Highlighting Fort Worth’s Musical Culture

ArtandSeek.net August 4, 2020 17

Every day on Art&Seek, we’re talking to people who have tips on art in the time of social distancing. Share yours with us on Facebook, Instagram or @artandseek on Twitter. Click above to hear Rita Alfaro, music librarian with the Fort Worth Public Library share her tip with KERA’s Nilufer Arsala.

Earlier this year, the Fort Worth Public Library launched a free music streaming service called Amplify 817. The curated music service lives on the Fort Worth Public Library’s website. The project is in partnership with Hear Fort Worth and is supported by the Fort Worth Public Library Foundation.

Discover Fort Worth musicians on Amplify 817

Rita Alfaro, music librarian with the Fort Worth Public Library said: “The project is designed to showcase and promote the Fort Worth artists who are building the sounds of the city by creating a single place to discover and experience a variety of Fort Worth musicians.”

Right now you can hear eight artists from various genres on the service. The mix of music ranges from rap, hip hop, country music, Americana folk, as well as some kind of electronic dance and pop music. You can learn more about the artists on the library’s Youtube Amplify 817 channel where they host interviews with the musicians.

Artists include Jack Barksdale; Lou Charles; Summer Dean; Rachel Gollay; Ronnie Heart; Nice Major; Taylor Payson; and Jacob Robertson.

Local musicians are paid upfront to license their music. Then anyone from anywhere can stream the music for free and Fort Worth residents with library cards can download music for free. It’s one of those win-win-win deals.

Alfaro said they put out a call for the second round of artist submissions. She and a panel of curators are reviewing the almost 90 submissions. This month they will be adding an additional 25 new artists to the roster. Tune in.

Got a tip? Email Gila Espinoza at gespinoza@kera.org. You can follow her on Twitter @espinoza_kera.

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