FARMINGTON – Do you have a song you’ve written about the current global climate crisis? Have you always wanted to write one? Now is your chance! Write and submit a song to our contest (by Oct 12th) and win the opportunity to perform or have it performed on the evening of October 24th in Nordica Auditorium during the 350 Day Concert.
For those of you who don’t yet know, 350 Day is an international day of climate action (see www.350.org). The number “350” refers to the highest amount of carbon dioxide (in parts per million) in the atmosphere that can be sustained without global climate change occurring. We are well above that number now and climbing. Communities throughout the world are planning many activities to raise the awareness of this crisis on Oct 24th; Farmington along with UMF has a full day of activities planned.
WordPlay Theater is putting together an entertaining and informative evening concert featuring such local performers as Bill Berlinghoff, Ruth Hill, and many others. The theme of the concert is “what can musicians do?” and will capstone the day’s activities in Farmington. Musicians historically have had great impact on people in many ways: increasing awareness, stimulating change, amusing, and distracting, for example. The 350 concert will do all those and more, using music and song both from today and from the past.
We would love to include a local song written just for this occasion. So we are sponsoring a contest. All types of original songs will be considered. They can be funny, serious, informative, folksy, modern, classical-sounding, solo, ensemble, etc. The only criteria are that the song deals with the issue at hand specifically (global climate change) and that it can be performed with minimal staging.
The winning song will be performed in the evening during the 350 Day Concert in Nordica Auditorium on Oct 24 at 7:30 PM. For those of you who write songs but would rather not get up and perform, we have willing singers available to do that for you. For those of you who like to perform, we would love to have you sing your song yourself!
The judges (not involved themselves in the show at all) will be making their decision based on originality, appropriateness of the theme, musicality, and performability. Judging will be blind (no names given to judges).
Deadline for submissions is October 12th. The winner will be announced the following week. Simply send a recording of the song (rough is ok!) or a link on the web and a print-out of the lyrics to Sarah Sloane via email (Sloane@maine.edu) or snailmail (Division of Natural Sciences, UMF, Farmington, ME 04938).
Please call (778-4770) or email me with questions.
Well, well, what do you know! We are being asked to write propaganda songs to promote the latest fad. 30 years ago we were fretting about global cooling. A year or two ago human caused global warming was all the rage. Now we’ve changed it all to global climate change. Hmmmm. It seems nowadays we are embracing a religion. Remember that just a few days ago they threw a journalist out of an Al Gore press conference for asking a heretical questions about polar bears. This gets sillier and sillier. What do you bet there will be no song critical of the climate change notion?
Here is a question to ponder. What is the proper temperature, the optimum temperature of the earth? How do you know?