After an 11th hour cancellation in 2021 and a devastating couple of years for local live music, a bumper Yarra City Leaps and Bounds Festival returns to celebrate and support the sector this week, and with an injection of state government funding, will run as a month-long event.
Taking place at 35 venues across Richmond, Abbotsford, Collingwood and Fitzroy, the festival incorporates gigs of house, techno, country, funk, punk, Afrojazz and bebop, gospel, R'n'B, Latin, metal, pop, and piano music and includes many free events.
Also on the program are a live RocKwiz show, a storytelling 'Night with Uncle Jack Charles', the 'Convolution' mini-festival celebrating The Tote's 40th anniversary, a record fair, music careers expo, industry day for people in the business, No Lights No Lycra dance session and a daytime Rock A Bye Baby concert.
Early this month the Victorian government announced $4 million in extra funding to extend its On the Road Again regional and outer suburban live music initiative to inner-city areas.
Yarra City's share of the funding enabled a string of new shows to be added to the Leaps and Bounds lineup
The extended program, +BEYOND, will have as its centrepiece opera singer Deborah Cheetham's 'The Rivers Sing: Reprise to the banks of the Birrarung', "an immersive sonic experience in response to the river".
https://www.lbmf.com.au/
