By Joanna Cirillo

 Banjos playing, bratwursts sizzling, and braided yarn being woven into cloth. All of these ingredients came together on the Cook/Douglass campus on this past Saturday. Despite cloudy weather, the normally sleepy Eagleton institute was transformed into the successful 34th annual New Jersey Folk Festival. Each year a culture is chosen to theme the festival, and this year German-American Traditions was picked. In addition to traditional folk tunes being translated into German, festival goers were inundated with a host of other musical fare, including bluegrass, traditional Irish music, bagpipers, strolling fiddlers and a range of contest-winning singer-songwriters.

  While many attendees may have enjoyed the day , they may not have been aware of how the event all came together. The New Jersey Folk Festival is actually one of only a handful of folk festivals in the U.S. managed by undergraduate students. Andy Glaser is one of fourteen students in a three-credit seminar class who are the planning committee of the festival. “In the first half of the semester we learn about folk culture, and the second half is planning the Folk Fest”, Glaser said. As an avid fan of folk music himself, Glaser was recruited to the class by the director of the class and founder of the folk fest Dr. Angus Gillespie. “The class is a lot of work, it’s like an internship," for Andy Glaser, "but, I just like doing it."

  The students, who earn credits towards an American Studies major, are each responsible for an aspect of the festival, earning titles such as “Festival Manager”, “Finance Coordinator”, or “Pinelands Stage Manager”. One performer of the day on the Pinelands Stage, Joe “Zookey” Petraitis, got involved simply by playing open mic nights in the area and connecting with other like-minded folk music players. He happened to meet another festival performer, Spook Handy, on the circuit and they have been playing together since in many different venues.

“The folk community is a family,” Zookey (which the singer prefers to go by) remarked. “We are all connected, like a web.” After retiring 8 years ago to focus on his songwriting, Zookey plays at four or five festivals a year, but the New Jersey native says this one here at Rutgers is his favorite.