Tallahassee Museum Hosted Tallahassee Songwriters Festival

The audience watched each of the musicians as they performed their unique musical styles. Photo by Lavonte Dukes

By Lavonte Dukes
Outlook Writer

The Tallahassee Museum hosted the Tallahassee Songwriters Concert on Sunday Oct. 11.

 
It included four songwriters, who are well-known in the Tallahassee area; Steve Leslie, John Kurzweg, David Lareau and Maurice Mangum.
Each of the musicians performed different musical styles through various storytelling techniques.

 
The concert was only the tip of the iceberg. The entire festival featured writer’s workshops where they described the craft of becoming a successful songwriter. The audience participated in a Q and A session with each of the musicians.

 
“The idea came when songwriter Andrew Tillman, who runs a sound management company called Tilmanagement, came to me with the idea of doing a songwriter’s festival,” said Russell Daws, CEO of Tallahassee Museum.

 
Daws continued to say that the idea was to highlight the songwriters of Tallahassee, who have lived here or still do that are on the national and worldwide stage.

 
Each of the musicians participated in the festival with the hopes of making this an annual event.

 
“The purpose is to introduce and open up Tallahassee more to writers and not just cover the bands so much, but to look at the people who write the songs,” said producer Amelia Tillman, from Tillmanagement.

 
Tillman wanted the people to leave having more interest in the artist of the song and why they wrote it and where it comes from, especially among the aspiring songwriters.

 
“I have always been fascinated with the songwriters and for me when I was growing up it was always about the people behind the songs, the ones who actually created the music is what drew my interest,” said musician and songwriter David Lareau.

 
Daws said from this experience people should leave with more value of the music in their lives and to take great pride of Tallahassee for the tremendous music community of talented artist we have here.