Q&A With Eli Hoehn of the Minnesota Original Music Festival
The nonprofit’s director talks about how the Southern Minnesota music project came to be and what attendees can expect at its 2025 events.
Minnesota Original Music Festival 2024. Photo credit: Emily Stark.
In 2022, a new project was launched to celebrate local music, particularly in the Saint Peter/Mankato area of Minnesota. The nonprofit Minnesota Original Music Festival (MOMF) creates events, workshops, and performance opportunities—all free and open to the public—for Minnesota musicians who perform original music (or want to).
In this, its fourth year, more than 200 Minnesota artists applied to perform at their main festival event, which takes place July 19–20. We sat down with MOMF director Eli Hoehn to learn more about this Southern Minnesota gift to local artists and music lovers.
Carol Roth: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. What inspired you to create the Minnesota Original Music Festival?
Eli Hoehn: Our local music scene has an incredible number of performing songwriters and composers, and there’s a lot of resources available to help them grow, but at the same time the music industry is going through profound changes that make success complicated.
As an artist myself, I mostly want to write songs and play them with my bandmates. But someone has to book shows, make sure people show up to watch, run sound equipment … and if you want people to have access to your work you need to record it. Artists also generally need a web and social media presence, pictures, posters, art work and branding, and if you have merch you can add an extra revenue stream to the mix. Combine this with the fact that venues tend to run on thin margins and are often unable to pay well for live music. To find success, you have to know people in your field, have good social connections, and be able to create relationships.
I think songwriters and composers need more help navigating all of this, which is why people like Ben Scruggs and Chris Bertrand started a KMSU radio show called Keepin’ It Local, and why Shelley Pierce curates the Minnesota Music Channel, and why organizations like DEMO start projects like the Minnesota Music Archive. We need more ways to connect with one another, to take advantage of the opportunities that already exist, to learn how to navigate a changing industry, and get help finding audiences interested in new music.
The idea of MOMF had considerable support. We were able to get some grant funding, put some programs together and had some immediate successes. Fundamentally the mission of MOMF includes facilitating the creation and performance of original music by Minnesota artists, to create opportunities for artists to network, share, and access available resources, to help artists learn more about the business of music, to provide paid performance opportunities, and connect audiences to great music.
CR: That’s amazing and encouraging! How has it evolved over the past couple years?
EH: The Minnesota Original Music Festival began in 2022 as a community organization with a handful of music artists with education experience, putting on a series of events, workshops and performances over a week in July. It’s evolved into a Minnesota nonprofit with a board of directors, 501(c)(3) status, and year-around programming. Our board is an incredible group of musicians, artists, and professionals with decades of experience.
CR: With more than 200 artists applying for the 2025 festival, how do you approach selecting performers and curating the lineup?
EH: It’s a difficult and time-consuming task that we take very seriously. We try to curate a diverse lineup that includes music from multiple genres and represents the Minnesota music community from across the state. We select some artists we think will draw people to the event, but we also look for artistic gems that for whatever reason fall under the radar. We pay attention to performance skills but also to the quality and creative nature of an artist’s original work.
Our selection team generally includes radio hosts from KMSU, a public radio station from Minnesota State University Mankato, as well as musicians and music professionals from the Mankato area. They have diverse musical tastes and interests and are well-connected to different parts of the Minnesota music scene. They compile a list of 20 artists from the applications, and from there we offer about 10 contracts to perform per year.
CR: I’m not familiar with the Mankato/St. Peter area music scene. What’s it like?
EH: It’s very community-driven. Musicians often perform in multiple area bands, know each other’s music and support each other when they can. Incredible asset to the scene include KMSU public radio, which supports artistic projects and plays local original music, and our regional arts council, Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, which provides grant opportunities to musicians and artists.
CR: What’s new and different this year, and what staples of the festival are you bringing back?
EH: We’re excited about our new Music Exchange Series, which is meant to provide opportunities for artists of different genres: peer learning, networking, performing and sharing the genre with listeners. This year it’ll have four events: the Hip Hop Music Exchange on June 28; the Jazz Music Exchange on our festival weekend, July 19-20; the Indigenous Music Exchange on September 27; and the Roots Music Exchange slated for October (check our website for dates, times and venues).
Another new program is the Songwriters Stage. MOMF is providing stipends to four artists to create and perform music for the event. The artists will perform with a band put together exclusively for the program that includes award-winning composer Larry McDonough on keys, Galactic Cowboy Orchestra’s Dan Neale on guitar, philosopher/composer Craig Matarrese on bass, and mastermind of the NintenTones Video Game Jazz Orchestra Ryan Rader on drums. The performance is scheduled for Thursday, July 17.
A staple we’re bringing back is our 48 Hour Band Challenge, where we randomly form bands from a pool of signups and task them to perform a short set of music 48 hours later; typically an original piece, a cover song from a list of pre-selected covers, and another cover that must be modified in some way. Last year, groups were asked to perform a cover song from a band like the Kinks, but perform it in the style of another act, such as Dolly Parton. The incredible event is managed by one of our board members, “Punk Rock” Tom Heffernan. It enables musicians to meet and work with artists they may not know, provides peer learning opportunities, and is amazingly fun and creative. Numerous bands have emerged from it, so if you’re looking for bandmates, this is the place to be.
CR: Your recurring Songwriters in the Round event features bass players as hosts and guests this time around. What inspired that theme?
EH: This year we gave the host job over to Shelley Pierce of KMSU radio, who happens to be an accomplished bass player. It turns out that people that play bass also write songs! So she invited some of Minnesota’s finest bass-playing songwriters—Liz Draper, Craig Matarrese, Eric Zimmerman, and Mark Krogmann (from my band The Quantum Mechanics)—for a conversation about songwriting and bass playing. Whether you’re a bass player, songwriter or music lover, you don’t want to miss this! It takes place Thursday, May 8, at the Arts Center of Saint Peter. Admission is free but space is limited.
CR: What experiences do you hope people have at this year’s events and performances?
EH: We want attendees to discover new artists, connect with new music, maybe share something with the rest of us, maybe learn a thing or two, but mostly have a fun musical experience. We also hope to provide resources and opportunities to songwriters and composers that help support and grow Minnesota’s incredible original music community. All of our events are free and open to the general public, so it’s worth a little road trip to Saint Peter!
CR: Can you share a particularly memorable moment or performance from past festivals that encapsulates the spirit of MOMF?
EH: In our first 48 Hour Band Challenge event in 2022, there was an artist who hadn’t played out much for years and had kind of lost his connection to the music community. He was encouraged to participate in the challenge and turned a few heads, as well as winning the award for best instrumentalist (and he’s a bass player!!). As a result he was invited to join two great bands, a heavy metal band called Loadie and punk rock band called The Burn Vault. Later he also joined my group, The Quantum Mechanics. Now, as I mentioned earlier, he’ll be part of this year’s Songwriters in the Round! Mark’s participation in the 2022 event made us aware of his talent, and I think that really changed his trajectory as a musician and songwriter.
CR: Is there anything else you’d like to share?
EH: I’ll take the opportunity for shameless self-promotion and share that my band, The Quantum Mechanics, is releasing our first album, Quantum Mechanics 101, at the Zen Arcade in the Hook and Ladder Theater in Minneapolis on Thursday, May 1. We’re an uplifting funk/jamband/fusion made up of Cara Lucille, Larry McDonough, myself, Zach Sproles and Mark Krogmann. We’ll be joined by Twin Cities act JoJo Green and Mankato area band Poor Lemuel, both of which have played MOMF!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Adventures in Americana co-founder Carol Roth is a novelist who publishes both under her name and the pseudonym T.A. Berkeley in a range of genres, from horror to thriller to YA. She loves to play guitar and sing and occasionally write songs. Her wide-ranging passions also include vegan cooking, personal finance, watching queer romance TV/movies and learning to speak Thai. By day she’s a marketing writer/brand strategist.
