Mitch Podolak (21 September 1947 – 25 August 2019)[1] was a prominent figure of the Canadian folk music community.
He began his career at the Bohemian Embassy Coffee House in Toronto in the early 1960s, where he rose from busboy to booking shows.
[3] With CBC as a resource base, Podolak helped found the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1974,[4] serving as the artistic director with Ava Kobrinsky and Colin Gorrie.
For a time, Mitch commuted between Victoria, BC and Canso, NS, producing the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria's FolkFest on the West Coast and working with Troy Greencorn to establish the Stan Rogers Folk Festival on the East Coast.
More recently, Podolak operated as Executive Producer of Home Routes, North America’s only house concert circuit at the time.