Pascali, the Legiana Collective from the Netherlands, and Colorado progressive-bluegrass band Birds of Play. |
| 6/20 | The Return of Michele K-Tel: Guest host Michele Flannery will entertain us with her batch of new and recent discoveries. |
| 6/27 | Ensembles: From across the old world and the new. |
| 7/4 | San Francisco Free Folk Festival Preview |
(In a tale drawing on images of medieval Japan) I knew many mountain shrines were forbidden to women and none I had ever seen had contained such a mixture of symbols, as though the secret god, the Enlightened One, and the spirits of the mountain all dwelled here together.
[The holy woman] spoke as if she knew my thoughts; her voice held a kind of laughter mixed with wonder. “It is all one. Keep this in your heart. It is all one.”
—Tales of the Otori, Book 2: Grass for His Pillow.
Perhaps this is where we stand now, planetary and as a species, on the edge of collectively becoming, transforming.
Will we emerge?
Will we stand rooted in this crisis?
Will we make it through this dark passage?
Will we arise wiser, more rooted, more whole, connected to the heart of the Earth?
This all depends on whether we remember the ancient path of soul initiation—a path that once marked the true passage to adulthood.
…
At the heart of this model, the Eco-Soulcentric Human Developmental Wheel, is a VISION: that if we raise children and support adults to walk the soulcentric path, we will begin to reweave the fabric of our culture. We will remember our place in the sacred web of life. We will grow elders who are wise, not just old. We will raise leaders who listen to rivers and speak with stars.
This is the Great Work of our time—to restore soul to the human journey, to raise generations whose hearts are shaped not by fear, but by wonder, imagination, and the genuine call to serve life.
—Sandra Horea