Seldovia Summer Solstice Music Festival

As Director of the Seldovia Summer Solstice Music Festival and Chairman of the Seldovia Arts Council, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the participants, sponsors, and dedicated producers of this year’s festival. It featured outstanding, fresh and inspiring talent utilizing an Americana theme which was aptly suited to an election year, as we all ponder the directions we take for future generations.

Headliner Joe Craven’s zany ,”out of the box” style of instrumentation, spoken word and humor illustrated his repeated message that the arts are crucial to the development of the creative and innovative thinking which is essential to good decision-making in all walks of life and should be embraced by each of us as a skill that we each possess and have the right to develop and express.

Headliners, Ralston Bowles and his sideman, Captain Midnight, added to the spirit of thoughtfulness with poignant songs about friendship, the fragile nature of life itself and the way that we treat our children and each other. Humorous dialogue and quick rapport between the headliners was refreshing.

Also refreshing were the many young people and new faces to the business of performance: Faolan, SeekBob, Sarahndipity and the Seldovia Fiddlers all featured youthful performers, while Seafarin’ Strangers, Rob Rurka’s Band, the Mamma Tonga Band, Love Life Music, Billy Goat, and Relatively Famous all featured family members. Wes Weddell, Esther Golton, Marion Walsh, Tom Begich and the Dan MAC Band traveled long distances to enjoy the fun and share their musical adventures.

It was truly a great weekend of music and workshops taking place all over town, including jamming on board the “Tusty”, at Susan B. English School, at the Tide Pool Cafe and other great spots.

I would especially like to thank those Seldovia folks who housed artists, provided food for them, donated T-Shirts, gave in the form of sponsorship and physically helped stage the show. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank the dedicated members of the Seldovia Arts Council who work all year to make these days a success.

Did you enjoy this year’s festival? Tell us about it in the comments.

(edited 7/3 to add photo of full volunteer list)

You can see all of the photos from this year’s festival in our Festival 2008 Photo Album.

Do you have photos you’ve taken of the festival and posted online? Tag them with “seldoviamusicfestival” and drop a link to them in the comments to this post. Share the fun!

Local papers and the efforts of the festival’s publicity chair, Susan Zerwick, are getting the word out about the festival. Read about us in the Homer Tribune, Longest day brings music to Seldovia, and the Homer News, Seldovia sings with summer music festival.

Updated to add: KBBI has also archived this sound file in their news archives:

06/19/08    12:52p - The small Kachemak Bay community of Seldovia will play host to a wide range of musicians for the annual Seldovia Summer Solstice Music Festival which begins Friday night and runs through Saturday night.      KBBI’s Mike Mason
Listen to this story

Want to download your own copy of the program pamphlet that we hand out at the festival? Now you can. It’s a 187 kb .pdf file and if the order of the pages looks odd, it’s because it’s meant to be printed out and folded into a booklet. The festival schedule insert page is a separate file, also a pdf.

If you don’t need a printed copy, remember that all of the program information is on the Program and Supporters pages of this website as well.

The latest copy of the festival press release is now available for download (345kb pdf).

It’s time to start setting up the school Commons for the festival. Setup help is needed. If you don’t get a call from one of the setup leads but have time to lend a hand, please contact director@seldoviamusicfestival.org.

The stage is already up, but Tobben Spurkland is in charge of moving and setting up the infamous canvas backdrop flats. If you can help out or if you helped out in the past couple years and remember how they went together (yeah, sorry about not recording that better), please contact him.

Stage decorating and setting up of chairs and the gates will be at 10 am on Monday, June 9. This is another time when more willing hands make some tedious work opening and lining up all those metal folding chairs a lot lighter. No need to sign up: just join us at the main school door on Monday.

Festival Director Susan Mumma is hard at work on the workshop schedule. We’ve posted a preliminary version on the Program page, but it’s likely that there may still be some changes: we have a few more workshop topics to squeeze in and we may juggle the room assignments around a bit yet. But this gives you an idea of some of the great things in store for you on the festival Saturday afternoon.

Remember: workshop admission is included in the full festival pass, or you can pay for just a single workshop at a time. For more information, check the Tickets page.

This month the regular Arts Council meeting will be held early and devoted entirely to working on this year’s festival.

The meeting will be held Monday at 7 pm in the Seldovia Public Library.

This meeting isn’t just for members. Anyone who can lend a hand with the festival or who can contribute to its staging is very much welcome. Please join us.

Now you can download and print out a copy of our 2008 festival poster (pdf).

In fact, while you’re at it, why don’t you print out two and hang one of them up someplace to help us publicize the festival? Every little bit helps, you know.

The Seldovia Summer Solstice Music Festival, June 20 and 21, is headlined by two very accomplished musicians. Midwesterner Ralston Bowles has a smart catchy style with roots in both folk music and Rock and Roll that puts him somewhere between Lyle Lovett and Bob Dylan. Ralston has opened for T-Bone Burnett and performed with a long list of musical luminaries including Shawn Colvin, Hothouse Flowers, Chuck Brodsky and Peter Mulvey. Ralston just released his new CD ‘Rally at the Texas Hotel’ (2008) on Judy Collin’s ‘Wildflower’ label. Ralston brings with him Drew Howard, aka Captain Midnight, a master on the steel guitar. Joe Craven is a San Francisco musician, actor, storyteller, educator, visual artist, former museum curator, motivational speaker, and festival emcee. He plays the fiddle, the mandolin, the mug, the martini shaker … even a bedpan and a credit card. His stage set may look like your neighbor’s yard sale, but make no mistake, Joe is an extremely accomplished musician who played for almost 17 years with the David Grisman Quintet. Joe is going to help emcee this year’s festival, so you know that there’s going to be a lot of fun mixed in with all the great music.

The headliners will be joined by Roots/Americana artist Marion Walsh, coming to the festival from Vancouver BC. Marion made a name for herself by playing the clubs, coffeehouses and on radio shows of Boston and in Portland Oregon. ‘Marion sings with so much conviction she should be convicted for affecting the hearts of all whom listen to this new music’ (Roots Music Review). Seattle singer songwriter Wes Weddell spent 63 days In 2001 traveling the state of Washington, picking up stories about the people he met and turning those stories into song. The project ultimately fueled several CDs, featuring everything from playful tunes and ballads to rockabilly romps, one of which won Wes the 2006 Tumbleweed Music Festival songwriting contest.

Many of this year’s festival artists are Alaskans. Anchorage singer/songwriter Tom Begich returns to the festival with his insightful storytelling with blues rhythms and an easy picking style. Talkeetna’s Esther Golton is a singer/songwriter with a mountain dulcimer and a flute. It sounds traditional enough, but not when you perch the dulcimer on a home-made stand, coax out jazzy chord progressions, cross genres from gentle folk to pop to blues and jazz, and add insightful, often humorous lyrics. Returning to the festival is Anchorage pianist and jazzman extraordinaire Dan McElrath and his band, Shawn Zuke and renowned bassist Milo Matthews, plus many other musicians from around the state, including our own Seldovia talent.

Friday and Saturday performances begin at 6:30pm. The headliners and many of the other artists will host Saturday afternoon workshops, a great way for everyone to participate in the festival and to learn some new skills. There will be workshops just for children too. Festival events are held at Susan B. English School in Seldovia, where tickets will be available at the door. Prices for adults are $25 per performance and $10 for all workshops, or buy one ticket for the whole festival (performances plus workshops) for $39. Prices for children (K-12) are $10 per performance plus $5 for a workshop pass, or $20 for the whole festival. Check the festival webpage www.seldoviamusicfestival.wordpress.com for all the details.