The Second Annual FossFest is a Wrap!

The second annual FossFest stirred up the streets of Broadway in front of Saxton Foss Park in the Winter Hill/East Somerville hinterlands on July 25th, 2010. This music and arts event was sponsored in part by the Somerville Arts Council and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, in partnership with the City of Somerville’s SomerStreets program, and East Somerville Main Streets. Four bands played to a relaxed crowd with the unusual freedom to situate themselves right in the middle of Broadway, which was closed to traffic for the day’s events. Artists and craft vendors lined the Foss Park parking lot, offering a range of goods from paintings to handmade jewelry. The event was emceed by Vihann Kong who kept the days performances rolling smoothly.




Christopher Christian started the music off with an acoustic set about devotion and Galveston. Chris was joined on stage for a few ditties by his Pennies co-star, Caroline Campbell McCormick. As a side note, Chris co-hosted and performed live on MIT’s WMBR the Friday before FossFest, and a podcast of this show can be found here: http://wmbr.org/m3u/Three_Ring_Circus_20100723_1600.m3u



The parade from East Somerville, led by Marcus Santos and Bloco, came through like a hurricane for the last song of the set.














The second band of the day was Raiz Sertaneja, who played a set of emotional Brazilian vocal duets highlighted by keyboard melodies and percussion.



















Angeline brought the energy up with their folk-rock awesomeness that induced major boogie in the crowd, including a troupe of dancing kids that I believe the band referred to as ‘The Vaccinations’.















The Kieran Ridge Band closed the day with a guitar/mandolin filled alt-country show that included a tribute to Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues by the end of the set.














All throughout the day there was face painting, as well as workshops and demos provided by the Open Air Circus.















Thank you to all of the people that helped organize and to those that attended this year’s event. We hope to see you for a third FossFest in 2011.We have a FossFest flickr pool. Please add any photos or video that you might have!

Some nice write-ups about the day’s events (SomerStreets and FossFest) can be found at the following links:
http://www.thesomervillenews.com/archives/5063

http://safedigression.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/somerstreets-comes-to-east-somerville/

THANK YOU!

Sponsors and Support: Somerville Arts Council: Rachel Strutt, Greg Jenkins; City of Somerville: Carlene Campbell, Mayor Joseph Curtatone; East Somerville Main Streets: Carrie Dancy; Moonship Productions: Jenn Bliss; Brazilian Times: Marcelo Zicker

Please continue to support our performers and vendors:
Performers: Christopher Christian; Raiz Sertaneja; Angeline; Kieran Ridge Band

Vendors: Dave’s Sand Art; Leanne Tremblay Textiles; The Waughdrobe; Kreeters; Sophy Tuttle Illustration; Heaven Sent Creations; Matt Serra Painting; Marblehead Tileworks

Planning and Execution Crew: Allison Stevens, Christopher Player, Nathanael Hevelone, Andre van der Kouwe, Lilla Zöllei, Vihann Kong, Alexandra Zaleta, Jennifer Pacheco.

FossFest WrapUp

FossFest 2009 happened on Saturday September 5th in the Broadway & Fellsway W corridor of Saxton Foss Park. This first-time event was made possible with support from The Somerville Arts Council, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, and The Department of Conservation and Recreation with help from WMBR 88.1 Cambridge and First Baptist Church in Arlington. The event ran from 2pm-6pm and featured performances from four musical acts as well as booths by a range of artists and vendors.

The Master of Ceremonies was Jeff Breeze, local radio personality and ice cream blogger who emceed, DJ'd and was on keyboards and vocals for the final band of the day, Concord Ballet Orchestra Players. The afternoon of music started with a fine outdoor-summery-southerny rock set by The Brooklyns, followed by a hootenanny of modified gospels by the well adorned, They Will Hate Us. The second half of the day opened with a collection of new wave pop songs provided by The Diamond Mines, and the performances were closed out by the far out sounds of the Concord Ballet Orchestra Players. This final set included a tribute to Sam Walter Foss, the librarian-poet father of Saxton Conant Foss (for whom the park, and likewise the Festival, is named), by putting the elder Foss’ verse to music:

"Bring me men to match my mountains, bring me men to match my plains, men with empires in their purpose, and new eras in their brains."

-- Sam Walter Foss, from "The Coming American", July 4, 1894
--Concord Ballet Orchestra Players, “Tribute to Sam Foss”, September 5, 2009

Particular thanks to Mike Reed, who engineered the sound for the event.

Julia Fairclough gave the event a nice write-up in the Somerville News.

We have a fossfest flickr pool. Please feel free to add photos if you have them.

We're in the process of putting together our video from the event, but Somerville Community Access Television (SCAT) has put some of their footage online.

Thanks to all that made this first FossFest happen.
You can continue to support the contributing artists, vendors, and organizations online!

Sponsors and Supporters:
Somerville Arts Council
Massachusetts Cultural Council
Department of Conservation and Recreation
WMBR 88.1, Cambridge
First Baptist Arlington

Music:
The Brooklyns
They Will Hate Us
The Diamond Mines
Concord Ballet Orchestra Players















Artists & Vendors:
JJ Artworks
ESPressions Designs
Leanne Tremblay
Vagabond Jewelry
Leora Mallach
Danielle Festa
Lucky Dog Organics
Timora’s Touch
Allison Krzanowski
Angela Manzi
David Tibbetts

Partners:
Somerville Homeless Coalition
East Somerville Main Streets
Friends of Foss Park

Special thanks: Jennifer Bonardi, Erin Cheek, Carrie Dancy, Terri Nista, Joe Rotondo, Richard Scott, Rachel Strutt, Peter Ungar

Planning and Execution Crew: Jim Barletta, Jeff Breeze, Nathanael Hevelone, Kristen Lyman, Christopher Player, Michael Reed, Allison Stevens, Andre van der Kouwe, Alexandra Zaleta

Video Crew: CJ Adams, Dave McBride, Lynn Weisman, Donald Bilodeau

Credits:
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Somerville Arts Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.