Hello world! The UnCaged Fest returns in 2015! This year I’ve decided to bring all the events to Astoria, Queens. There are many reasons why I chose to do this. First, I think it’s a great neighborhood. It has yummy food, wonderful museums and a growing art scene that is unique to this neighborhood. (I think we’ve all caught wind of this already with all the real-estate reports in the NY Times, making the top ten list everywhere, etc.) Astoria is where I live and there are plenty of unique places to host a toy piano festival!
More importantly, I’ve noticed that there’s great people around too. It’s easy to feel anonymous in New York City but it’s still possible to have a “small town feel” when we get to know our neighbors. We can do that simply by investing some time and energy in our direct community. This year’s festival takes place at four awesome venues: The Museum of the Moving Image, The Uke Hut, Q.E.D.Astoria and Hi-Fi Records.
Since this year’s festival is really about Astoria, I skipped the annual composition competition to curate the appropriate groups/pieces at the specific venues. For example, at the Museum of the Moving Image (where our main event is taking place), there was more importance placed on the film or video component so it didn’t feel right to have a musical composition contest for it. The composition contest will return in 2016, but for this year, let’s give Astoria a little love!
