Mark Dvorak played Evanston Folk Festival on September 8, 2024. When singer songwriter Mark Dvorak began his career in music he knew right away he’d be in it for the long haul. Thirty-five years later Mark is still writing, recording and on the road performing. “At this stage of the game,” said the singer from his home outside Chicago, Illinois, “I feel like I’m doing my best work.” The Chicago Tribune called him “masterful,” and the Fox Valley Folk Festival describes him as “a living archive of song and style.” In 2012 WFMT 98.7 fm Midnight Special host Rich Warren named him Chicago’s “official troubadour.” Mark has given concerts in almost all of the United States and has made visits to Finland, Canada and Ireland. To date he has released twenty albums of traditional, Americana and original song including 2020s acclaimed Let Love Go On and 2024s Live & Alone. Dvorak has won awards for children’s music, journalism and was honored in 2013 with the FARM Lantern Bearer Award from Folk Alliance International. In 2008 he received the Woodstock Folk Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. ______   Andy Cohen grew up in a house with a piano and a lot of Dixieland Jazz records, amplified after a while by a cornet that his dad got him. At about fifteen, he got bitten by the Folk Music bug, and soon got to hear records by Big Bill Broonzy and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, both of which reminded him of the music he grew up to. At sixteen, he saw Reverend Gary Davis, and his course was set. He knew he had it in him to follow, study, perform and promote the music of the southeast quadrant, America’s great musical fountainhead. Although he’s done other things, a certain amount of writing and physical labor from dish washing and railroading to archeology, playing the old tunes is what he does best.