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GFA supports performing artists, too! Two festival stages host music and performances by nationally recognized artists and some of the Tampa Bay area’s most talented acts.
Denis Phillips’ desire to be a television meteorologist began by seeing Santa on radar when he was 6 years old. It’s true… although severe weather really hooked him. Denis graduated in 1985 and got his first on-air position in Salisbury, Maryland, shortly thereafter. After stops in Gainesville, Providence, and Los Angeles, Denis finally ended up in Tampa. He says the Bay area offers all the challenges weather-wise he could ever hope for.
When it comes to work, I think the thing that surprises people the most about me is that I’ve done weather for 33 years…and I wore a jacket the first 20 years! Since 2004, I’m pretty much known as “Suspender Guy”. It’s kind of funny how that came to pass. When Hurricane Charley was heading this way, I came to work wearing my ONLY pair of suspenders. Yup, only one pair to my name. We were on the air 36 straight hours. It was crazy. Don Germaise doing his “hunker down” reports. All our anchors and reporters covering the storm better than I’ve ever seen a storm covered. And me? I was on straight through, jacket off, suspenders on. So, after the storm passed (and luckily missed us) the station did a ton of research. Questions like “who did you watch”. “Who did you trust”? “Who was the most accurate”? The overwhelming response? “I have no idea what the guys name was, but he was wearing suspenders”! My boss told me that’s my new “look”. I guess it stuck!
Yoga with Yoga Loft Tampa, with music by Skyler Golden
Syd Live
School of Rock Tampa All Children Band @ South Stage
University of Tampa Dance
Deaf Company
Kristopher James
Shevonne and the Force
DURRY
Yoga with Yoga Loft Tampa, with music by Datagram
Mwiza
Sgammato Music School @ South Stage
Giorgi
Light the Wire
Ajeva
GrowHouse is owned and operated by 2 artists of color in Tampa, Florida. It all started when a seed was planted in 2017 by Spoken Word Poet / Visual Artist / Tampa Native, Curtis Davis – that grew into a monthly competitive event centered around the elements of Hip-Hop culture held at the Ybor City Barbering Company. He called it GrowHouse. Becoming more than just an artist but now an event curator, Curtis slowly shifted his mindset to that of an entrepreneurial one and decided to cultivate GrowHouse into a brick and mortar business for local poets and artists alike. In 2019 GH became an official L.L.C. after Curtis invited fellow Spoken Word Poet / Professional Graphic Designer / Best Friend, Dennis Amadeus to join his venture – merging with the successful ‘Ask Me To Do A Poem’ brand that Dennis had built over the years [www.askmetodoapoem.com]. Together the two have combined their knowledge and experience as traveling artists to put on some of the most creative and welcoming events for new artists, veterans, and art lovers.
THE PATH TO TAKE THE STAGE
Our music programs for kids in Tampa are designed to get students on stage performing, with the goal of building strong musical proficiency. Younger students at School of Rock Tampa who have participated in the Rookies program can move to our Rock 101 music program once they’re ready. Additionally, students (typically ages 8 to 13-years-old) can begin Rock 101 without any prior experience. The goal of this rock program is to quickly develop a basic competence on students’ chosen instruments before moving on to our famous Performance Program.
Our boutique New Tampa studio is the only music school in the greater Tampa area that is specifically geared toward bridging the gap between amateur education and professional musicianship. In addition to basic weekly instruction on high-end music equipment, we place a strong emphasis on big-production live performances, high quality studio recordings, digital worldwide music releases, and young artist booking and management – all included with tuition.
The Raymond James Gasparilla Festival of the Arts is one of the top outdoor, juried fine arts shows in the United States, showcasing a wide variety of art mediums and price points. We invite you to discover why this festival has been a must-see event for art lovers for more than 50 years.
Gasparilla Festival
of the Arts
PO Box 10591
Tampa, FL 33679
Website by Sky Lake Design, LLC.
Website photography by Marc Dahl of 5 Studios, Will Staples, Jimena Lopez & Tara Knauss-Wilga.
Ajeva is a funk/rock band from St. Petersburg, FL. The band started in 2013 and features Reed Skahill (vocals), Taylor Gilchrist (bass), Mike Nivens (guitar), and Lyndon Thacker (keys). They’ve carved out a sound of their own with epic melodies and distinctive vocals that pair perfectly with their deep grooves. Each Ajeva show is a one of a kind experience with the band taking their songs to different places and new heights every night.
Light the Wire makes heartfelt, indie-folk rock that with powerful vocal harmonies, thoughtful lyrics, and powered by driving bass and drums. The quintet is based out of Tampa, FL, and released its self-produced, debut EP – “Someday Is Coming” on all streaming platforms on November 1, 2023.
Biggest influences are church, his mother, Coheed & Cambria, Acceptance, James Morrison, Bombay Bicycle Club, Disturbed, Arctic Monkeys, Young The Giant, Chevelle, Rusko, Chief and Matt Corby. Most of the music he listens to has a darker sound to it so he in turn makes darker, melodic music.
A multi-hyphenate, genre-bending artist, Shevonne Philidor is a singer-songwriter, producer, and actress who epitomizes her dynamic background in music and performing arts. A military brat born in Philadelphia, PA, she experienced living in multiple cities – including a stint in Italy – before landing in Tampa, Fl, where she nurtured her musical ability throughout her childhood. She’s a scion of a musical family stemming from her half-Haitian descent and taught herself to play the guitar at an early age, inspired by the likes of Prince, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Lauryn Hill, Bob Marley, and M83. In 2003, she made her first TV debut on America’s Most Talented Kids, and in 2010, she made an appearance on America’s Got Talent Wild Card. A recipient of the prestigious NFAA scholarship, she also made American Idol’s top 40 twice in 2016 and 2019, the same year she performed at Austin City Limits with five-time Grammy award-winning artist Gary Clark jr. In 2021, she performed alongside CeeLo Green at a Superbowl party for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and was tapped to sing for ABC’s Juneteenth celebration with T.I. and Domani. Working with Grand Hustle Records, she’s a Luna Guitar-endorsed artist who was also selected to perform in Just Blaze’s SXSW showcase in 2022. A theatre kid at heart, she’s flexed her acting skills on a national tour for Todrick Hall’s musical, Oz The Musical, and she was also recently casted in Life’s Rewards, an upcoming Amazon Prime TV show.
Though he’s lived in the Sunshine State, for most of his life, Kristopher’s talent for melody and song (now) extend far past the state’s line. Like his influencers Otis Redding, Amos Lee, and Roberta Flack, Kristopher’s voice is clear, controlled, and full of all-the-feels. As with all artists, Kristopher’s sound has ebbed and flowed, evolving yet remaining instantly recognizable. With the growth he’s experienced as an artist, Kristopher felt it was time to capture his songs, in their fully-imagined sound!
With his debut album “Kindness Never Quits”, featuring members of Scary Pockets, Kristopher caught the attention of Relix & Glide Magazine, Spotify Playlist curators and continued praise, such as “vocals are so powerful and as the song progresses, he showcases why he is one of the best singers out there. All that soul in one artist is just unbelievable” from Reignland Magazine.
Continuing through the COVID years, Kristopher partnered with musicians to keep the music and community alive. Along with composer and keys player Mike Hicks of Rascal Flatts, The War & Treaty’s Max Brown on guitar, as well as talented artists Kyshona Armstrong, Jonathan Huber, DeMarco Johnson, Kristopher released 3 acclaimed singles: “Never Had to Find Our Way”, “Feelings” and “I Can Only Love You in a Song”
Three piece Rock n Roll band hailing from St. Petersburg, FL.
From Tampa Florida, SydLive was born to write and sing songs that touch the world. As her mother recalls, her climb to stardom began with getting on top of restaurant tables to sing at the age of two.
By the time she was eleven, she acquired her first guitar and began to teach herself to play by learning Beatles songs. Within four years she found her way to the stage singing in a Carpenters tribute band. Since this time, Syd has amassed over a decade of experience as a professional singer/songwriter and recording/performance artist. Within the industry, she names Aretha Franklin as her idol.
The first sound you hear on Durry’s rambunctious and poignant debut album, Suburban Legend, is an old-school Internet dial-up tone. To songwriter Austin Durry, the sound is instantly familiar but his bandmate and sister, Taryn, hadn’t heard it before. The Burnsville, Minnesota-based duo might identify with different age groups — with seven years between them, Austin is a millennial and Taryn is Gen Z — but by joining forces in Durry, they show just how much the neighboring generations have in common.
Between their serendipitous origin story and a crop of dynamic, hook-heavy alt-pop tracks, Durry are doing something few bands can achieve — and they’re doing it entirely on their own terms. As a band, Taryn and Austin’s journey happened both unexpectedly and fortuitously. At the start of the COVID pandemic, Austin and his wife moved back into his parents’ house, where Taryn was also living at the time. In addition to moving back in with his family, COVID forced Austin to cancel an extensive tour with his previous band, Coyote Kid. Faced with nothing but time, he got back to songwriting, regularly asking Taryn for input — or as the two playfully put it, “Gen Z quality control.”
“I’d say, here’s an early concept, what do you think? Then she’ll steer the ship, and then I’ll evolve it from there,” Austin explains. “Taryn is the sounding board and Gen Z vision of the band, where I’m kinda cranking stuff out.”
As they got going, forming what would turn into Durry, the siblings also outlined DIY ideas for branding and promotion, creating all of their own content and imbuing their visuals with nostalgic golden yellow, large fonts, and tactile images that would later make their way into eye-catching merch.
The immediate result of their musical partnership was the pop-punk/alternative anthem “Who’s Laughing Now,” which leads with wry, tongue-in-cheek lyrics about the futility of young adulthood in 2023: “My mama always said I would regret it if I ever got a tattoo,” Austin chants, adding: “She said I’d never get a job like I ever wanted one with that attitude/ My dad said I had to learn to drive a stick shift, but every van I ever had was an automatic/ My friends said that someday I would make it big, but I’m still living in the basement.”
After posting an unfinished version of “Who’s Laughing Now” on TikTok, it swiftly took off, galvanizing thousands of viewers who shared their coming-of-age frustrations. Clearly, the song’s sentiments — which land somewhere between a shrug and a clenched fist — resonated with millions of listeners, and today the song has garnered more than four million Spotify streams. Meanwhile, Durry have recorded a fully fleshed-out version of “Who’s Laughing Now,” which is set to appear on their riveting, perfectly sardonic debut LP, Suburban Legend.