LIVERMORE FALLS – Fran Szostek’s passion is music. Not your ordinary music. Something that is different and challenges musicians to step outside their traditional musical zones.
That’s why he is organizing “Frantasia – Festival of Out Music and Arts,” which is being billed as explorations in sound, music, movement and visual arts. It begins at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 25, and continues through Saturday, Aug. 27, at the Treat Memorial Library Auditorium in Livermore Falls.
The 63-year-old Livermore Falls man’s love of music goes beyond traditional tunes to what he refers to as “out” music, in which musicians challenge themselves with what they really want to play rather than trying to fit into a niche to sell their music, Szostek said Wednesday.
“This is my passion. Something that is challenging. Something I have to listen to a few times to figure out what it means,” he said.
He started organizing small concerts years ago at his camp in Oxford County, where musicians would come and play whatever they wanted to.
At the first concert he had, he said, there were about a dozen people in the audience and no lights.
“It was pitch black,” he said. “The audience couldn’t see the band and the band couldn’t see the audience. It was out. Outside. Out in every way.”
Szostek, a real estate agent and former credit union manager, hasn’t played an instrument in years, but when he did it was the piano or violin.
Lately he has been devoting his time to organizing the music festival. He’s traveled to New York a couple of times seeking musicians and calling on others from around the country to come play.
“It’s basically out of my compassion of the music, and these people are so good, I want other people to know about them,” Szostek said.
Organizing the music festival is one way to introduce young people to different music, he said. Besides music, there will be improvised dance, puppets, poetry and other performances.
This is like a musicians’ dream of going to work camp where they can listen to others and get ideas about different styles of music, he added.
The music at the festival will range from rock to classical, he said, but that doesn’t mean it will sound like that. Someone may play a traditional song but skip every other note, he said.
“I would still welcome people that play what you consider regular traditional music to come and stretch themselves to play something different,” he said.
Szostek’s wife, Kathleen, said that before she was married she wanted someone who would bring music into her life. She hadn’t anticipated some of the music her husband introduced, she said, but it has broadened her musical awareness.
“I’m always really inspired after a concert,” she said. “People are following their passions and taking risks and exploring right in the moment.”
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