It started with a vision and a love for the arts and diversity. From there, CITYFOLK has turned into Ohio's only full-time, professional presenter of traditional and ethnic performing arts.

In 1980, Phyllis Brzozowska and four other residents of Dayton's Five Oaks neighborhood envisioned the first CITYFOLK Folk Arts Series. It was a five-event series funded by a grant from the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) and Ohio Humanities Council's Joint Program in Folk Arts and Culture.

The all-volunteer staff coordinated an Irish music concert, Greek dance workshop, Appalachian square dance, African drumming and dance workshop and the creation of a mural in a neighborhood park. The grassroots effort attempted to bring together the cauldron of cultures that call Dayton home to showcase diversity in the arts.

The combination worked, and the organizers realized that the success of the first year pointed to an important need existing in the community--the need for the arts and creative expression of all of Dayton's ethnic and cultural groups to be displayed in a professional manner.

The years between 1981 and 1984 were busy for the organization. CITYFOLK organized and presented over 70 events, featuring diverse traditions including Jewish traditional music, Cajun music and storytelling workshops.

By January 1984, CITYFOLK had grown in scope and complexity to the point where a full-time staff person was needed if the organization expected to continue to grow and still maintain standards of quality, consistency and continuity. That same year, the OAC added CITYFOLK operating support to its existing project support. This was matched by a grant from the Dayton Foundation and CITYFOLK was able to hire its first paid staff person. Thus Phyllis Brzozowska became CITYFOLK's first executive director.

1984 also marked the first CITYFOLK Celtic Series, a program of Irish and Scottish traditional music that has become one of the most popular annual presentations of CITYFOLK. The first concert series included Stockton's Wing, Boys of the Lough, and Kevin Burke and Michael O'Domhnaill.

CITYFOLK was growing...right out of Phyllis' house, which had served as CITYFOLK headquarters during its formative years. The organization moved to 212 Belmonte Park East and began marketing the CITYFOLK events as a season.

In 1986, following the successful design of the Celtic Series, CITYFOLK sponsored "The Jazz Tradition Series," a three-part concert series at the Dayton Art Institute that displayed the historical development of jazz as an important musical legacy. This project was for CITYFOLK not only a broadening of its definition of "traditional arts," but a way to provide high quality programming utilizing minority artists and servicing the African American community of Dayton. CITYFOLK jazz concerts are coordinated by David Barber and the CITYFOLK Jazz Committee.

In February 1988, CITYFOLK learned that the organization had been selected for inclusion in a book identifying 21 presenting organizations in the United States exhibiting quality, leadership and innovation in the presentation of the performing arts. 21 Voices: The Art of Presenting the Performing Arts by Naomi Rhodes alerted a national audience to the amazing work those in the Miami Valley were already enjoying. As Phyllis Brzozowska says in the book, "Many people who are involved with traditional arts see themselves as different from the rest of the arts world. But I always felt differently, partly because the funding was there, partly because I was seeking legitimacy for the traditional arts. I always wanted CITYFOLK to be accepted, just like the ballet, the philharmonic, and the opera. We had every right to be, and that became a goal to work toward. That's why we set up a sound structure and a business-like approach to all we did."

That business-like approach included moving into the Metropolitan Arts Center in September 1991. With a central downtown location, CITYFOLK was looking even more like those "legitimate" arts organizations. Other tenants of the building included the Muse Machine and the Human Race Theatre Company.

Area jazz fans have long recognized CITYFOLK's Jazz Series as a local treasure. It received national recognition in 1993 when selected as one of 20 programs in the nation to receive the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest National Jazz Network Award. The grant allowed CITYFOLK to develop artist residency programs at area schools, coordinate senior citizen programs and co-sponsor the jazz stage at the 1994 Dayton Black Cultural Festival.

1994 was a big year for CITYFOLK. The Dayton Stories Project was started with the awarding of a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Partner's Grant. That same year, Dayton also realized it would receive a special honor when the National Council for the Traditional Arts selected CITYFOLK to co-produce the National Folk Festival in Dayton for 1996-1998. The Festival brought together a partnership between city and county governments, corporate partners, private foundations and more than 900 individual volunteers. The Festival was a success, drawing an increasing crowd to downtown Dayton each year: 75,000 in 1996, 100,000 in 1997, and 110,000 in 1998. In the first two years alone, the Festival brought almost $13 million in economic benefit to the region.

The greatest success of the National Folk Festival in Dayton is the continuation of the festival as the CITYFOLK Festival. Because of the sponsorship and volunteer base accumulated over the years, Dayton continues to celebrate cultural diversity each summer. The CITYFOLK Festival includes top-quality performers and artists from throughout the nation in a fun, safe downtown setting. The Festival is accessible to all: families, seniors and people with disabilities. Our commitment to accessibility earned the 1996 Festival an award from Dayton’s Access Center for Independent Living.

The National Folk Festival signaled a return to CITYFOLK’s roots in participatory folk arts. In 1996, CITYFOLK built upon the success of the Festival’s dance pavilion and started a series of contra dances. These dances provide people of all ages with the chance to take part in a tradition that goes back to the kitchens of our pioneer forefathers: contra and square dancing to live music. They also provide an outlet for CITYFOLK to showcase the talent of area old-time musicians and callers.

In 1999, CITYFOLK won a major honor by being one of a select group of organizations to be JazzNet recipients. JazzNet is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Through a grant award and an endowment fund, CITYFOLK grew its jazz educational programming, increased the number of jazz concert offerings, increased the visibility of jazz at the CITYFOLK Festival and created partnerships, all to bring jazz closer to the Miami Valley community. One part of the program included the summer 2000 "Jazz Across the Curriculum" summer teacher institute, through Antioch College and in conjunction with the Muse Machine. Jazz artists-in-residence have included trumpeter Terell Stafford, pianist Mulgrew Miller, saxophonist and flautist Steve Wilson and trumpter and Latin Jazz innovator Ray Vega.

On April 14, 2002, CITYFOLK hosted a special 20th anniversary concert featuring the best bluegrass players in the world in "Earl Scruggs: Family & Friends." This all-star concert than included over three hours of music by Earl Scruggs and his band, Rhonda Vincent and the Rage and some of bluegrass and country music's finest musicians. The evening ended with an encore of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" including multiple banjo solos by the night's performers, punctuated by Earl's amazing technique and versatility. The day started out with a sold-out banjo workshop and ended with almost 3,000 audience members on their feet.

In the fall of 2003, CITYFOLK joined forces with the University of Dayton’s Arts Series to start the World Music Series. This collaboration allows both organizations to share the wealth of traditions from around the world with the Dayton community through concerts and educational activities. The inaugural series included Malian kora player Mamadou Diabate, French gypsy band Les Yeux Noirs and Chinese pipa player Gao Hong.

CITYFOLK's season of events has grown into a concert season that includes Celtic, jazz and world music/dance, plus a folk festival, educational workshops, films, dance parties and cultural partnerships. With each season, CITYFOLK strives to include broad cultural diversity performed by artists of the highest caliber in their tradition.

Over twenty years ago, CITYFOLK's founders saw that there were very few opportunities in Dayton, Ohio for the general public to experience and come to learn about traditional arts. In addition, ethnic communities faced an ongoing and accelerated danger of losing elements of their cultural heritage if they allowed traditional artistic skills to fall by the wayside.

Today, concerts draw increasing audiences locally and from outside the Miami Valley. CITYFOLK members and local concert-goers -- as well as those who attend concerts from Cincinnati, Columbus and beyond -- realize that CITYFOLK offers a tie to the varied cultures that keep the differences among us vibrant and exciting for all.