Short Description

The Lenzburg Folk Festival took place in Switzerland from 1972 to 1980 at Lenzburg Castle. In retrospect, the festival was the most important folk event in Switzerland, with many Swiss and international folk bands playing at the Lenzburg festival over the years. The event grew continuously, with its duration extending from one to two days, more international artists from different subgenres of folk performing over the course of time, and the audience steadily growing to such an extent that tickets had to be sold by drawing lots. Due to this and other reasons such as various political and social upheavals and planned reconstruction works on the castle, many members of the organizing committee resigned, with the result that the last festival took place in 1980.

The festival was mainly the result of the efforts of musicians and other actors around the folk clubs of Bern and Zurich that formed an association and an organizing committee. The Lenzburg Folk Festival Society made tape recordings on cassette and magnetic tapes during the performances. In 1984, the audio tapes were donated to the Schweizerisches Volksliedarchiv (Swiss Folk Song Archive, SVA) in Basel, accompanied by typewritten documentation, archival charts and further archival materials, e.g. program leaflets. The Lenzburg audio tape collection was archived. It was not until 2015 that the SVA decided to digitize the recordings with the aim of making these rich historical folk culture collections accessible to the broader public and for scientific use.