Two-time IBMA guitar player of the year — flatpicking virtuosity fronting new-school bluegrass.
NC Folk Festival 2026 Lineup
Free, downtown, and three days deep: The Roots, St. Paul & The Broken Bones and Molly Tuttle over a bill of gnawa, Afro-Cuban jazz, brass bands and Carolina songwriters.
Find the acts you'll love at NC Folk Festival
Name a few bands you love and we'll scout all 45 acts on the NC Folk Festival bill for the ones you shouldn't miss.
Build your NC Folk Festival schedule
Set times are out for NC Folk Festival 2026. Save any act and it lands on your day-by-day plan, with overlapping sets flagged so you can see what you would miss. No account needed to start.
About NC Folk Festival 2026
The North Carolina Folk Festival is the free, three-day street festival that grew out of Greensboro's turn hosting the National Folk Festival from 2015 to 2017. The city kept the format when the national event moved on, and since 2018 it has filled downtown every September with stages on the streets and a Folklife area alongside them. No tickets, no wristbands. The 2026 edition runs September 18–20, with St. Paul & The Broken Bones on Friday, The Roots on Saturday and Molly Tuttle closing Sunday on the CityStage.
The name is broader than it sounds. Folk here means tradition in any language: Moroccan gnawa from Samir LanGus, Afro-Cuban chants from OKAN, an Algonquin drum group playing with Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and a Brooklyn brass band. Around them is a deep bench of North Carolina songwriters, from Rakish's Appalachian fiddle to Abigail Dowd's Flat Iron listening room, plus national Americana names like Madison Cunningham, Jackie Venson and William Prince playing for nothing more than a walk downtown.
Expect americana, folk, jazz and folk-rock across 45 acts.
NC Folk Festival 2026 lineup & schedule: all 45 acts
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre. Save anything straight to your schedule.Browse all 45 acts →
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre. Save anything straight to your schedule.
Birmingham soul revue fronted by Paul Janeway, a preacher's-kid howler in a sequined cape, with an eight-piece band that has drifted from Muscle Shoals revivalism into psych-funk.
Philadelphia's live hip-hop institution since the late '80s: Black Thought's marathon verses over Questlove's drums, a band that has never needed a backing track.
The drumline of NC A&T's Blue and Gold Marching Machine, the HBCU band that won the Honda Battle of the Bands and ESPN's 2023 Band of the Year and has led the Macy's and Rose parades.
Austin guitar hero who came up as a classical pianist and switched to blues at 21; her solos run through soul, reggae and drum-machine loops without losing the groove.
Mipso's mandolinist and co-founder, raised in the North Carolina mountains and now out on his own; solo debut Middle Kid was built from the musical friendships he made in Brooklyn.
Grammy-winning songwriter and a guitarist's guitarist: odd-metered, jazz-tinged folk-rock with lyrics that turn on a single sharp image.
Eastern Algonquin powwow drum group Eastern Medicine Singers in their electric collaboration with guitarist Yonatan Gat: ceremonial vocals and hand drums colliding with noise-rock, here with Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo added to the guitar section.
West Virginia-raised, LA-based songwriter whose album One for Jackie works through her mother's death in Appalachian ballad form, with a big blues voice and '70s Dylan and Dusty Springfield in the arrangements.
Moroccan-born, Grammy-nominated gnawa musician who apprenticed under Maalem Hamid El Kasri; he plays the three-string sintir bass lute and carries the trance tradition into jazz and funk settings.
Justin Osborne's Charleston indie-Americana band in its acoustic string configuration: the same wry, weathered songs from albums like My Entire Life, played on fiddle, banjo and upright bass.
The Brass Queens
Female-led Brooklyn brass band with an all-women horn line, playing New Orleans second-line tradition at New York speed; Hot Tub Sessions Vol. I throws in mambo, Balkan and film-score detours.
North Carolina singer, songwriter and producer Tori Elliott's project: stacked harmonies and jazz-leaning pop, lately in a run of albums written and recorded with guitarist Charlie Hunter.
Peguis First Nation songwriter with a baritone that sits somewhere between Johnny Cash and a hymn; two Juno awards and a John Prine Songwriter Fellowship for plainspoken, slow-burning country-folk.
Nashville songwriter with a glam streak and a Grammy nomination for American Roots Song; power-pop hooks and dry, self-aware lyrics dressed up in East Nashville sequins.
Sandhills-raised singer-songwriter and guitarist whose blues-rooted Americana leans on natural imagery; her album Saints & Warriors drew a No Depression comparison to Joy Oladokun and Patti Smith.
Amelia Day
Pacific Northwest songwriter in her early twenties whose folk-pop leans on wordplay and double meanings; songs about growing up, queerness and a warming planet, delivered with a rawer voice than the melodies suggest.
Asheville rock and roller with Stones swagger and Lightnin' Hopkins blues in the guitar, six records deep and a live album cut at the Allman Brothers Museum.
Bala Roots
Quintet of veteran players rearranging traditional roots music through West African, Cuban and New Orleans influences, with reggae, flamenco and psychedelic detours.
Brooklyn trio that met busking in the subway: cello, guitar, accordion and found percussion under three-part harmonies, with an NPR Tiny Desk Contest nod for Love in the Underground.
North Carolina songwriter with an unhurried, warm-grained Americana voice; he self-produced Heavy Thrill at the Cash Cabin and put it out on his own label.
d.a.l.i.a.
Mexican-American cantautora writing in English and Spanish, with a classical upbringing under Latin American folk forms; solo or with a band of bass, charango, violin and percussion.
Elora Dash
Chapel Hill vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist working the seam between neo-soul and jazz fusion, backed by a band of Triangle regulars.
Emerson Bruno
North Carolina songwriter whose '60s-rooted folk-rock got a lush second album, Sounds for the Restless Mind, tracked with veteran engineer John Davenport and finished with Truth Club's Max Gowan.
The closing concerts of an eleven-day residency where thirty-odd musicians in their late teens and twenties teach each other the traditional music of their home countries, then perform it as one ensemble.
Evan Blackerby & The Bandwagon
Bluesy Americana songwriter raised on Otis Redding cassettes and Stevie Ray Vaughan CDs, with a voice pitched between Ray LaMontagne and Jack Johnson; here with his full band.
Johnson City pop-funk quintet with four-part harmonies and a jazz and Latin streak, winners of the 2024 MerleFest band competition and FloydFest's On-The-Rise contest the year after.
Folkknot
Greensboro folk-rock quintet with accordion, violin and upright bass alongside guitar and drums; the songs run from Celtic ballads to sea shanties played at rock-band volume.
GMAJ Youth Jazz Ensemble
Student big band from the Gant School of Music & Jazz, which has opened the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival in High Point.
Two Shenandoah Valley farmers turned rock duo: Jeff Gorman plays guitar and foot-operated bass while Jake Cochran drums standing up, and the harmonies come out somewhere between folk and fuzz.
Karla Davis
Country singer with a blue-eyed-soul voice, a veteran of The Voice, Fallon and the Opry; Roberta Flack and Bonnie Raitt are the touchstones, not the Nashville radio playbook.
King M Dot & The Leftovers
Greensboro acoustic-soul rapper King M Dot, who raps, sings and does spoken word over his own guitar, joining forces with The Leftovers, a local band that calls its funk, gospel and indie mix Southern fried indie rock.
Leroy Pridgen IV
North Carolina trombonist, arranger and bandleader who has held chairs in big bands and brass bands and played behind Charlie Hunter and Fantasia; his own sets run jazz through funk and neo-soul.
Matt Laird
North Carolina bassist on electric, upright and synth, a sideman for Big Something, Victoria Victoria and Charlie Hunter collaborator Sam Fribush, stepping out under his own name.
Murphy Campbell
Western North Carolina ballad singer from a family that has carried the mountain tradition for generations, reaching for the old modal sound rather than modernizing it.
Nikki Morgan
Minister's daughter who came to songwriting late, after a childhood of gospel and school band; her country-soul sits between Dolly and Tina, with North Carolina roots and Chicago grit in the delivery.
Cuban-born, Toronto-based duo of violinist Elizabeth Rodríguez and percussionist Magdelys Savigne: Santería chants and batá rhythms folded into indie jazz and pop, sung in Spanish and Yoruba. Their album Okantomi won a Juno.
Rakish
Fiddle-and-guitar duo of Maura Shawn Scanlin, a two-time U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion raised in the North Carolina mountains, and Conor Hearn; Celtic and Appalachian tunes arranged with chamber-music precision and improvisers' nerve.
Ranford Almond
Young Greensboro troubadour with a rasp and Appalachian fingerpicking in the Prine and Van Zandt line, who plugs in and leads a full band as readily as he plays solo.
Signal Fire
Wilmington rock-reggae band, DIY since 2013, with four albums of modern roots reggae; Wake Up reached the Billboard reggae top ten and Lift Up topped the iTunes reggae chart.
Tae & The Neighborly
Wisconsin soul-pop and R&B five-piece with a horn-and-keys warmth and a bio that reads like a tall tale; the harmonies are the serious part.
The Queen Bees
Greensboro electro-folk trio of Molly McGinn, Kate Musselwhite and Quilla: acoustic instruments over electronic beats, honed at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market as much as on stage.
Tom Troyer
Indiana-raised, Greensboro-based songwriter and producer, also known as Farewell Friend; his albums Lineage and Glenwood and Gomorrah take on identity and gentrification in a wandering, collaborative folk style.
Too Phat Brass Band
Carolinas second-line brass band staffed by UNCG jazz program, NC A&T marching band and Navy Band alumni: sousaphone, drums and horns running funk, R&B and hip-hop through the New Orleans street parade form.
Fingerstyle guitarist who lays the instrument flat on her lap, taps it like a piano and adds kalimba and tap shoes; her Nonesuch album Acadia is instrumental folk built from one note at a time.
The headliners
Molly Tuttle — Two-time IBMA guitar player of the year — flatpicking virtuosity fronting new-school bluegrass.
St. Paul & The Broken Bones — Birmingham soul revue fronted by Paul Janeway, a preacher's-kid howler in a sequined cape, with an eight-piece band that has drifted from Muscle Shoals revivalism into psych-funk.
The Roots — Philadelphia's live hip-hop institution since the late '80s: Black Thought's marathon verses over Questlove's drums, a band that has never needed a backing track.
Up-and-comers to catch early
Florencia & the Feeling — Johnson City pop-funk with four-part harmonies; they won the MerleFest band competition in 2024.
Other acts worth planning around
Jackie Venson — Austin's blues-guitar phenom, a classical pianist who switched instruments at 21, on the CityStage before The Roots.
Samir LanGus — Gnawa trance from a Grammy-nominated Moroccan master, on the sintir bass lute. The set most people will not have heard anything like.
- Medicine Singers with Lee Ranaldo & Yonatan Gat — Eastern Algonquin powwow drums colliding with noise-rock guitar, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth added for the occasion.
OKAN — Juno-winning Afro-Cuban duo: violin, batá drums and chants in Yoruba and Spanish, twice over the weekend.
Yasmin Williams — Lap-tapped fingerstyle guitar from her Nonesuch album Acadia; instrumental folk that rewards standing close.
Madison Cunningham — Grammy-winning folk-rock with guitar playing to match, opening for St. Paul on Friday night.
The lineup by day
Friday lineup (September 18)
St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Cold Steel Drumline at NC A&T University, Madison Cunningham, Samir LanGus, The Brass Queens, Victoria Victoria + 9 more
Friday set times (16 sets)
- Cold Steel Drumline at NC A&T University · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- Victoria Victoria · T-Fiber Stage
- Bala Roots · NC By Train Stage
- The Brass Queens · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- Karla Davis · First Bank Stage
- Ethno USA · Carolina Theatre
- Abigail Dowd · DGI Stage at the Flat Iron & DGI Stage at the Flat Iron
- Elora Dash · T-Fiber Stage
- Signal Fire · NC By Train Stage
- Madison Cunningham · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- Tae & The Neighborly · First Bank Stage
- Samir LanGus · T-Fiber Stage
- Florencia & the Feeling · NC By Train Stage
- St. Paul & The Broken Bones · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- Caleb Caudle · First Bank Stage
Saturday lineup (September 19)
The Roots, Jackie Venson, Medicine Singers with Lee Ranaldo & Yonatan Gat, Rett Madison, Samir LanGus, Victoria Victoria + 19 more
Saturday set times (27 sets)
- Ethno USA · Folklife Presented by Creative Greensboro
- Nikki Morgan · NC By Train Stage
- The Queen Bees · First Bank Stage
- Emerson Bruno · DGI Stage at the Flat Iron
- Victoria Victoria · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- Florencia & the Feeling · T-Fiber Stage
- Rakish · NC By Train Stage
- Ranford Almond · First Bank Stage
- Matt Laird · DGI Stage at the Flat Iron & DGI Stage at the Flat Iron
- Samir LanGus · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- Rett Madison · First Bank Stage
- Karla Davis · NC By Train Stage
- William Prince · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- Leroy Pridgen IV · T-Fiber Stage
- Bandits On The Run · First Bank Stage
- Caleb Caudle · NC By Train Stage
- Andrew Scotchie · DGI Stage at the Flat Iron & DGI Stage at the Flat Iron
- Medicine Singers with Lee Ranaldo & Yonatan Gat · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- Aaron Lee Tasjan · First Bank Stage
- Yasmin Williams · NC By Train Stage
- Jackie Venson · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- OKAN · T-Fiber Stage
- Amelia Day · NC By Train Stage
- Illiterate Light · First Bank Stage
- The Roots · GO by Raymond James CityStage
Sunday lineup (September 20)
Molly Tuttle, Jacob Sharp, Rett Madison, SUSTO Stringband, William Prince, Andrew Scotchie + 12 more
Sunday set times (19 sets)
- Tom Troyer · First Bank Stage
- King M Dot & The Leftovers · NC By Train Stage
- Bala Roots · DGI Stage at the Flat Iron
- GMAJ Youth Jazz Ensemble · T-Fiber Stage
- Rett Madison · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- Andrew Scotchie · First Bank Stage
- Ethno USA · The Historic Magnolia House
- Folkknot · NC By Train Stage
- Too Phat Brass Band · DGI Stage at the Flat Iron & DGI Stage at the Flat Iron
- Jacob Sharp · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- OKAN · First Bank Stage
- Murphy Campbell · Folklife Presented by Creative Greensboro
- Evan Blackerby & The Bandwagon · NC By Train Stage
- Yasmin Williams · T-Fiber Stage
- SUSTO Stringband · GO by Raymond James CityStage
- William Prince · First Bank Stage
- d.a.l.i.a. · NC By Train Stage
- Molly Tuttle · GO by Raymond James CityStage
NC Folk Festival 2026 lineup FAQ
When is the North Carolina Folk Festival 2026?
September 18–20, 2026 (Friday through Sunday) in downtown Greensboro, NC.
Is the NC Folk Festival free?
Yes. Every stage is free and all ages, rain or shine, with no ticket or wristband required. A paid VIP package with hospitality access is sold separately by the festival.
Who is headlining the NC Folk Festival 2026?
St. Paul & The Broken Bones on Friday, The Roots on Saturday and Molly Tuttle on Sunday, all on the GO by Raymond James CityStage.
Where are the stages?
Downtown Greensboro: the CityStage plus the First Bank, NC By Train, T-Fiber and Folklife stages, the DGI Stage inside the Flat Iron, the Revity Jams Stage, and one-off shows at the Carolina Theatre and the Historic Magnolia House.
How many acts are playing?
This page lists 45 performing acts, the bill as the festival's own poster prints it. The festival also runs Folklife dance performances, after parties at the Abbey Taphouse, jam sessions, dance lessons, an open mic and family programming that we leave off the lineup.
Are set times out?
Yes. The festival has published its full schedule, and every time on this page comes from it. Save your acts and they become a personal day-by-day plan.
Who plays Friday at NC Folk Festival 2026?
Friday, September 18: St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Cold Steel Drumline at NC A&T University, Madison Cunningham, Samir LanGus, The Brass Queens, Victoria Victoria, plus 9 more acts.
Who plays Saturday at NC Folk Festival 2026?
Saturday, September 19: The Roots, Jackie Venson, Medicine Singers with Lee Ranaldo & Yonatan Gat, Rett Madison, Samir LanGus, Victoria Victoria, plus 19 more acts.
Who plays Sunday at NC Folk Festival 2026?
Sunday, September 20: Molly Tuttle, Jacob Sharp, Rett Madison, SUSTO Stringband, William Prince, Andrew Scotchie, plus 12 more acts.
Going to NC Folk Festival 2026? Get tickets ↗
Festivals like NC Folk Festival
More festivals
Festivals in September 2026 →Music festivals in North Carolina →Full festival calendar →