Orion Independent Music Festival to coincide with Sundance

Steffon Olsen has been an independent local musician for years.

He started off in rock bands and then went down to singer/songwriter mode. In the past few years, he's been known as a jazz singer and music producer with his label Crooner Records.

Throughout his career, he has wanted to help independent musicians. So he decided to organize the Orion Independent Music Festival.

The festival debuts Jan. 14-20 in Park City and Salt Lake venues. Olsen, who lives in Park City, made sure his festival didn't conflict with the Sundance Film Festival, even though both events have similar goals.

"(The Orion Independent Music Festival) uses the exact same model that Robert Redford invented many years ago for the Sundance Film Festival," Olsen said during an interview with the Deseret News. "While he's helping filmmakers, we're helping independent artists.

"The number one purpose and the heart of our festival is to help these artists to make a bridge to their audience."

To accomplish this goal, Olsen and his staff invited an array of artists — from singer/songwriters to rock musicians to country and reggae artists to perform and mingle with representatives of record labels, Web sites, radio stations, Internet radio stations and movie producers.

"These insiders are not those guys with the big cigar, but people that can give hands-on help right now.

"We're not focusing on the major labels, because they are not viable right now," said Olsen, who studied the rise and fall of the major label structure in the music business.

"We're focusing on the market that exists at this time, which is the Internet and touring and music placement in movies.

"We're hoping to see at least one distribution deal come out of this year's festival," he said.

While locally based artists such as the Mana Poly All-Stars, Joshua James and the Band of Annuals, to name a few, will be performing during the festival, Olsen said they are also bringing in some international artists from Chile (Muza) and Sweden (Christine Owman).

One such international artist, Ali Milner, hails from Canada.

Milner has sung for more than 60,000 people in China during a cultural festival while accompanying Canadian Premier Gordon Campbell. She has also performed all over Canada and has sung at the Toronto Film Festival and many Olympic and Paralympic pre-game ceremonies.