Steel Bridge Creative Foundation

Love On Holiday - 'Songs of Love and Love Gone Away'

Next 'Love On Holiday'  Feb 7 & 8, 2020 at Third Avenue playhouse

30+ songwriters take inspiration from local artists in a one-of-a-kind pairing of image and song as The Holiday Music Motel hosts its annual celebration of the togetherness that only weather-bound isolation can bring... " 

Examining the language used in other art forms helps us to expand the language which we use within our own. The Love On Holiday collaboration between musicians and visual artists reaches to do just that. 

While many parallels can be drawn between the two art forms, there are obvious undeniable differences. Music has a broad palette to work from through words and sounds and even through medium and distribution; there is more of an immediacy to its access, translation and understanding, while visual art--outside from the obvious--sits still and quiet, telepathically transmitting purpose, history, emotion, intentions. The visual artist is speaking to us through what we are viewing but all too often we cannot understand. It is that quiet, nagging, often unsettling wonderment that changes our own thinking and perception, that alters our synapses and thought processes and remains with us long after we leave the space of a work that moved us. 

It is emotion manifested in the visual. 

Perhaps this is how the visual artists “sing.” 

The artists generously loaning their work for this year’s songwriting collaborative are bravely allowing their works to be mined and explored for inspiration, story and meaning; to have it interpreted and translated through the immediacy of the art of songcraft performed before the public within days, if not hours, of being written. 

Unavoidably influenced by the songwriters’ own history and experiences, the collaboration between these two worlds will, as in years past, yield music of a depth and power that only this unique cross-collaboration can inspire.

Steel Bridge Songfest
"Music so fresh, it hasn't even been written yet."

Next event: June 12 & 13, 2020

What began as a community effort to save the historic Michigan Street steel bridge has grown into a city-wide annual celebration of preservation, collaboration and discovery of live original music and the artists that create it. Now in its 16th year, Steel Bridge Songfest returns to downtown Sturgeon Bay June 12 & 13, 2020 bringing a slew of original artists from across the country (and the globe) to perform  the freshly penned songs collaboratively created at The Holiday Music Motel. The week’s new creations are debuted at Third Avenue Playhouse on Friday and Saturday of the fest. “Music so fresh, it hasn’t been written yet.” 

Dark Songs

Next Dark Songs: October 25 & 26, 2019
Looking ahead: October 23 & 24, 2020

An all-star cast of 30+ songwriters present freshly written originals in the theme of Halloween, Day of The Dead and the darker sides of life. 
The Holiday Music Motel's notorious week-long collaborative songwriting marathons start with a bottle spin, 
and culminate in visually and sonically stunning, darkly humorous weekend showcases. 

"Music so fresh, it's frightening!"