SAVE THE DATES:
Next year's BOTMC dates are Sept. 17-21, 2025 and we already have some great artists lined up including Jake Blount!
BOTMC Spring Situation date TBA
NEW MONTHLY OLD TIME JAM
We are excited to announce that BOTMC is co-sponsoring a monthly old time jam at the Berkeley Public Library Central Branch, intended as a continuation of the Freight's monthly old time jam, which has been discontinued. This jam will begin in January 2025 and will be held every third Tuesday from 6:00-7:30 PM. The first one will be on Tues. Jan. 21st, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM. Free admission of course. Everybody is welcome!! Details here
Announcing a new partnership
between the BOTMC and Ashkenaz
The Berkeley Old Time Music Convention is very happy to announce that we have a new fiscal sponsor, Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center! Ashkenaz is the wonderful dance hall where we’ve always held our BOTMC dances, and they have been supporting all kinds of traditional and roots music here in the Bay Area since 1973. As a 501(c)3 tax-exempt nonprofit arts organization, Ashkenaz will be able to receive donations and grants on behalf of the BOTMC.
The Freight & Salvage let us know earlier this year that beginning in 2025 they would no longer serve as fiscal sponsor for the BOTMC, a relationship that began 21 years ago with the festival's inception. We are sorry to see this long and fruitful partnership come to a close; we do still plan to present our annual concerts and weekday workshops at the Freight through their rentals program. We are looking for a new location to host workshops on the Sunday of the festival. If you know of a space with three or four classrooms that would be suitable, please let us know!
Big thanks to the staff and Board of Ashkenaz for welcoming us! We look forward to many years of working together.
Here is what we did in 2024:
2024 Lineup:
Maria Muldaur & Her Old Timey Pals
with Candy Goldman, Suzy Thompson, Karen Celia Heil, Eric Thompson, Allegra Thompson
The Onlies (with Nokosee Fields)
Erik Hoffman
The Black Banjo & Fiddle Fellowship is a project of the Oakland Conservatory of Music in collaboration with the BOTMC. Click HERE for more info.
Berkeley Old Time Music COnvention
ANti-Racism Statement
As appreciators and torch bearers of early American traditional music, the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention actively questions what it means to share this music in the context of systemic racism. We wish to acknowledge the immense contribution of Black and Indigenous musicians to the music presented by the BOTMC, in the past and in the present. We acknowledge the forces that have historically denied these contributions and that worked to sever their living connections to this music. We also acknowledge our own complicity in this oppression. As we play this music, we are reckoning with our history and present condition. We hope to build a road toward reparation.
Adapted (with permission) from the Plaid Strangers (Thomas Angell, Maxine Gerber, Karen Heil and Allegra Yellin)
