The Corpus Christi Songwriters Association turns ten this year and there is no better way to celebrate a decade of local music celebrations than with the 2024 Corpus Christi Songwriters Festival. The festival will take place all over downtown Corpus Christi from Feb. 16-18.
Local musicians Garrett Wieland and Jimmy Wilden founded CC Songwriters in 2014 to foster and develop captivating, original music in the Coastal Bend area. It all started with a simple Facebook post made by Wilden when he announced an event called The Rounds. The event series was created to showcase original music, allowing artists to perform two songs in a relaxed environment on an open stage. The first set was held at House of Rock and has since moved to the Executive Surf Club and happens every month on the second Sunday.
CC Songwriters then introduced its own festival with a similar mission to The Rounds. Each February, they host the annual Songwriters Festival, where musicians perform original pieces and are nominated to compete by the community and the CC Songwriters Board, except Vice President Jimmy Wilden who will be performing this year, and then judged by an outside jury. This year marks its fifth rendition and will feature over 40 national, regional and local songwriters.
For this year’s festival, CC Songwriters President Garrett Wieland and Vice President/Founder Jimmy Wilden started a podcast with Jules Taylor, a local musician and broadcaster. The podcast features in-depth conversations about guest musicians’ songwriting process and past works. The episodes will be uploaded before the festival to get audiences eager about the future headliners attending the festival.
The festival will include plenty of live music, VIP award ceremonies and workshops. The four past winners, including most recently Hope Cassity (2023), will be headlining the festival, along with fresh faces like Brian Wolff, Louie Mandel, Daniel Navarro and Bonnie Whitmore.
As for the types of music festival goers can expect, Wieland said, “Mostly acoustic singer-songwriter style music will be presented at the fest, with a few piano-driven artists as well.” Though the single acoustic/singer genre has historically been the easiest for the festival to facilitate, Wieland and Wilden hope to start branding out to different genres in the future. “There are great songwriters in every genre,” he continued.
The festival kicks off on Friday, Feb. 16 at Frida’s with an opening night VIP dinner and mixer and an evening showcase for ticket holders only. Then, there will be a session of The Rounds at BUS from 10:30 p.m.-1 a.m., which is free and open to the public.
“The Friday night listening room experience [is] my favorite way to listen to music,” Wieland said. “It’s [a] totally attentive audience, conversations are at a minimum and [everyone is] present, actively listening to these songs.”
The festival’s second day begins with a workshop at 10 a.m. in the CC International Seamen’s Center. From there, the festival moves to the Executive Surf Club at 2 p.m. for a free, public event where artists perform song swaps with other songwriters. From 6:30-10:30 p.m., ticket holders can enjoy the official showcase before heading over to The Exchange for an open mic night starting at 11 p.m.
Sunday’s programming includes a VIP brunch at the House of Rock and an award ceremony where five finalists are awarded into one of five categories: Songwriter of the Year, Lyricist of the Year, Melody of the Year, Hall of Fame Honoree and Best of Fest Award. Following the ceremony, a morning workshop will be hosted at the Art Center of Corpus Christi at noon. In the afternoon, House of Rock will switch to song swaps at 3 p.m. and end with a Sunday night showcase for ticket holders. Tickets for the festival are available for purchase online and range from $20-$120 for select events.
Coastal Bend residents looking to support the local music community should make plans to attend the Corpus Christi Songwriters Festival for a weekend of genuine music from the songwriters themselves, bestowing a feeling of inspired creativity and community.
