Euphonious: A Love Letter To Birmingham, Alabama

Being born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, I grew up going to a music festival called City Stages.

The event started small, back in 1989, and grew rapidly to become a significant annual music event that was replicated and emulated across the country, before ending in 2010 due to financial issues.

Every Father's Day weekend, families would gather together to hear great live music.

I remember graduating from Vestavia Hills High School in 1999, heading to Nashville for college, and thinking I'd always return for City Stages.

You never know what you've got, til it's gone.

Fast-forward 20 years, and my wife and I and our young son decided to move from Nashville, which had been our home for the last two decades, and go to Birmingham.

It's an opportunity for our young son to be closer to my parents.

But it's also an opportunity, especially as we enter a new post-pandemic chapter, to think about how to create new institutions that can mean as much as old ones did.

We can never really bring City Stages back, but what we can do is provide something that is every bit as meaningful to the city.

And something that is every bit of a planted seed, that under the right conditions, can grow to where it begins to fill the City Stages-sized void.

There's no way for us to honor Birmingham more than to spotlight some of the city's finest institutions.

On Friday night (June 18), Euphonious will honor United Ability, our charity partner (a portion of Euphonious proceeds go to them) and an organization we now call friends. Leadership from United Ability will announce Friday night's headliner, Drew and Ellie Holcomb, from the Euphonious stage.

I had a chance recently to tour part of their 23-acre facility in Birmingham, where they work every day to make the world a little bit more accessible and enjoyable for those with disabilities, of any age and circumstance.

On Saturday night (June 19), Euphonious will honor Birmingham Mountain Radio, exclusive radio partner of Euphonious and an organization that has become woven into the fabric of the city.

The leadership team and some of the radio personalities from Birmingham Mountain Radio will announce Saturday night's headliner, Moon Taxi, from the Euphonious stage.

This is a bedrock organization that has seen music events come and go in Birmingham since City Stages left, and has a good sense of how Euphonious can become sustainable year in and year out.

On Sunday night (June 20), Euphonious will honor UAB and their UAB Voice Center, the only voice center in Alabama and one of the few interprofessional centers anywhere in the United States.

This is a fascinating group of folks that is internationally recognized for their work in providing solutions for those with problems with their voice, swallowing, or airway. Their work interestingly dovetails with the work my company, Project Voice, does in the voice technology / conversational AI space.

Their leadership team as well as perhaps some broader leadership team members from UAB itself will announce Sunday night's headliner, Tonic, from the Euphonious stage.

It wouldn't be a love letter to Birmingham without recognizing members of its artistic community as well. We'll have a number of hand-selected artists on hand that create inspiring or eye-opening work, either based right here in Birmingham or with some sort of tie back to the city.

One of these is Birmingham's Celeste Amparo Pfau, who creates tapestries and other art from leaves, trees, and other organic matter.

It's hard to even describe what she does without selling it short, but this video solves that problem:

Finally, the music itself has numerous ties back to Birmingham:

• LaBoix, the opening act on Friday June 18, is half VHHS alum Hugh Mitchell, now a well-known singer-songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee. (The other half of LaBoix is internationally-known DJ Jeremy Black, who is traveling from Berlin to Birmingham for the first time specifically to play Euphonious.)
• Soul Inscribed, a Brooklyn-based hip-hop/funk fusion act that opens Saturday June 19, is led by VHHS alum Sean Nowell.
• Moon Taxi, Saturday night's headliner, is 3/5 Vestavia Hills High School graduates.
• Hawthorn Street, the opening act on Sunday June 20, is comprised of recent Vestavia graduates and current seniors.

And finally, playing as Euphonious attendees enter the venue on Sunday will be UAB Voice Center speech pathologist and longtime Birmingham resident Will Boswell, who himself has played with both the Moon Taxi crew as well as members of up-and-coming The Brook and the Bluff, another band with Birmingham origins.

Both lawn squares (which accommodate up to 8) and individual standing-room-only tickets are available as of this writing. Those can be purchased here.

More information on Euphonious can be found on the festival's website, Euphonious.ai.

Bradley Metrock is CEO of Project Voice, which drives global business for voice technology and conversational AI companies.

The Project Voice Advisory Group, Project Voice Catalyst, and the Project Voice Media Group bring together buyers, sellers, partners, and investors through an integrated platform of content, community, and consulting.