Welcome
Welcome to CharlieFest, the West Michigan Songwriters Festival!
Charlie Cheney here, I'm super excited to announce the 2011 Festival dates and concert venues for this year's fest. We are now accepting submissions for the line-up of regional and national songwriters and promise a great list of entertaining bands, duos, and solos, check back often for updates. This year (in addition to the 4-night/5-day songwriting camp Aug 26-30) we have 2 venues hosting live music Sat Aug 27th. The venues are within 1 block of each other in downtown Fremont Michigan. Fremont will be filled with food, beverage, music and fun. Bands, duos, and solos will perform blues, rock, country, gospel, bluegrass, folk and more... with some artists performing songs written that very week right here in Fremont. Sign-up to get two free mp3 downloads from the CD!
Live Music Schedule Sat Aug 27th, 2011 • Fremont MI
4pm-8pm - Veterans Park Amphitheater
8pm-11pm - Moose Lodge
4-Night/5-Day "Songwriter Camp"
The shining jewel of the event is the songwriter camp itself which includes 4 nights lodging in gorgeous cabins, 10 hot home cooked meals, guerilla mobile recording studios to record the songs as they're written, a finished CD of all the songs recorded during the camp, campfire song shares (w/FREE Marshmallows!), and loads and loads of collaborative songwriting and recording with other great songwriters and players in a beautiful 400 acre facility on Ryerson Lake. Hiking, boating, swimming, fishing, bike riding, and suntanning are all available for your enjoyment in-between writing and recording sessions.
The primary songwriting theme this year will be "Wheels" and bicycles to help support Fremont's drive to complete a planned 22-Mile bicycle path. Songwriters are encouraged to write along that theme in any way they chose... take the concept of wheels to any logical or illogical conclusion! :-)
Last year we used "Water"as our theme because Michigan is surrounded by 1/5 of the world's fresh water and the use of this water for recreation, agriculture, industry and tourism is a large part of the local economy and lifestyle. I'd also like to see people writing about small town life and struggle, that topic fascinates me.
For detailed info on the Songwriter Camp, click here
Songwriter Scholarships
Please ask for a scholarship if you need assistance! We will be working very hard with our sponsors and donors to help artists with travel and lodging expenses. Contact Charlie directly at 231-335-7437.