Buffalo Friends of Folk Music

Read About Our concerts & Performers in Detail:

Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light

October 22, 2026, 7:00 PM

VILLAGE MEETING HOUSE 

5658 MAIN STREET 

WILLIAMSVILLE 14221 

TICKETS: $25 GENERAL; $20 MEMBERS; $10 STUDENTS. 

Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light:

Fresh off their Telluride Bluegrass Band Contest win, Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light are a Boston-based string band making music that blends folk tradition and highlight feminist storytelling. At the center is Sumner’s songwriting—rooted in history, myth, and personal reckoning—carried by close harmonies, upright bass, acoustic guitar, and fiddle. The trio features Kat Wallace on fiddle and vocals and Karl Henry on upright bass and vocals, whose playing brings both tension and tenderness to the sound.

Their sound is spare and intimate, sometimes eerie, sometimes sweet, always intentional. They call it Femericana—sharp-edged Americana with a splash of feminine rage.

Sumner has performed at the Library of Congress, where five of her original songs are now archived, and was a 2024 winner of the Kerrville New Folk competition. Her song “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison)” struck a nerve—streamed over 300,000 times and picked up by dancers, theater directors, and deep listeners who saw themselves in its story. It’s been tattooed on arms, sung in audition rooms, and carried into classrooms and protests.

Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light has toured coast to coast, bringing their spellbinding live show to listening rooms, libraries, farms, and festivals across the country. They've appeared at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Earl Scruggs Festival, IBMA, and legendary folk listening rooms like Caffé Lena and Club Passim, where their shows have become a staple of the Boston folk scene.

QUOTES:

"Rachel Sumner and her mighty trio are punching above their weight with trenchant lyrics and plenty of melodic power. Everyone should get to hear this band." - Darol Anger

“Strong songwriting and a pure voice, Rachel Sumner brings joy and energy to the stage" - Livingston Taylor

"A bullish band packed with skills….ready to go” - Americana Highways

Link to Website

Jim Kweskin and Samoa Wilson

November 20, 2026 7:00 PM

VILLAGE MEETING HOUSE 

5658 MAIN STREET 

WILLIAMSVILLE 14221 

TICKETS: $30 GENERAL; $25 MEMBERS; $10 STUDENTS. 

Jim Kweskin and Samoa Wilson:

Jim Kweskin is probably best known as a singer and bandleader, but he also created one of the bedrock guitar styles of the folk revival, adapting the ragtime-blues fingerpicking of artists like Blind Boy Fuller to the more complex chords of pop and jazz. He has maintained a remarkably consistent musical vision since his jug band days, continuing to explore traditional folk and blues with the sophisticated sensibility of a jazz musician and jazz with the communal simplicity of a folk artist. He has recorded solo ventures, as a member of the U and I band, and with U and I bandmate Samoa Wilson, and continues to perform widely in various formats. In recent years he and Geoff Muldaur have often appeared as a duo, revisiting and expanding on their Jug Band repertoire.

Link to website

Nan Hoffman & Joe Tumino

December 13, 2026, 2:00PM

VILLAGE MEETING HOUSE 

5658 MAIN STREET 

WILLIAMSVILLE 14221 

TICKETS: FREE!  Food Bank Donations Encouraged!

Our Annual Holiday Benefit Concert, BFFM is happy bring back Nan & Joe for the 6th year in support of a local food pantry. Nan & Joe Combine rich vocals with solid musicianship. Songs in various styles and traditions, Humorous and reflective, thankful and hopeful. Donations to a local food bank will be happily accepted!