12th Annual FODfest Set for Saturday
SHEFFIELD, Mass. — Sheffield-based nonprofit Music in Common will present its flagship concert event, FODfest (Friends of Danny Festival), at Dewey Hall, located at 91 Main St., on Saturday, Oct. 29.
FODfest celebrates the life of Daniel Pearl — the slain Wall Street Journal reporter who began his career at the North Adams Transcript and The Berkshire Eagle. The concert will feature more than a dozen local musicians in a unique format that is part jam session, part song-swap and part concert.
The concert begins promptly at 7:30 p.m. and is free and open to all. Also included in the evening is a screening of the new documentary short about Music in Common, "From Madness to Music," which was released earlier this year. Doors open at 6 p.m. with pizza, snacks and beverages available for purchase all throughout the event.
For the past six years, Music in Common has been producing an immersion program in which groups of eight to 15 high school and college-aged students work together to write, record, and perform a song and produce a music video. The program brings together communities in conflict and in need of deepening understanding between one another. To date, 40 songs and videos have been written and recorded in programs throughout the United States, Israel and Palestine.
Now in its 12th year, singer-songwriter and producer Todd Mack started FODfest as a way to honor his friend and bandmate after Pearl was abducted and murdered by terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002 while working on assignment for the Wall Street Journal. This year's lineup includes Graham & Barbara Dean, Eric Reihnardt, Bruce Mandel, Marisa Massery, Juliet Popper, James Bill, David Hodge, Erika Ludwig, Joel Blumert, Steve Mole, Lee Rogers, Ryan Foss, Glenn Geiger and others. New this year, FODfest artists will perform the songs written in the Music in Common immersion program
Bash Bish Brew & 'Que will donate 10 percent of all dinners on Oct. 29 to customers who mention they are FODfest concertgoers. FODfest is funded in part by grants from the Alford-Egremont, Hinsdale-Peru, Monterey, New Marlborough, Mount Washington, Otis, Pittsfield, Richmond, Sheffield, Tyringham and Washington Cultural Councils.
Admission is free, but donations are encouraged. A silent auction and raffle of local items will take place throughout the evening. For more information on upcoming programs and the work of Music In Common including FODfest 2016, visit the website or Facebook.
Tags: concerts, Daniel Pearl,
