National Women's Music Festival

×

Expand

Irene Young

A close-up of Holly Near.

Holly Near

Featuring four days of music, comedy, theater, workshops, a marketplace, and more, the 2023 National Women's Music Festival also spotlights a very special returning artist: Holly Near, whose five-decade-plus career has seamlessly blended music and activism. Near will perform a Saturday concert, and on Friday present the fest keynote and lead a workshop. Near is joined by other legendary voices and new favorites during a packed long weekend; find tickets and schedules at nwmf.info.

media release: The National Women's Music Festival is a four-day musical and cultural extravaganza that incorporates all facets of women's lives.  It's a jam-packed, long weekend where the SheRocks and Spotlight stages hold concerts, comedy, theater, and orchestral performances, as well as the Drum, Ukulele, and Vocal choruses and the Folk Orchestra.   The fabulous marketplace caters to your woman-focused energy with gifts for yourself and others!   All day long, you can attend stimulating workshops, watch films and videos, immerse yourself in the writers' or spirituality series of events, participate in the silent and live auctions, and generally have a rousingly good time!

Wednesday, July 5 - Pre-festival Workshops

Thursday, July 6 - Workshops and evening SheRocks! stage performances (7 pm): Indigie Femme, Mimi Gonzalez, Ruth King.

Friday, July 7 - Marketplace, Open Mics, Workshops, featured speakers, Silent Auction, afternoon Spotlight stage (1 pm): Jesse Powers, Janell Banks, Nancy Day; SheRocks stage (7 pm): be steadwell, SONiA, Dianne Davidson.

Saturday, July 8 - Marketplace, Open Mics, Workshops, featured speakers, Silent Auction, Live auction, afternoon Spotlight stage (1 pm): NWMF Orchestra with Nan Washburn, Tammy Hall, Miss Brown to You; SheRocks stage (7 pm): Deidre McCalla, Holly Near, Rainbow Girls; and late-night dancing

Sunday, July 9 - Marketplace, Drum, Ukulele, and Vocal Choruses, and final performances on the SheRocks stage (10:30 am): Drum-Vocal-Ukulele Choruses, Melba's Kitchen

The 2023 Keynote Speaker: Holly Near is surely a Women’s Music elder, a place earned by her powerful voice, entertaining performance, highly developed craft, and her sense of humor. But Holly has also been involved in global social change movements since 1971. A critical thinker as well as an artist, Near has a unique perspective on life, activism, social change, spirituality, and love. Early on, Holly learned to connect the dots so that she did not work with “causes” but rather focused on the way we learn and the way we change ourselves and others through song.

Spending an hour with Holly’s creative mind is heart opening and a lot of fun.

Holly Near also leads the Friday Workshop: Because of A Song

Holly Near will discuss the making of Because of a Song - an historic archival website free to all at www.becauseofasong. The archive documents a small part of the extraordinary lesbian music that rose out of Oakland, CA and the greater Bay area.

Holly will explain how this was conceived and put together, and how women can document women’s music history in their own geography...leaving a trail.

... and Saturday Morning Singing in the Atrium

Holly will lead us in singing Singing For Our Lives.