Pittsburgh Women's Music Festival aims to flip typical concert narrative
An online music event to support and showcase Pittsburgh-area women musicians and other traditionally underrepresented musicians and artists will livestream from Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale on Saturday.
Organizers say the festival is designed to be “inclusive, open to non-binary and trans individuals, and will be centering around women, regardless of creed, race or gender assigned at birth.”
Hours for the Pittsburgh Women’s Music Festival: A Parallel Universe Livestream Event will be 5 to 11 p.m. on Facebook Live, Twitch and YouTube Live.
“In A Parallel Universe, there is a world where female visual artists are lauded and showcased prominently everywhere from coffee shops to museum walls,” organizers say. “In this spirit, the Pittsburgh Music Festival is inclusive, open to non-binary and trans individuals, and will be centering around women, regardless of creed, race or gender assigned at birth.”
If this all sounds reminiscent of the all-women Lilith Fair music festivals of the late 1990s, that’s no accident.
Festival organizer and musician Liz Berlin, a co-founder of the band Rusted Root and Mr. Smalls, is a veteran of Lilith Fair, which was founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan to showcase female solo artists and female-led bands.
“I played several dates as a solo artist — Scranton, Pittsburgh and a few other places,” Berlin says. “Nothing like that has happened since. It shouldn’t need to happen if there were more even representation of women across the music industry.”
Flip the narrative
Berlin says a 2018 Pitchfork article points to the need for such an event — the article states that seven out of 10 artists on music festival stages are men.
“We wanted to create something that would flip the narrative,” she says, with the idea that the festival lineup would be no more than 30% male artists.
The inaugural festival originally was scheduled for March 28 at Mr. Smalls, but an on-site event is being postponed until next year because of the covid-19 pandemic.
That prospective lineup did include a number of male performers and male-fronted bands, but when the festival went to a virtual platform, Berlin says, the lineup coincidentally ended up being all female or non-binary performers.
Berlin is in the lineup, along with Brittney Chantele, Kelly Zullo, Jess Klein, HollyHood, Skye, Barbara Anndrea Arriaga, Kalawati-Carmen, Leila Rhodes, Anne Eliza, Cherylann Hawk, Leah Stevens, Lauren Judson, Julianne Wright, Carrie Collins, Sarah Halter, Special K, Katya, Rocket Loves Blue, Maleena, Sarah Halter, Gabriella Salvucci and Hemlock For Socrates.
Performance styles will range from hip-hop and Indian classical to orchestral and singer/songwriter.
Social Justice Disco, Berlin’s collaboration with jazz cabaret vocalist Phat Man Dee, will premiere a new video for their song, “Big Brother Is Trending.”
A tip jar will be provided to support each artist or the charity of their choice.
The virtual festival also will feature work by Tonee Turner, a Pittsburgh artist who has been missing since Dec. 30. “Tonee has had an immense impact on so many people through her art as well as her loving personality and spirited dancing,” Berlin says. “Her artistic mediums include illustration, paint, wire wrapping jewelry, metal work, skateboard repair and design, ceramics and dance.
“We’ll be showcasing her art throughout the event as well as raising funds to assist her family in their search efforts to bring this amazing young woman home.”
Turner was last seen at Dobra Tea in Squirrel Hill and some of her belongings were found later on the Homestead Grays Bridge pedestrian walkway.
Berlin and Creative.Life.Support, a nonprofit offshoot of Mr. Smalls, joined forces with Steel Kitty Productions founder Deb Cook to organize the festival.
Creative.Life.Support offers educational programs focusing on songwriting, production and artist career development for youth and young adults, a college internship program, a nonprofit record label and other artist programs.
Steel Kitty Productions grew out of Cook’s involvement in Pittsburgh’s singer-songwriter community and her desire to curate and promote the music she loves. Cook also is coordinator of music for You Are Here, a Jeannette art gallery.
Details: Facebook
Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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