September 27th and 28th
Annapolis, Maryland
THE CRABTOWN FROLIC:
A CHESAPEAKE ETHOS
The Crabtown Frolic is a two-day traditional music festival featuring intimate performances, presentations, repertoire classes, dance classes, and music sessions. Located in downtown Annapolis, Maryland, it showcases unamplified performances of traditional music in 18th and 19th century spaces to explore the symbiosis of historic architecture and music. It demonstrates for modern people the aesthetics in which our ancestors entertained themselves using the gifts of their creative genius.
The Crabtown Frolic embraces the ethos of the Gaelic Revival—to cultivate a rich, intellectual life within Ireland’s music, language, sport, art, literature, and history—and applies the same ethos to Chesapeake culture. It examines the Chesapeake’s extant 18th and 19th century traditions with concern for their future, and unites tradition bearers to explore the encounters that cradle our Tidewater culture.
FESTIVAL OVERVIEW
The Crabtown Frolic is a small-halls festival located at several museums and restaurants in downtown Annapolis, Maryland. It is entirely walkable. The purchase of day and weekend tickets is designated by a lapel pin that participants may don to access performances.
PURPOSE:
The festival is an attempt to bring together musicians, dancers, and musicologists from the Chesapeake’s Black string music, Irish traditional music, Old Time music, and Scottish traditional music communities to conceptualize, perform, and discuss a regional style of traditional music (especially “fiddle music”) that has been fostered over time by interactions between these traditions. We do this to cultivate and promote the Chesapeake’s cultural uniqueness.
TICKETS:
Day Tickets and Weekend Tickets are available here and will be available beginning at the start of programming at each venue on 27 and 28 September 2025. The purchase of a day or weekend ticket comes with a Crabtown Frolic 2025 lapel pin that will grant entry to all of the performances and classes at the festival.
Limited Tickets to individual performances (i.e. walk-ins) are available here, and will grant the purchaser entry to a single performance.
SCHEDULE:
A selection of intimate performances, presentations, workshops, and sessions will take place from 12 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, 27 September at the Hammond Harwood House, the Historic Annapolis Museum, 49 West, Old Fox Books, and Galway Bay Irish Restaurant & Pub. There will be evening music sessions from 8 to about 11 p.m.
Programming for Sunday, 28 September will take place in the garden of the William Paca House from 12 to 5 p.m. This will be an epic party full of musicians, with a bar serving beer and wine.
PARKING:
Street Parking is available throughout downtown Annapolis. Please observe parking signage to remain in accordance with local parking regulations.
For a list of Annapolis parking lots and garages, please visit: www.annapolisparking.com/parking-locations/garages-and-lots/
Join us in Annapolis, Maryland for the Crabtown Frolic, Saturday, 27 September and Sunday, 28 September 2025. This purchase is your virtual ticket to the festival.
THREE TICKET CLASSES:
“Adults” for people over 18 years of age.
“Students” for people under 18 years of age or still in school.
“Families” for two adults and all your offspring. Let’s make this easy; times are hard enough.
Limited edition Crabtown Frolic t-shirts will be available for pick up at the festival store. Preorder your t-shirt now and save $5.
This limited ticket provides entry to a single venue for one performance at the Crabtown Frolic.
Purchase this ticket if you want to attend only one performance or presentation.
PERFORMERS & PRESENTERS
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Jim Eagan
Fiddle
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Rachel Eddy
Fiddle, Guitar
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B.E. Farrow
Fiddle, Five-String Banjo
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Seán Heely
Fiddle, Bouzouki, Singing
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Rhys Jones
Fiddle, Singing
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Donna Long
Piano, Fiddle
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Patrick McAvinue
Fiddle, Mandolin, Banjo
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Noah Bowman
Fiddle
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Peter Brice
Ballad Singing, Button Accordion
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Joanna Clare
Description goes here -
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Megan Downes
Step Dance, Flatfooting
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Tess Hartis
Fiddle, Singing
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Becky Hill
Flatfooting, Calling
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Matt Mulqueen
Piano, Button Accordion
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Kate Spanos
Irish Step Dancing, Calling
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Samantha Suplee
Fiddle
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Jay White
Five-String Banjo, Guitar
Annapolis has several antonomastic names, among them “Crabtown”, “Naptown”, and “the Athens of America”. In the 1920s or 1930s, Eastporters Windy Lucas (b.–d. unknown) and Louis Senesi (1888–1969) composed the song “Crabtown” (or “Take Me Back to Old Crabtown”), celebrating quaint Annapolis for its landmarks and easy pace of life.
CRABTOWN
Above: Louis Senesi (center, tenor banjo) & ensemble, c. 1940. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Christopher Senesi, Louis’s grandson. Below: Leoba Velenovsky, 2006. Photo by Samuel McLean Brice.
Leoba Velenovsky (1917–2013), who grew up in Eastport during the 1910s and 20s, recalled the song to her great nephew, Peter Brice. She and her friends sang it during recess on the schoolyard at St. Mary’s Elementary School on Duke of Gloucester Street.
Peter Brice composed the reel “The Crabtown Frolic” in 2021 in anticipation of the festival.
WANT TO GET INVOLVED?
The Crabtown Frolic relies on your interest and support. It intends to include everyone who wants to participate, and to showcase practitioners of various oral traditions, and of various skill levels.
If you would like to perform, lecture, or teach at the Crabtown Frolic, please submit an application via the “Perform” button. Similarly, if you would like to volunteer to help us make the Crabtown Frolic the best it can be, please submit an application via the “Volunteer” button. Finally, if you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to the festival via the New Century American Irish-Arts Company, a 501(c)3 organization, please click the “Support” button. Thank you!
