Guyana Folk Festival Symposium

Join Prospect Park Alliance and Guyana Cultural Association NY for exhibits, panels, games and music exploring the Guyanese experience!
About this Event

Join Prospect Park Alliance and the Guyana Cultural Association of New York for a special day of exhibitions, panel discussions, games and performances that tell the multi-dimensional story of Musical Exchange: The Guyanese Experience. In celebration of the 60th anniversary of Guyana’s independence, the theme for the 2026

Guyana Folk Festival season, organized by the Guyana Cultural Association of New York, Inc., is “Roots, Rhythm, and Harmony.” The symposium will focus on an underexamined aspect of Guyanese musical life: musical exchange among Guyana’s root cultures—Indigenous; European, especially Dutch, British, Scots, Irish, and Portuguese; African; Indian; and Chinese.

Through panels, research reports, exhibitions, folk games and original performances by musicians from Guyana and its diaspora, the symposium will examine, showcase and celebrate Guyanese music makers and those musical compositions and arrangements (sacred and secular) that organically expressed dialog among the country’s root cultures. The 2026 symposium will also provide opportunities to discuss and explore trends in contemporary Guyanese music making and possibilities for the future.

GCA’s 2026 symposium will highlight a powerful truth: Guyanese music has always been a conversation—across cultures, across generations, across time.

Since 2012, the Guyana Cultural Association of New York has led efforts to preserve and revitalize Guyana’s folk heritage.