One night, Dave Bermingham, a founding member of Medford’s M-Town Jazz Band, had a dream.
He dreamt about how he started a jazz festival and how it became one of the biggest music events in Medford.
On Sept. 13, Bermingham’s dream will become a reality.
Bermingham is helping to organize the first-ever Pinelands Jazz Festival, to be held at the Dr. James Still Historic Site and Education Center.
Bermingham is organizing the event with Janet Carlson Giardina from the Medford Historical Society. Earlier this summer, Bermingham approached Giardina with the event.
“She immediately loved the idea,” Bermingham said. “She had been planning an event in September, so she already had the date.”
Originally, Giardina wanted to have a band perform at the house in a much smaller-scale event. After Bermingham got involved, the event evolved into a daylong celebration of music, complete with two stages, vendors, food and more.
Bermingham said the Pinelands Jazz Festival will be one of the few in the surrounding area.
“There’s a Willingboro jazz festival for quite some time, but this seems like a nice hole for something like this that I’ve been working,” he said.
The purpose of the festival is to raise money for both the South Jersey Music Education Partnership, a nonprofit organization awarding scholarships to musically inclined students, and for the Dr. Still House.
The biggest hurdle in planning the festival has been money. So far, the festival has sponsors commit about $1,000. However, with expenses totaling approximately $3,000, Bermingham and Giardina needed another way to raise money.
They began a fundraising campaign on the website IndieGoGo. The hope is to cover the remaining expenses with fundraising so the event can send proceeds to the respective nonprofits.
Bermingham originally used IndieGoGo to do some fundraising for his band.
“I had success a few years ago with M-Town Jazz Band,” he said. “We financed an album through that site.”
He said the festival fundraising has gone well so far. The festival hopes to raise $2,000 on IndieGoGo before Sept. 13.
“We’re almost there, last count we’re at $1,340,” Bermingham said. “But I’m pretty confident we’ll get to our goal.”
The festival will feature a mix of professional and student musicians. There will be a main stage where the main acts will perform at the top of every hour.
The event will also feature student performances in between the professional bands.
Bermingham hopes the festival will connect some of the students with the bands and musicians.
“We have this side stage called the woodshed that will feature young musicians in the area,” he said. “They’re going to play during the intermission, so there will be non-stop music playing from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. We’re hoping that maybe even some of the professional musicians will come and play with the students.”
Outside of the music and vendors, the festival will also feature arts and crafts as well as a dog run. Members of the historical society will be giving tours of the education center and historic site.
Tickets to the festival are $5 and include access to all of the music, tours, vendors and crafts. To donate to the festival’s fundraising project, visit www.indiegogo.com/projects/first-annual-pinelands-jazz-festival.
