If you are in to experimental music then this four-day music festival at the end of January might be right for you.

This year is the sixth year of the Oh My Ears (OME) festival, organized by Elizabeth Kennedy Bayer. OME seeks to give space and opportunities for composers, performers, and ensembles from all backgrounds who present works by living composers. 

The event features an award-winning guest composer, Sarah Gibson.

Gibson is a composer/pianist who has been called “a serious talent to watch” (Atlanta Journal Constitution). Her works have received honors such as the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, Victor Herbert Ascap Award, NFMC Marion Richter American Music Composition Award, and first place in the Percussive Arts Society Composition Contest. Her left-hand piano concerto was selected as a winner of the University of Southern California’s new music for orchestra competition and was premiered with Sarah at the keyboard. She has received commissions from the Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Summer Music Festival And School, L.A. Signal Lab, the Bennington Chamber Music Conference, Soprano Lindsay Kesselman, among others.

Festival schedule on the OME website here or on their Facebook page. 

News alert: Phoestivus vendor list announced! With over 150 vendors, the event continues to grow every year. Its gonna be big, so we need volunteers! See the entire list here.

Every year we need volunteers to make Phoestivus happen. Please follow this link to volunteer.

In fact, we can’t do it without them. We need folks to help sell raffle tickets, to direct patrons, to help with the various features at the event.

We need folks to help with set-up and break-down.

We need folks to even help people figure out which receptacle is for trash and which is for recycling. Yep, people STILL don’t know.

So, what we are saying here is that we need your help. Are you picking up what we’re puttin’ down?

If you can give us an hour or three hours. It all helps.

Here’s who it really helps. Volunteers help us raise money for Community Food Connections, the organization that runs the weekly farmer’s market downtown. That’s huge, because we still have a bit of a food desert downtown –not to mention the need for locally-sources whole foods.

If you are willing to volunteer, contact us directly at 605-456-9388. If you are with a company or organization who can supply many volunteers then you be certain that we are going to praise your good works from proverbial rooftops.

Join us on Nov. 11th for PHX Pheast, as we celebrate local farmers and the amazing food that they provide us.

Phoenix Public Market is bringing PHX Pheast to downtown Phoenix. Together, we celebrate the farmers who make a market like ours possible and enjoy an evening of food, music, and community held in the heart of Phoenix.

Attracting diverse visitors from around the valley, this celebration of neighborhood chefs and restaurants, utilizing fresh ingredients from Arizona’s best farmers and producers, will be a highlight of the fall season.  Between bites, guests can sip a special PHX PHEAST cocktail, wine and beer while enjoying live entertainment from local musicians, and more. PHX PHEAST is a true farm-to-fork experience and a reflection of the finest food from the best farmer’s market in the Valley.  We hope you will join us in support of Arizona farmers.

You can get a ticket here. Prices range from $5 for a drink to $75 for a meal and two drinks.

Individual Ticket, Includes all food bites, entertainment from Tatiana Crespo and 2 drink tickets. They’ll have a variety of 10 chefs paired up with 10 farmers, each creating a different dish for patrons to enjoy as you move from booth to booth. Between bites you can enjoy local beer, wine and a craft cocktail or non-alcoholic beverages. Additional alcohol tickets may be purchased at the event, as well as online.

PHX Pheast is a fundraiser for Phoenix Public Market, a program of Community Food Connections (CFC), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. CFC creates a downtown community-gathering place by supporting small farmers and businesses that strengthen sustainable food systems and produce healthy products for the local community.

Location: Outdoor dining experience, 721 N Central Avenue

Desert dwellers know what a precious resource water is. But do you know where our water comes from and how it gets to your tap? Find out by joining our friends at Local First Arizona on a bike cruise along the Arizona Canal.

We’ll pedal from Old Town Scottsdale to OHSO Brewery with Valley water experts filling us in on everything you’ve always wondered about our water system. Along the way, we’ll hear from the following:

• Learn about the canal system from Jim Duncan, Salt River Project Engineer. We’ll stop at the scenic Arizona Falls, the oldest hydro-electric generation site in Phoenix, where we will learn how the Falls combines art, history and technology to generate clean electricity from the canal’s waterfall.
• Water – Use It Wisely will share information about water conservation in the desert and easy steps we can all take to be more water aware.
• Watershed Management Group will share information on rainwater harvesting and how you can create landscape features that preserve our watershed.
• OHSO Brewery will be sharing their beer made with Sinagua Malt, a water conserving malt grown in the Verde Valley and talking about water in the beer making process.

The bike ride is approximately seven miles roundtrip.

Date: December 1st
Time: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Cost: Free to attend! Food, drink and bike rental are not included and will be purchased separately. There are several bike rental options in Old Town Scottsdale.
Meeting location: South Bridge along Arizona Canal & Marshall Way, 4420 N Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Need to rent a bike? Please scroll down for bike rental options.
Questions: Jake@localfirstaz.com
NOTE: This event has limited space and is expected to fill up so RSVP is required!

Well, we are planning the 2018 Phoestivus. Can you believe its been nine years already?

We plan to have more vendors, more food, another batch of Phoestivus Ale from Phoenix Ale Brewery and an expanded event footprint.

If you are a local vendor and want to share your creative work with the world, please visit the website to apply. Look under “Vendors” on the main menu to find the link to the application.

The booths go quickly, since there are no over-head rent fees. Specifically, we take a cut of vendor sales, which goes toward the fundraiser for Community Food Connections. In that way, there is less of a risk for people who are trying to start a new business. Our goal is to support those start-ups. See what we did there?

So, you need to apply right away. Don’t miss out!

Plus, if you are interested in being a sponsor of the event, please call Ken at 602-456-9388. Sponsorships start at $500 and include all kinds of goodies, such as social media presence, visibility and access to the sponsor’s booth.

Our goal is to raise money for our premier open-air market while we continue to build our community around our own Phoenix traditions.

If you know us, you know that we support Local First Arizona. And, we support Independence Week.

You can save 20% at your favorite local businesses during Independents Week, June 30 – July 8!

Independents Week is Arizona’s only week-long celebration of local businesses that lets you save money while shopping local.

Here’s how it works:

As members of Local First Arizona, we are big fans of supporting locally-owned banks and credit unions.

Not only are the big national banks bureaucratic, slow and detached from our community, we also have a hard time forgiving them for their role in the Great Recession (as well as how they often mis-handled short sales and foreclosures).

Yep. So, many reasons…

Anyway, there is a great way that you can support your community, local businesses and local banks –switch over!

Local first is hosting a Community Banking Month Celebration this month and we encourage you to check it out.

“Local First Arizona invites you to join local banks, credit unions, and local businesses for our spring gathering at The Newton. Financed locally, this adaptive reuse is the perfect spot to meet local businesses, and local banking options! Enjoy drinks from First Draft Book Bar and complimentary bites from Southern Rail.

RSVP at this link.

ABOUT THE NEWTON
An adaptive reuse project by Venue Projects and John Douglas Architects, The Newton is a mixed-use concept housed inside Phoenix’s former (but iconic) Beef Eaters building. Named after Beef Eaters’ Founder Jay Newton, today The Newton is a place where people can read, dine, gather, and shop. The Newton is home to the Phoenix location of Changing Hands Bookstore,Southern Rail, Southwest Gardener, and Christofolo Schermer Consulting. The Newton is also an event venue, with three private event spaces available for private events and parties.

WHAT TO EXPECT:
The Local First Arizona networking mixers are an excellent way to meet local business community and connect with LFA staff. Meetings are typically held on the third Wednesday of the month from 6:00 PM- 7:30 PM at different local business throughout the Metro Phoenix. We dedicate the first hour to networking, and from time to time include special networking activities, to keep things fresh.

At 7:00 PM we begin announcements, this is when we share upcoming events, organization updates and share news about the local movement. At the end of announcements, we hold a prize drawing, donated by members to showcase their business (local items only and minimum value of $25, please)

Are you new? Need a member benefits refresher? Join us from 5:30PM – 6:00PM for a quick overview of your Local First Arizona membership. Open to new and potential members.

Mixers are open to local business owners, local nonprofits, local charities, other local institutions and their employees. As a courtesy to our host, you must RSVP. For more information email Community Outreach Manager, Kendall Jones at: Kendall@localfirstaz.com

We were pretty excited to learn about the new working urban gardens and restaurant concept for Los Olivos Park at 28th and Indian School: The Farm at Los Olivos.

This is a public-private partnership with Greenbelt Hospitality, who’s owners are well known for their work in the community. Matthew Moore’s family has farmed in the valley since the 1920s and he currently lectures on art and agriculture across the country. Aric Mei is most known for The Parlor Pizzeria, proclaimed by The Food Network as the best pizza in Arizona.

Have a listen to this KJZZ news story on the possible development.

The project will take the western 30% of Los Olivos park to create working urban gardens and community space, along with dining. It will consist of beautifully designed organic produce gardens, an art and education center, and healthy concessions that will provide a unique and delicious food and recreation experience for its visitors.

The ultimate goal is to build a stronger and more resilient food culture in our community while providing an educational experience for visitors.

The City of Phoenix issued an Request for Proposal (solicitation) for the creation of a new Park amenity with agriculture, education, and concessions as the core requirements. The Greenbelt team responded along with other proposers.

After a independent review process, Greenbelt was selected as the highest scoring applicant. Through this new public/private partnership, the new amenity will be financed and operated by the Greenbelt team and will require no taxpayer dollars.

Additionally, the land itself will continue to be owned by the City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department, and most importantly, no park land will be sold.

Now, here’s the most important thing to know. There will be a city council meeting for final approval on March 22nd. Be sure to attend if this issue is important to you!

Learn more at their Facebook Page.

There will be a public charrette on March 10th to consider ideas of what could be done with the State Fairgounds.

What is a charrette? Well, first, a little background.

About every ten years, we begin to hear rumors that the State of Arizona wants to relocate the State Fairgrounds from its current location at 19th Ave and McDowell to some unknown location.

Thus far, the move has never come to pass.

This time, there seems to be a stronger push for a relocation. The Governor’s office issued a request for information (RFI) last March to get ideas of what the public would like to see happen. Some folks wanted to keep the fair where it is. Some wanted to move it and build homes. Some wanted a public park. One of the tribes even offered to take the fair to their land.

There are many ideas, plus most of us want to be 100% certain to preserve the historic buildings on the fairgrounds.

So, what can you do when there are so many competing interests? Well, you get them all in to a room with some smarty-pants architects and city planners for a day and share as many ideas as you can come up with. At the end, the architects and planners lock themselves in a room and come up with some ideas, which the present to the public.

That’s basically what a charrette is.

I have my idea of what should happen, but your ideas are just as important.

So, you can learn more on the State Historic Preservation Office’s Facebook page. Better yet, you can join us on March 10th.