Cape Girardeau's annual music festival gets new name, date

The organizing committee of the City of Roses Music Festival -- the City of Roses Music Heritage Association, or CORMHA -- has tossed around the idea of changing the festival's name for the past few years now.

This year they've taken action. No longer will the festival be known as the City of Roses, but the River City Music Festival instead. The change follows the move Cape Girardeau made a few years back to drop its "City of Roses" moniker in favor of tying its image to the Mississippi River, becoming the city "Where the River Turns a Thousand Tales."

"We wanted to complement that and work alongside them with their plan for promoting tourism," said CORMHA president Mary Ramsey. Ramsey said after Convention and Visitors Bureau director Chuck Martin explained why the city changed its identity, CORMHA board members were convinced they should do the same with their festival.

But a name change is only one of several changes in the works this year. The date of the festival has moved up a few weeks, as well. No longer a late September affair, this year's festival will take place Sept. 7 and 8, its beginning coinciding with September's First Friday art walk and the final Tunes at Twilight concert of the 2007 season.

Ramsey said the festival hopes to use cross-promotion with these other events to raise the festival's profile.

"Basically we'll all be able to feed off each other," Ramsey said.

CORMHA also got a head start on planning this year's event by requiring local musicians to submit their entries by today instead of in August. Some seem to have struggled with the change in the deadline -- a few band members have complained about the move on Cape Girardeau's online music forum, www.capescene.com.

But Ramsey said she thinks CORMHA effectively got the word out about the deadline change.

"I feel confident that the majority of musicians in town know what's going on and try to keep up to date, whether by going through the Web site or contacting one of us," Ramsey said.

The festival Web site, www.cityofrosesmusicfestival.com, will be updated as the festival approaches, Ramsey said.

Most of the bookings still aren't set, but the festival has confirmed Tunes at Twilight veterans Kimberley Dahme and Peter Karp will be featured players. Local hard rock band Drivin' Rain has said it will play the festival with its new lineup -- two guitarists are being added to the band to replace Tommy DeWolf, who died in April.

msanders@semissourian.com

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