May is almost over and it's been alternating busy and lazy. As regular readers will know, we went down to New Orleans early in the month to attend the 12th Annual Zone Music Reporter Awards. Zone Music Reporter is the industry source for many genres of music including Instrumental, New Age, World, Ambient, Electronic, Solo Piano, Relaxation and others. They track radio play and publish a monthly album chart and a yearly top 100 chart.
Each year ZMR puts on an Awards show to recognize the best in 13 categories of music as voted for by member station DJs and Program Hosts. The festivities include a Meet & Greet the night before the show,
which is held in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The evening was a
great opportunity to catch up with people from far-flung places that we
communicate with electronically most of the time.
If you've been reading this blog, you will already know that Eight Winds was a nominee for Best Instrumental Album - Acoustic and we are thrilled that it won. The competition for my category in particular and all the categories in general this year was pretty strong so to have been chosen the best is an incredible honour. Many, many thanks to all the DJs that voted for Eight Winds and for all the hosts that play my music in particular and the genre of instrumental music in general.
After the Show, we headed off into the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle for a few days R&R. Given that it snowed two days before we left, it was lovely to enjoy the hot weather and dip our feet into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We discovered several State Parks and National Forest campgrounds that were peaceful places to relax and recharge - most of them were internet-free zones pretty much forcing us to turn off the electronic connections for a while.
After the break, we headed to Montreat, NC for our first time attending SERFA's annual conference (South East Regional Folk Alliance). We've been to the North East Region (NERFA) a couple of times and were looking to extend our reach into the south. SERFA is three days of workshops and seminars during the day followed by evening and night of live music, jams, song circles and showcases. It's not as big as NERFA, making it a little easier to meet people and have conversations and share the business and the playing of being an independent musician.
As soon as SERFA was done, we hit the road to come home with brief stops to visit friends along the way. We're now back in Lunenburg, with a task list to work our way through including all of the advance work for the next tour, which starts in Lubec, ME on July 29, runs through several festivals in New Brunswick and Ontario, a series of coffehouses and house concerts in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Virgina, winding up in Lynn, PA on September 10. We are still adding a few more dates to the tour and we'll let you know more details as they become available.
In the meantime, thanks for giving us a listen and we wish you well on wherever your musical journey takes you. Hope to see you out there soon.
Cheers, Bob
bobardern.ca
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