Southeast Regional Folk Alliance holds conference for Music Professionals, May 13-17 at Montreat

The eighth annual Southeast Regional Folk Alliance conference for Music Professionals, held May 13-17, takes place at Montreat Conference Center. The event includes Panels, mentorships, keynote speakers, awards, performances and networking opportunities, as well as a showcase. Showcase applications can be submitted through Saturday, Feb. 28 and conference registration is discounted through Monday, May 4 ($110 members/$130 non-members through Wednesday, April 1; $125/$145 through May 4).

Press release from SEFRA:

SERFA is a four-day conference that gives artists, venues and music professionals a chance to network together and share their talents. Attendees hail from not only all around the Southeastern states, but from throughout the US and Canada. SERFA strives to offer creative and informative workshops to help educate and inspire attendees. This year will feature a Presenters Workshop with Steve Johnson from MerleFest and Jennifer Pickering from Black Mountain’s LEAF Community Arts, with other panels ranging from songwriting to budgeting CDs and tours, instrumental clinics, as well as individual and group mentorships. SERFA provides many opportunities for artists to perform, including three nights of official showcasing, an Open Mic, late-night showcases and informal jam sessions. An added bonus is that the conference is held at a peaceful retreat-center located 20 minutes from Asheville, NC making SERFA both enjoyable and productive.

“SERFA brings together this community of music-minded folks and provides the space and time to connect and re-energize together – to ask questions, share lessons learned, and inspire one another, ” says SERFA President Kim Richardson, “not to mention, to play a ton of music in this stunning setting. ”

Official showcase applications are being accepted through February 28 at http://www.serfa.org/showcase-application/ and registration is discounted through May 4th at http://www.serfa.org/registration/.

In 2014, SERFA instituted Community Hours – short and varied workshops for a call to building communities through music and organizing, an expanded mentor program and instrumental clinics. Attendees took advantage of this wide array of workshop offerings as well as shared meals on site, allowing more opportunities to get to know each other.

Last year also saw the institution of The Kari Estrin Founding President’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Music and Culture in the Southeast. The inaugural recipient of this award was The Highlander Research and Education Center, with Executive Director Pam McMichael accepting. McMichael gave a moving presentation of the history of Highlander, whose mission is to serve as a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement building in Appalachia and the US South. Rosa Parks, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and hundreds of others over the years have taken inspiration and techniques for their activism from their visits there and Highlander is where the song “We Shall Overcome” was evolved and disseminated. Capping off the award festivities was activist, travelling musicians union Local 1000 co-founder, songwriter and beloved folk artist John McCutcheon, who delivered both a poignant and rousing keynote speech that was one of the true highlights of SERFA 2014.

This year’s recipients are two legendary North Carolina artists – Alice Gerrard and Si Kahn, along with the Rounder Records founders Marian Leighton-Levy, Ken Irwin and Bill Nowlin. Marian Leighton-Levy will deliver SERFA’s 2015 keynote and all five recipients will participate in workshops throughout the conference. This year’s “Wisdom of The Elders” session will feature The Rounder Roundtable – hosted by Art Menius, discussing various issues of Southern music and activism. As an added feature to this award, SERFA will present “Precious Memories,” Si Kahn’s compelling one-woman show on Wednesday night, featuring Sue Masseck as Sarah Ogan Gunning, whose album, The Silver Dagger, was one of Rounder’s first releases in 1976.

Rounder Records began in 1970 as a collective enterprise by three college friends, Ken Irwin, Marian Leighton Levy and Bill Nowlin, passionate music-lovers all, to record, preserve, and pioneer the development of what later came to be called roots music and its contemporary offshoots. Artists from J. D. Crowe, Tony Rice and Norman Blake to Alison Krauss, as well as the late Hazel Dickens, Alice Gerrard, Si Kahn, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Nanci Griffith, the late Bill Morrissey and many thousands of others have made Rounder their label home at various times over the decades. Acquired a few years ago by the Concord Music Group, the largest independent label and music catalog company in the world, Rounder continues its own fiercely independent musical journey within that wider context. The vast Rounder catalog includes much of the finest Appalachian music, bluegrass, acoustic music, blues from New Orleans and Memphis, singer/songwriters, and alternative music that has stood the test of time.

80 years young Alice Gerrard, nominated for a 2015 Grammy™, shows no signs of being anything less than continually vibrant and relevant throughout her 50-year career. Known as a champion of Appalachian old-time music, she is probably best known for her collaboration with Hazel Dickens in the 60’s & 70’s, with four albums released by Rounder. Gerrard has appeared on more than 20 recordings, is a tireless advocate of traditional music and has won the respect and many honors of the roots and acoustic music community over the years.

Si Kahn is known as a songwriter, activist and organizer, but those words don’t even come close to describing Si’s influence throughout the Southeast and beyond. His 50-year body of work incorporates a musical history of the region: from the Southern Civil Rights Movement, to organizing for unions and workers’ rights in Appalachian coal camps and mill towns, to writing serious and humorous songs, musicals and books about family, community, love, work and freedom. Si has worked hard to help preserve and advocate for the region’s culture and history, and has recently added to his passionate causes protecting Alaska’s magnificent Bristol Bay forever by working with other musicians to help stop the proposed Pebble Mine (www.MusiciansUnited.info).

To register for the SERFA Conference May 13-17 in Black Mountain, NC, apply for Official showcases and for more information, please go the SERFA website – www.serfa.org. SERFA is a region of the Folk Alliance International, a 501(c)3 federal charity based in Kansas City, MO. FAI holds an Annual Conference and Music Camp each February. There are four other North American regional organizations of FAI: NERFA – the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance; FARM – Folk Alliance Regional Midwest; SWRFA – Southwest Regional Folk Alliance; FAR WEST – Folk Alliance Regional West (Coast).These regions include Canadian and Mexican members. Additionally FAI has many international members, and independent networks in Europe and Australia. Please go to www.folkalliance.org to become a member or for information on these other regional conferences.