Music Fest to Rock the Campus
of Mount Holyoke College

South Hadley, Mass -- Music Fest, a music festival showcasing both national and local contemporary Christian artists, will be held for the third consecutive year on the campus of Mount Holyoke College. It will be held on April 30, 2005 in the Gettell Amphitheater starting at 2 p.m. Music Fest is free to five college students and faculty with proper I.D., and for the general public the promoters are asking for a small donation in lieu of a set ticket price. Reservations are not necessary, and tickets will be sold at the door.

This year the headliner will be Derek Webb, formerly of Cademon’s Call. Also performing will be Seda, a Christian rap artist from New York City, The MercyHouse band, Michelle Brooks, a Mount Holyoke junior and renowned gospel singer, Terras Irradient, an Amherst College acappella group and Vanguard, a ska band from New York.

Music Fest is in its third consecutive year, and its second year with a national headliner. What makes Music Fest unique, in the words of co-founder Kristel Thompson, is “In other music genres, it’s more or less the same style of music. Christian music is unique because it’s the subject matter, not the music style that defines the genre.”

The idea of Music Fest was first conceived two years ago. The first year co-founders Kristel Thompson and Stacie Davis put Music Fest together, the festival was small and featured only a few local and regional bands. In its second year Thompson, along with this year’s manger of Music Fest, Meredith Crawford, worked hard to increase the budget and promotion in order to succeed in their goal of bringing in a national Christian recording artist. They met and surpassed their goal when Bebo Norman played Music Fest along with several local bands.

Music Fest has grown from a small local music festival with a budget of three hundred dollars to a large musical blowout with a budget in the thousands. Crawford said, “My vision for Music Fest in the future is that it will continue to grow. I hope to some day come back to Mount Holyoke College to find the amphitheater packed full of people coming out to hear an artist like Switchfoot."