Melodica Festival

Mon 9th Nov, 2009 in Features

Imagine an acoustic music festival spread over a full weekend with an aim to celebrate local music scenes, help foster a sense of community spirit and which asks of audiences to simply make a donation for entry.

The festival is called Melodica and takes place in Australia, Germany, Iceland and the UK. FasterLouder spoke to Melodica founder Pete Uhlenbruch about the festival’s origin from a small café in Collingwood, and how it has grown from a seed to the community it is today.

How did the idea for melodica come about?

I had just come back from overseas from an overseas tour and was sitting in this really cool and quirky antique café, and I just got this idea…wouldn’t it be cool to have music here, and I was going through my phone and realized that half of my contacts were songwriters. I thought it’d be great fun to get them all together in the one place over a weekend and just play for each other, just for experiment’s sake. No money, just a lot of love and music.

After getting the green light from the owner of the café we arranged 18 artists to perform over a weekend in December 2007. A friend made posters, community radio jumped aboard and before you knew it we had up to 50 people crammed into this tiny café with artists just playing on a chair as there was no real stage. There was such an incredible
energy, which everyone fed off.

How would you describe the response?

Quite overwhelming. We had people come up almost in tears just because they were so inspired. As for the artists, they really resonated with the opportunity to network and engage with other artists and absorb creative inspiration too. So it was kind of interesting, it’s since become a festival attended by a lot of songwriters as well as music lovers.

So how did the festival expand overseas?

Well people really resonated with the idea. It’s a simple idea, and not a revolutionary one; to bring artists together to network and perform. But it’s an idea with heart, and people have passionately responded with that. As far as bringing the festival overseas, it was simply a matter of twisting my friend’s arm from Germany, Torben Stock (also a songwriter). He arranged one to coincide with my visit and invited our songwriter friends from Hamburg, Berlin and Iceland. And it was a standout success with 200 people turning up.

Since then it’s grown exponentially. The last festival was given a full page review in the German Rolling Stone comparing the event with this kind of – œ60s San Francisco coffee house scene, you know like the idea of bringing music back to the cafes and smaller venues and focusing on values like community, sustainability and harmony.

Since then, some songwriter friends (from Iceland and the UK) at the first Melodica in Hamburg were so inspired they’ve started their own Melodica’s in their respective countries. So now we have Melodica’s running in Australia, Germany, Iceland and England.

Every Melodica is different. In Reykjavik, Melodica runs over 3-4 days featuring dozens of artists in a whole bunch of venues (not just one). In Hamburg it’s starting to get – œcult’ status, so even the Melodica – œwarm up’ concerts are selling out. In England it’s still starting out, and so there’s really a lot of intimacy.

And I understand that there’s now a lot of crossover of artists between the festivals in different countries?

Yes. The beautiful thing about Melodica is that for a particular city, you grow the scene in that city. Like in Melbourne, we’re helping grow the scene by getting artists to network and we’ve had artists who’ve met at festivals go on tour together and collaborate on projects. But I’ve noticed that when you start having these festivals going in separate music scenes, you begin to have artists going back and forth and so there’s growth of the cultural community on a global scale. For instance, for the 2010 Melodica we’re planning on having Icelandic songwriter Svavar Knútur to headline. This coming together of international independent songwriters is already happening a lot at the festivals in Europe, where it’s easier to travel between countries.

There is no entry fee, so how does it all work?

We run the festival by donation, so audiences can choose if they want to support it financially. We like the idea of not fixing a door fee, since this kind of event it’s all about community. However we are mindful that there are costs to be covered. So far people have been quite generous with donations and so we’ve been able to grow the event, which is fantastic. But we do rely on a lot of good will and we do get a lot of support. It’s a very indie festival, we don’t run balance sheets or anything. We’re more interested in the amount of cultural profit we can help generate. We get a lot of support from community radio and press for which we’re all very grateful.

Do you guys plan to expand it any further?

We are looking to expand it, but it’s just a matter of waiting for the right time and the right people to come along. At the moment it’s just been friends running it. I would personally like to see it grow into other areas, but it’s just a matter of finding the right person who really embodies the values.

Melodica festival is happening November 14 and 15 at the Wesley Anne (250 High St, Northcote). Music from 3pm both days featuring Charles Jenkins, Brian Campeau, Melanie Horsnell, Wendy Rule, Courtney Barnett, Yelka, Silent Reading, Damon Smith, David Cosma, Ben Riddle, the Nymphs, Heidi Elva, Heidi Everett, Ellen Kibble and Earl Leonard.