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For fans of women's music who can't wait until annual summer music festivals, there is a new opportunity to experience women's art. A house concert was held on Friday, September 26th on Indianapolis' west side to spotlight women's music and more than eighty people attended.
Kindred, a duo from Indianapolis, were the concert's featured musicians. Before the band's performance, a local poet, Melanie Rae Voland, read from her chapbook and delighted the audience with touching poetry. Local photographer, Sandy Panzer's work was also on display.
Kindred used to play their folksy, energetic original and cover tunes at the Utopia bar. When the Utopia bar closed this year, women's musicians who enjoy playing music for this predominately lesbian audience grew frustrated at a lack of venues for performance.
When asked why they chose to perform at the house concert, Kindred said that women's music audiences are different because they are more enthusiastic, appreciative and have so much positive energy.
"We stopped playing for a while, but we just couldn't stay away," they said. "We think (the organizers) are doing a fantastic job with these house concerts and we hope they continue."
At the concert, the ten-dollar cost of admission allowed the audience to see the performance, interact with the featured artists, and eat whatever is on the evening's menu. On Friday, it was a pasta bar with desserts and snacks. . The concert was held at a large recreational space in the organizer's condominium complex and in a grassroots spirit, no one would be turned away if they could not pay the full admission cost. The audience sat on comfortable sofas, plastic club chairs and spilled over onto back steps near a fireplace and up onto a balcony that over looks the room. Many couples attended and there was a mix in the age of audience members. All of the money raised during that evening was being donated to a charitable cause.
One of the organizers, Cathy Caldwell, described how she got involved with women's music when she and her partner began volunteering for performer care at the National Women's Music Festival. She said that despite some stressful times in their volunteer experience, getting involved with the festival was rewarding.
"(During the festival) a young performer, Kym Tuvim, came back and sang to me. When she sang, she had so much talent; it was like her guts were right out there on the floor. That is when I remembered why I had gotten involved." Caldwell described some of the difficulties faced by the festival this year and that despite the challenges, the energy gained from attending was the main reason why they get involved.
Last month, when Tuvim was traveling through Indiana, she contacted Caldwell to see if she could play in Indianapolis. Without venues such as Utopia available, Caldwell and her partner, Joyce, organized their own space.
"We set up the house concert and my partner created the website and this whole thing just exploded. We were expecting twenty-five of our closest friends but when people heard about what we were doing, they just started coming."
For the future of the house concerts, dates are booked until June when the next National Women's Music Festival will be held at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Singers, artists, poets and dancers who all want to be a part of the monthly concert series have contacted the organizers.
"We just want to stay comfortable," said Caldwell. "We aren't in it for the money. We just hope it makes enough to support the artists."
The organizers also hope that young women will get involved with the effort. "Working at festival, we realized we skipped a generation and I don't know how that happened. Us 'crones' are afraid that what we know is going to disappear and there is too much power in it to disappear."
The next house concert will feature Wishing Chair and will be held on Saturday, November 8th. For more information on the series, visit http://www.indyindie.com.
