Three pairs of musicians who were strangers before they stepped on stage performed as duos Wednesday June 4 to kick off this year’s Granfalloon Music festival.
Granfalloon is an annual arts and culture festival presented by Indiana University's Arts and Humanities Council inspired by the work of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. The festival consists of four days of concerts, literary readings, visual art exhibits, and film screenings interpreting and commenting on his life’s work.
The event was hosted by The Cosmic Songwriter, a nonprofit organization founded in 2021 to provide a collaborative environment for musicians from across the country in Bloomington. They operate on what they call the “cosmic format”, where performers who were strangers before sharing the stage alternate playing songs, bantering back and forth, and sharing the stories behind their work.
“This format is unusual, and it’s out there,” Cosmic songwriter cofounder Sean McDermott said. “The songwriters really discover each other, and they have to break their own rhythm to do that. It causes something fresh to happen that the audience catches on to.”
He said songwriters always ultimately begin to play off each other. Sometimes it becomes a rivalrous game of one-upping each other, but more often the chemistry emerges and they form a long-term connection. Through the Cosmic songwriter organization, musicians have been able to collaborate on tracks, help each other find gigs, network in new groups and even form bands and partnerships.
After Rachel Swain performed her song "Harris County" about her mother’s death, her coperformer Will Griffith looked over at her with admiration and said, “We’re going to be friends for a long time."
“I knew it as soon as I saw your hat." she responded. They bonded about their southern roots and both are currently on tour.
“There’s things that happen on stage that would never otherwise happen,” Cofounder Pablo “Oso Blues” Fuentes said.
Swain played one of her songs for the very first time live, which is common for artists to do in the Cosmic format. It is designed to create a welcoming, forgiving environment for artists to showcase brand-new work.
“I think they feel like, ‘I’ve got a buddy and I can take the risk to perform something new.’”. McDermott said.
Two months ago, the Cosmic Songwriter hosted Grammy award winning songwriter and poet Carry Newcomber, who shared two brand new songs that had never been performed or released.
As well as Grammy winners, the Cosmic Songwriter supports musicians who have never performed before. Laura Switzer performed her original music for the first time, as she shared the stage with Ross DeLong. They broke the ice with a quick game of rock paper scissors to see who had to go first. DeLong lost and started off with his song Wednesday Joe.
“I just totally did not expect my songs and her songs to mesh so well, so that was really exciting — to be able to dialogue with one another like that” DeLong said.
The event ended around 9:30 pm, but all of the musicians and most of the audience stayed around to chat, exchange numbers, and purchase merchandise, records, or another round of drinks.
