Aengus Finnan breaks down this year’s Folk Alliance International Conference

Two weeks before the 27th annual Folk Alliance International Conference takes over downtown’s Westin Hotel, Aengus Finnan blinks at his computer screen. He’s standing at the desk in his River Market office, giving the impression that sitting is a time-consuming luxury. He furrows his brow and blinks again. The FAI’s executive director is in the middle of another 15-hour day, and he looks like he could use a break.

We walk from the office to Harry’s Country Club, and he seems grateful for a little fresh air and a crowded bar. It has been a hectic day, a hectic week, a hectic year. Last April, the organization announced that Finnan would succeed Louis Meyers as executive director; in July, Finnan moved from his home in Toronto to Kansas City.

The location and the title are new to him, but the job itself is very much in his wheelhouse. Before the move, he spent four years as the touring and audience-development officer for the Ontario Arts Council, and in that role he was no stranger to Folk Alliance International.

“As a 15-year member and attendee of different conferences, it’s a familiar organization in a very personal way,” Finnan says. “This is the community and the industry that I’ve invested most of my life in. Saying yes was easy.”

What he said yes to doesn’t look easy. From Wednesday, February 18, through Sunday, February 22, some 3,000 musicians and music-industry people descend on the FAI Conference and Winter Music Camp and its first Music Fair. The logistics are complex, and Finnan has taken care to make it a global enterprise.

“I think that making the ‘international’ part of our title more than ceremonial is important,” he tells me. “The artists performing in this year’s program were selected not just in terms of where they’re from but what they present and what folk music truly is at its core.”

Now, with a beer in front of him, Finnan seems to have recovered his energy. He becomes more emphatic as he talks about staying true to FAI’s mission of nurturing and supporting folk music.

“It’s very easy for us to let it sort of be the gathering that has always been there,” he says of the conference. “But folk music isn’t just the music that plays out in venues at night. It’s in the hearts and homes of the music community in any city, and often that can be underrepresented in the music industry. I think it’s important to find a place for that. Who are the artists who are creating folk music, but not at an industry level? Where is the window, where is the invitation, for them to join us?”

The goal of building a wider audience, Finnan admits, comes with some challenges — thanks in part to the mighty perk the event is for Kansas City. Per FAI’s five-year contract with the Westin Crown Center, the conference will be a fixture here until at least 2018.

“When you stay in one place, you have to find ways to motivate an international community to come back year after year,” Finnan says. “At the same time, there are lots of reasons why it has been important to settle into a place, and part of that is to settle into and build a relationship with a community. The rich musical history and activity here in Kansas City means that we’re poised to be a great connection for local folk artists who are looking for that next step in the national and international touring circuit. And there is something magical about Kansas City: The cultural community here is proud of itself in a really healthy way, and the Folk Alliance needs to be in a city like that.”

Finnan has carried a thick bunch of paper with him to Harry’s, and now he unclips the bundle. I think for a moment that he’s going to resume his workday right here. Instead, he pulls from the papers a list of this year’s Spirit of Folk Awards recipients, and he begins to enthusiastically list the accomplishments of each. Independence native and singer-songwriter Dana Cooper, he reminds me, has been devoted to his craft for more than 40 years. Alberta, Canada’s Tom Coxworth has volunteered as the host and producer of the weekly Canadian radio show Folk Routes since 1995. Finnan names four other awardees, describing each with equal awe.

“What’s drawn me here, what’s kept me here, is all of the people that are here and doing what they’re doing as artists,” Finnan says. “Those are the people that need to be celebrated, that need to be supported.”

He clasps his hands atop the papers and goes on: “The Folk Alliance International doesn’t exist to put on a conference. We exist to support the existence and stability of the artists, organizations, events, and the resources that allow people to continue to explore the music that they are drawn to, whether that’s Cajun or Celtic or singer-songwriter or blues. And to be able to play a part in building a more successful future for everyone, to connect some dots and do some good at an organizational and a community level, I couldn’t ask for more.”

Finnan’s Picks

If you’re as busy as the FAI director is, these are the gigs that he says to make time to catch.

Thursday, February 19

Annika

Westin Crown Center, Pershing East, 8:30 p.m.

New York City’s Annika delivers folk-pop songs that pack all the sweet-and-sour charm of super-songwriters such as Sara Bareilles and Colbie Caillat — rather startling, considering Annika is just 17 years old. Her voice comes on with the confident swing of an artist who has been at this for decades.

Quique Escamilla

Westin Crown Center, Century C, 9:30 p.m.

Born in Chiapas, Mexico, and based now in Toronto, Escamilla writes songs that infuse traditional Latin American folk with spectacular jazz and rock arrangements.

Friday, February 20

Amado Espinoza

Westin Crown Center, Roanoke, 9:30 p.m.

In a live setting, Espinoza is hypnotic. Using shamanic drums and other traditional instruments that he makes himself, this Kansas City transplant transforms the indigenous sounds of his native Bolivia into percussive performance art.

Saturday, February 21

The Young’uns

Westin Crown Center, Century C, 9 p.m.

The three-part vocal harmonies of Leeds, England, group the Young’uns will probably make you cry, but that just means your heart is working. Live shows incorporate an accordion and a guitar, but it’s the trio’s robust a cappella sound that makes you ache.

Trad.Attack

Westin Crown Center, Century A, 10 p.m.

This Estonian threesome gives the traditional folk music of its country a wild and impressive new shape. Saxophone, Jew’s harp, Estonian bagpipe, guitar and various percussive elements come together behind lead singer Sandra Sillamaa’s ethereal voice for a sound both deeply familiar and out-of-this-world.

I Draw Slow

Westin Crown Center, Liberty, 10:30 p.m.

For an Irish spin on bluegrass, don’t miss Dublin’s I Draw Slow. Appalachian roots and rhythms meet Celtic string arrangements, all wrapped up in the stunning power of lead singer Louise Holden, who could give Alison Krauss a run for her money.