Yes, folks, we are once more holding NEFilk as an online event in June 2022.
Please join us for NEWh3re (pronounced “Anywhere Three!”), June 10-12, 2022, with Guests of Honor Astrisoni. Check out their bandcamp, and stay tuned for more announcements!
Save the date: July 3-5, 2020!
Join us at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Danbury, CT, for a filk relaxacon!
(relaxafilk? filaxacon? eh, we’ll figure it out)
This year, Contata continues its proud tradition (on the principle that anything you do three times in a row is a tradition) of non-vocal guests! 2005: Guest of Honor Carla Ulbrich came down with laryngitis, so the GoH concert featured “Carla-oke” – audience members requested songs for Carla to play on her guitar while they sang. 2008: Toastmaster Tom Smith injured his leg only weeks before the convention, so the Toastmaster concert became a “sing Tom Smith covers” benefit concert to raise money for his medical bills and recovery. 2011: Guest of Honor Judi Miller, sign interpreter extraordinaire, performed with all her usual non-vocal brilliance during everybody else’s concerts – and also sang during her own show. (No accidents or illness interfered. We thought we might be onto something.) 2014: Guest of Honor Amy McNally, phenomenal fiddler, also sang some during her concert – but mostly played to beat the devil. (We made notes. Definitely a trend worth pursuing.)
Which brings us to … 2017: Guest of Honor Bob Kanefsky, filk’s premiere parodist! … who very seldom sings in public. So our GoH concert this year will be a Kanefsky Cabaret, or Kabarefsky, in which other filkers will sing Bob’s parodies on stage.
Interested in being a Kabarefsky performer? Contact merav.hoffman(at)gmail(dot)com, or drop a note in our ask box!
Submissions for the Contata 8 songbook are officially open! Got a song you want to contribute? Click here to find out where/how to submit it.
Also: this year at Contata we plan to have at least one jam session. Want to suggest a song to play? Watch this space for updates.
Please signal-boost this in your other fannish communities, or wherever else you think appropriate.
The deadline for submitting to the Contata 8 songbook is April 30! Want to have one of your songs appear in our songbook? Now’s your chance. “Um … what kind of song could I submit, if I wanted to do that?”
I’m glad you asked me that, random citizen! It’s pretty simple really: the only major requirement is that it needs to be a song you wrote. (Yes, you can submit on behalf of another songwriter, but only with their explicit permission and ideally only by their request.) “What if it isn’t a new song?”
That’s totally fine; old songs are welcome. “What if I only wrote the lyrics?”
That’s not only fine, that’s a fundamental filk subtype! Just put somewhere in your submission the name of the original tune that your lyrics are meant to be sung to, and credit the original writer. (If you mean that your song is a collaboration with somebody else, then you should submit it jointly with credit to both of you.) “What if I wrote original music for it?”
If you want to include sheet music or chord notation of any kind, and/or a link to a sound file online, that’d be great! “Does it have to be about something nerdy?”
For broad values of ‘nerdy’ and even broader values of ‘have to’, you could say that. If you’ve got any experience with filk, you may already know just how varied song topics get. (If you don’t, you may want to check out a link roundup and sampler here.) “Do I get a copy of the songbook if my song is in it?”
Why yes, you do! All Contata attendees and all songbook contributors will get a digital copy of the songbook. (Contata attendees will also have the option to buy a printed copy for $5.)
Any questions? Our inbox is always open.
