This year’s Schooled in Song celebration—a musical phenomenon that rocked the Carpenter Center at Cal State Long Beach last year—will be an integral, eco-friendly part of Downtown Long Beach’s second annual University by the Sea arts and culture festival on October 5, 2008.
Featuring Sustainable Waves’ solar-powered sound and lighting, and a carbon dioxide-eating main stage and a live screen-printing station meant to reduce swag-related waste, this Schooled in Song’s set-up is U-Sea’s centerpiece of sustainability.
Add to this the first public outdoor beer event Long Beach has seen in seven years—U-Sea’s Backyard Beer Garden equipped with 18 of your favorite, local bartenders volunteering their tap skills for an hour each—and you have the sort of high caliber venue Long Beach’s music talent deserves.
Justin Hectus, president of the Arts Council for Long Beach and one of the founders of this stellar sound project, has grandiose festivities planned before, during and after the U-Sea event. Beginning on September 17, with an invitation-only preview by KCRW darling Meiko on the Queen Mary, and ending with an after party at Blue Café the night of the main event.
“Long Beach has all the raw materials,†Hectus said, “dedicated, talented, traveling, full-time musicians who perform all over the world. They deserve a world-class venue at home, and young music artists deserve our support too.â€
To foster that notion, Schooled in Song, in conjunction with the Arts Council for Long Beach, is offering scholarships to local high school and undergraduate students for original music submissions. Applicants should send an artistic sample and a short essay outlining how they would use the money to [email protected] by September 25, 2008. Winners will be announced at U-Sea.
As if all that weren’t enough, the band line-up has been touted as the city’s most anticipated music event of the year, featuring over twenty raved-about local acts, including Dengue Fever, The New Fidelity, Blank Blue, and Dusty Rhodes and the River Band.
“If music and art are important to you,†Hectus added, “and if you want to live in a city with beauty and majestic sound, get out there and support your local artists and musicians! Get to U-Sea for Schooled in Song.â€