St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn Heights fills with banjos, fiddles, and harmonicas starting Friday as the Brooklyn Folk Festival kicks off three days of music, workshops, jam sessions, and its signature banjo-throwing competition. Headliner Bonnie “Prince” Billy tops a lineup of more than 40 bands running Nov. 6 through Nov. 8.
According to Spectrum News NY1, the festival returns for its 18th year, while NYS Music describes the 2026 edition as entering its 17th year — an open discrepancy in how the festival's history has been counted. What's not in dispute is the scale of this year's bill: NYS Music reports the lineup features local New York talent alongside international artists, with other major names including Louis Cato, The Deslondes, Lonnie Holley, and Michael Daves.
The festival is presented by the Jalopy Theatre & School of Music, which is marking its own 20th anniversary this year, per the same NYS Music report. Eli Smith, who founded the Brooklyn Folk Festival and also performs with the old-time string band Down Hill Strugglers, said he set out to build “a festival that really represented the huge diversity and deep roots inherent in the idea of folk music,” according to NYS Music. Smith has also said the festival added more offerings this time around and may have outdone itself this year.
A Banjo-Hurling Tradition Rooted in Red Hook
Beyond the stage, the festival is known for its banjo-throwing competition at the Gowanus Canal, a tradition that traces back to the event's third year at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition in Red Hook, where Smith first proposed seeing how far people could toss a banjo into the water, according to the Brooklyn Paper. At a past competition, the men's heat winner threw 69 feet and the women's heat winner threw 63 feet, per the same outlet. Organizers have used the spectacle to draw attention to the canal's Superfund status and ongoing cleanup, the Brooklyn Paper reported.
The organizer's own schedule, posted at brooklynfolkfest.com, lists a Banjo Toss at 1:00 p.m. and an 8:00 p.m. set from Hannah Lee Thompson & The Bleacher Creatures. Thompson grew up in Brooklyn and chose to play folk music before she was even a teenager, drawn early to harmonica and banjo. She has said she connected with those instruments as a kid and once secretly played guitars at Guitar Center.
From Student to Staffer at Jalopy
Thompson studied banjo with Smith at the Jalopy Theatre & School of Music, which is based in Red Hook, and now serves as the venue's community engagement director and a sound engineer. She has described the Brooklyn Folk Festival as a community gathering that feels like a family reunion, with three days devoted to music she loves. Thompson, a die-hard New York Yankees fan, performs at this year's festival with her band, the Bleacher Creatures.
The festival's schedule also includes workshops, film screenings, and jam sessions alongside the main performances, according to NYS Music. The organizer's website notes afterparties every night at Jalopy Tavern, extending the gathering well past the church doors. Between the headline sets and the canal-side banjo toss, the weekend is shaping up as a full immersion into the folk scene Smith and Jalopy have built out of Red Hook since the festival's founding in 2008, per the Brooklyn Paper.
