Celebrate the New Year on the Bleeding Edge

Somewhat to my embarrassment, it was only this past weekend that I first learned about the Lockdown Festival series, which Karl Evangelista launched at the beginning of this past April, roughly a month after the first round of concert cancellations were imposed when Mayor London N. Breed ordered a shutdown of all public performances, events, and gatherings at all the San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center facilities. The Festival consisted of four and one-half hours of streamed videos presenting nine sets of performers, many of whom would be familiar to regular readers of the Bleeding Edge announcements on this site. The entire program was coordinated though a Facebook event page, which provided not only hyperlinks to the video streams but also to five organizations in need of funding. Rather than paying for the concert, viewers were encouraged to provide financial support to one or more of those organizations.

Poster design for the next Lockdown Festival (from the Facebook Post created by Karl Evangelista)

The event was successful enough that it was followed by two subsequent Festivals. Then I learned this weekend that Lockdown Festival IV was scheduled to take place on New Year’s Day, January 1, 2021, beginning at 4 p.m. and again providing nine half-hour sets over the course of four and one-half hours. A Facebook page with hyperlinks to the video streams of those sets has not yet been posted; but the performers for the nine sets have been finalized as follows: [updated 1/1, 7:25 a.m.: Program specifics finalized; times and hyperlinks added:

1. 4 p.m.: Nik Francis
2. 4:30 p.m.: Scott Amendola
3. 5 p.m.: Gabby Fluke-Mogul
4. 5:30 p.m.: The Usufruct duo of Tim Walters and Polly Springhorn
5. 6 p.m.: Shayna Dunkelman
6. 6:30 p.m.: The Grex duo of guitarist Evangelista and keyboardist Rei Scampavia
7. 7 p.m.: William Roper
8. 7:30 p.m.: Evelyn Davis
9. 8 p.m.: SNEAL]
   

Once again, there will be no charge for admission. For this iteration of the Festival, three organizations have been identified as targets for donations by those attending:

1. The Black Organizing Project in Oakland, which has been navigating local policy change
2. Asian Improv aRts, which supports artists of color in the Bay Area
3. Support for the highly adventurous jazz percussionist Milford Graves, noted for his work in the Sixties with  jazz groups led by Paul Bley and Albert Ayler and a founding member of the New York Art Quartet, who turned 79 this past August 20

As was the case with the Facebook page for the original Lockdown Festival, hyperlinks will be provided to facilitate making donations.