Zimfest 2003 Wrap-Up Newsletter

October 8, 2003

The smiles, laughter and joy of Zimfest 2003 are over, but the post-Zimfest glow will linger for a long time. By all measures — the quality of teachers, the workshops, the performances, the festival site, and the bottom line — Zimfest 2003 was a huge success. It was such a great festival that Zimfest 2004 will be held at Reed College in Portland again next year! The dates are August 13th, 14th and 15th. If you didn’t make it to 2003, you won’t want to miss 2004.

On behalf of Zimfest Association, the 2003 festival participants, and the ever-growing Zimbabwean music community, a big heartfelt thank you to the 2003 organizing committee.

Workshops

Zimfest 2003 again welcomed some of our favorite teachers: Cosmas Magaya, Sheasby Matiure, Farai Gezi, Maria Minnaar, Paul Mataruse, Erica Azim, Ona, and Russ Landers, among others. And some new teachers, who added a great flavor to the festival, joined the roster: Tendekai Kuture, Loveness Wesa, Fradreck Mujuru, Duncan Allard, and Dr. Patrick Matsikenyiri, among others. And for the first time at Zimfest, Alport Mhlanga and his son Dumisani Mhlanga taught some amazing marimba workshops. The “teacher of teachers” (he taught at Kwanongoma College for many years), Alport taught students to play marimba with sensitivity and grace. A great variety of cultural presentations and the new “intensive” workshops gave students a deeper understanding and proved very popular.

Performances

Zimfest 2003 showcased a great variety of music, dance and singing. After three incredibly, full days and nights, there were still 100 or so people in the concert hall on Sunday night, dancing, talking, laughing, and smiling. The crowd did not want it to end. The evening concert site was a large hall with a big dance floor and tiered rows of comfortable seats behind. The afternoon performances where held in a natural amphitheater overlooking a large pond. A big thank you to Chris Steele, Mark Burdon and Chris Freeman for volunteering to run the sound equipment, and to Chris Halaska and Ong Kar Walen for stage managing the concerts.

Festival Site

The campus at Reed College provided the perfect festival site, a small compact campus that made for easy walks to meals, workshops and concerts. Reed has charming historic buildings, green lawns with magnificent old shade trees, decent dorm rooms, really good food, and one of the best concert sites the festival has ever had. But of course, it’s the people who come to the festival that make it such a huge success. The weekend was full of incredible joy and enduring friendship. Thanks to the 50+ VOLUNTEERS who made the festival happen. A special thank you to Ross Thompson who constructed the online registration and maintained the database for Zimfest. For more about 2003 volunteers, see Thanks to Great Volunteers.

Bottom Line

There were a record number of workshops offered at the festival — 130 — and at least 75% of these were full. An estimated 400–500 people came to Reed College each day of the festival. Concert attendance was estimated at about 600 people on Friday night, 700 on Saturday night, and 350 on Sunday night. Due to the workshop enrollment, concert attendance, and the thriftiness of this year’s organizers, the festival came out with a profit. The surplus will give Zimfest Association an opportunity to look at ways of making Zimfest better.

Zimfest Association

First conceived of in the early years of the festival, Zimfest Association (ZA), a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation, was formed in 1999. The ZA provides financial, technical and emotional support to Zimfest organizing committees. ZA gives festival organizers the support and freedom to make each festival a unique yet familiar celebration of Zimbabwean music and culture.

Zimfest has become a huge production and even though all the organizers volunteer their time, the festival’s annual budget is usually around $70,000. While most festival budgets are planned to break even, sometimes the festival comes out in the black. With these surplus funds, the ZA provided money to produce the music CD of the 2000 festival, recently gave a loan to Dandemutande to publish two books on marimba building, and last year, the ZA was able to give $3,000 to organizations working in Zimbabwe. With the surplus from 2003, we hope to “give back” to Zimbabwe a greater amount.

The ZA Board is made up of former festival organizers and would appreciate your input or feedback on any aspect of the festival. The ZA can be reached at board@zimfest.org, or through the festival web site.

A Note from the 2003 Organizers

The Zimfest 2003 Organizing Committee would like to thank everyone who took part in the festival this year. Teachers, performers, volunteers, and participants all helped create the positive, relaxed community atmosphere this year. The smiles that we saw and the wonderful music that we heard made the year’s worth of meetings worthwhile. It is definitely a high to put out so much effort and then see it all come to life in one joyous weekend!

Finally, we would like to offer a few suggestions that we feel will help Zimfest participants have a great festival experience:

Check the Zimfest web site regularly throughout the year. The web site, www.zimfest.org, is outstanding (thanks to Larry Israel). It is very up-to-date and offers many details on the festival.
Be on the email list. We sent out updates and important announcements via email. Make sure that Zimfest has your current email address (you can visit the web site to change your address with us). Use a friend’s email address if you don’t have one.
Read stuff. It really saves a lot of volunteer hours (and makes things work better for you) if you follow directions like one registrant per form, etc.
If possible, enter your class choices before the lottery deadline. This will give you the best chances at popular classes.
Do as much as you can EARLY. This really helps organizers make the best decisions about meals, housing, workshops, and concerts, etc.

We hope to see you all again next year!!!

From the Zimfest 2003 Organizers:
Aisha Beck, Cary Pinard, Inge Hindel, Marian Grebanier,
Nathan Beck, and Rachel Burdon

2004 and Beyond

The Portland community has stepped forward again and Reed College will be the site of the 2004 festival! Mark August 13–15 on your 2004 calendar. The 2003 committee is finishing up the last bits of work for the festival and will be passing on the “Zimfest Pack” to the organizers of Zimfest 2004, just across town. The second group of Portland residents who have volunteered to organize Zimfest 2004 are: Kirsten Comandich, Doug Ferguson, Mark Hitchcox, Hyla Dickson, Kirsten Stade, and Mark Hoskins. A special thank you goes out to them. Please consider contacting them at 2004@zimfest.org to offer to help out.

The good folks in Bellingham, Washington have expressed interest in hosting Zimfest 2005. There are other communities that are possible in the future as well: Ashland, Oregon; Boulder, Colorado; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Zimfest web site is being updated regularly and will include a slide show of photographs from Zimfest 2003 in a few weeks. Check in often to keep informed.

We hope to see you at Zimfest 2004 in Portland on August 13–15.