Arts editor HELEN MUSA reports from the opening performance of the National Folk Festival, which is off to a great start.

The 59th National Folk Festival kicked off at EPIC on Thursday night in fine style.

First up in the enormous Budawang Theatre, performed to an enthusiastic crowd impatient for action, was a warm-up group of Morris dancers – the first in the Budawang, we were told – strutting their stuff on the floor.

Then it was time for overseas visitors, fiddler Chris Stout and harpist Catriona McKay from Scotland, to take to the stage to perform everything from sweet, sad ballads with gentle plucking from McKay to a haunting Shetland wedding waltz.

Stout drew laughter from the audience when he told them how he was from Shetland and that his only comment about the TV series was: “We don’t have murders and the weather isn’t like that”.

After a few words from the festival’s administrative director Anne Denzer, Ngunnawal Elder Ritchie Allan and co-artistic director Holly Downes, Canberra bard Fred Smith gave a dour rhyming introduction to the coming Great Poetry Date debate which he will host, managing to rhyme “prestigious” with “egregious.”

Festival president David Gilks talked up what he described as “five days in a perfect world,” and paid tribute to the recently deceased former festival director Phil Wilson, whose direction of the event from 1993 to 1998, brought it into the national spotlight.

The National Folk Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award this year went to legendary folk duo, Margaret and Bob Fagan, who had met at the ANU 56 years ago and who still regard “this festival as our home festival.”

Declaring themselves thrilled to receive the award, they treated the audience to Si Kahn’s New Year’s Eve song, Margaret’s ringing voice rattling the rafters.

There followed a spirited set by Scandinavian duo, guitarist Tim and Yonnic on a beautifully-carved Steirische Harmonica.

Another co-artistic director, Michael Sollis, then took to the mike to talk about music, healing and folk memories, before the hugely popular Scottish-Canadian singer-songwriter David Francey with his two-supporting musicians, emerged from the darkness.

Francey, an affable raconteur, proved an apt choice because of the way he talked about what was special about coming to Australia, treating us, to some “platonic love songs” before the concert wound up.

The National Folk Festival continues at Exhibition Park in Canberra until April 21. All details at folkfestival.org.au