 Hello everyone!
My name is Sarah LaDuke and I’m the incoming Executive Director of Folk Alley.
From May 25, 2006 to May 29, 2026, I was a producer and host at WAMC Northeast Public Radio, an NPR member station based in Albany, New York. In those two decades, I have happily built relationships with musicians, managers, producers, engineers, and venue leadership staff while previewing area concerts and interviewing artists about their albums and tours.
I’ve had the great honor of interviewing hundreds of artists in all fields and feel most connected to musicians. I’m also happily connected to the listeners and members that help keep WAMC on the air.
During the Covid-19 pandemic shut-down, I missed talking to artists so I created a live Instagram interview program for WAMC called ‘A Face for Radio Video Series.’ On it, I spoke with artists about the creative activities they were accomplishing and/or missing. The first episode, with Erin McKeown, aired on April 16, 2020. I invited my first few guests but soon people were asking to be on to publicize their livestream house concerts and albums created with collaborators virtually. Artists gonna art.
I hope to maintain Folk Alley’s legacy while growing it to be even more of a hub for its listeners, members, staff, and for all folk fans to connect to each other and to the artists they love.
I am the Secretary of the WAM Theatre Board of Directors (Lenox, MA) and sit on the organization’s Fundraising Committee. WAM is singular in the country in that it creates theatre with an emphasis on gender equity that operates with a vision of theatre as philanthropy.
I was raised in the Adirondack Mountains in Saranac Lake, New York, worked at Pendragon Theatre for 10 years, attended SUNY Fredonia and UAlbany, and I live in Albany, New York with my husband, Paul, and our dog, Doritos. He’s a hound-boxer mutt. He’s very smart and very spoiled.
I’m honored and humbled to be entrusted with the future of Folk Alley. I’ve admired the FreshGrass Foundation from nearby for years and am thrilled to work with and for such a mission-driven and humanity-minded organization. I’m grateful to WKSU and all existing and past Folk Alley staff for creating and maintaining it along with its listeners and members and I’m thrilled that I’ll be learning the ropes directly from Linda Fahey.
Music is one of our great unifying forces. Folk music has always shared and preserved the stories of its communities’ historical struggles, current concerns, and desire for a better future. Alongside the important cultural impacts of folk music is the undeniable truth that music is fun and having some good times in a world gone mad might just get us through. Let’s find out together. |
