Bakailaoa pil-pilean is perhaps the Basque country’s best known dish. The recipe itself is simple, but the dish is not easy to make.

George Abe is an energetic, enigmatic man. A Japanese American born and raised in California, he presented and performed as part of the Sounds of California program.

Beyond the 2016 Folklife Festival, Sounds of California is part of a collaborative project with the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and Radio Bilingüe.

The process of writing a song has always seemed daunting to me. Especially at the Folklife Festival, surrounded by wildly talented musicians steeped in generations of tradition and bursting with innovative ideas, I can’t even imagine how to begin.

As visitors stream into the Euskaltegi Speaking Basque tent, quickly filling the long brown benches, Errukine Olaziregi hops onto the stage and unhooks the microphone from its stand.

I was in high school when the HBO premiered the series Brave New Voices (2009). I remember being in awe of the force behind the voices of teenagers collectively sharing their stories through spoken word, across the cities spotlighted on the show.

Many ancient cultures tell tales of why the sun shines during the day and the moon at night. In some stories the sun and the moon are siblings, in others they are lovers.

Over the first three days of the Folklife Festival, Ramón Gutiérrez worked away in The Studio to build a requinto jarocho, a string instrument native to Veracruz, Mexico. On the fourth day, he finished the instrument and immediately launched into song.

I met Begoña Echeverría and Andrea Bidart at the Basque Club in Chino, a city in Southern California’s Inland Empire, an hour’s drive from Los Angeles.

Quick wits, a keen ear, a powerful voice, and a thousand rhymes—these are the instruments of the Basque bertsolari.