Chapel Hill hosts Tracks Local Music Fest featuring five local artists of varying genres

Tracks Local Music Fest, a free outdoor concert in downtown Chapel Hill, was held for the first time at CURRENT ArtSpace + Studio at 123 West Franklin St. this weekend.

Chapel Hill Community Arts & Culture and Carolina Performing Arts collaborated to host the concert. 

This year's Tracks Local Music Fest featured five artists: Anne-Claire, Dissimilar South, Treee City, Austin Royale and BANGZZ. Each artist performed a 30-minute set with a short break in between each set. 

Marketing and Communications Coordinator Melissa Bartoletta said Chapel Hill Community Arts & Culture has a mission to inspire creativity and celebrate community for a better Chapel Hill.

“We curated the lineup to feature a diverse selection of artists from the collection, a diverse selection of sounds," Bartoletta said. "So we have pop, electronic, Americana, hip-hop and punk showing up on the lineup.”  

Dissimilar South, an Americana music duo who performed at the concert, is composed of Carter Hodge and Maddie Fisher, who met when they were attending school at UNC.

Hodge said the two of them have been making music together for the last six years and putting out music for the last three. 

“Since graduating, we sort of reoriented," Fisher said. "Our original other two members left and so that’s sort of when we kind of started on this trajectory of prioritizing music and trying to incorporate that into a part of our daily work.”

Hodge said Dissimilar South has two records out. Their EP Treehouse was released in 2019 and is available to listen to on the Tracks Music Library. The duo recorded their most recent album, Tricky Things, with Grammy-nominated producer Jason Richmond.

Now, Dissimilar South is focused on touring their new album regionally with a full band.

“I think it's kind of envelope-pushing for a public library to venture into the world of digital music, and so when they decided to do a live event, we were super enthused to participate in that because we like the setup and the organization," Hodge said.

Anne-Claire Cleaver, who goes by the stage name Anne-Claire, is a singer-songwriter raised in the Triangle and currently living in Durham. She said she has been writing and performing since 2014 and got started in music during middle and high school, where she was involved with choir and musicals. 

Cleaver attended UNC Greensboro to study music and began writing her own material upon graduating. She also owns her own voice studio called Anne-Claire Voice, where she gives virtual voice lessons to clients around the world.

Cleaver said she was glad that Chapel Hill Community Arts & Culture and Carolina Performing Arts organized the music festival.

“They're taking it one step further," she said. "They're taking it outside of the library, and that's great. I just think that's such a novel idea, and they're clearly investing in something that they really believe in.”

All of this weekend's performing artists are featured in Tracks Music Library, a free local music streaming platform provided by Chapel Hill Community Arts & Culture and Chapel Hill Public Library. The aim of Tracks is to support local artists and bands and introduce listeners to new local music, and new music is added every year.

The library gives listeners the ability to stream commercial-free, curated music from over 100 Triangle-based artists free of charge. Additionally, Chapel Hill Public Libary cardholders are able to download music or save their favorite tracks.

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