Music Connects – Ventura Music Festival

Welcome to Music Connects: VMF’s Digital Music Festival!

Each week a performer shares in a personal video what they are experiencing and a personal piece of music that especially resonates for them today and tell us why. Some will be well-known artists; some, outstanding young performers from our Rising Stars and Student Jazz programs. Still others, we hope, will be talented local musicians who, until recently, have been playing in area clubs and elsewhere.

If you are a musician, we would love for you to participate in Music Connects. VMF is a world-class, mixed-genre festival so as to music: “the best of anything goes” – classical, pop, world, soul, roots, jazz, R&B, crossover. Submit your personal video message and music video per the guidelines. Chosen entries will be featured on our website, on Vimeo and our social media channels.

Musician Guidelines

MC24 – Billy Valentine

From Executive Director Susan Scott

Dear Friends,

Billy Valentine has had a long and storied music career as a singer, songwriter and producer. Beginning as a solo artist in the ‘70s, he opened for luminaries like Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack. Then, calling themselves the Valentine Brothers, he and his brother John toured and produced four successful albums between 1975-1989.

Billy also performed on stage in the first national touring company of The Wiz. Later he appeared at the Geffen and San Diego Rep in in Ain’t Nothin but the Blues. He’s also sung lead vocals in film and television and if you were a fan of Sons of Anarchy or Boston Legal, it’s Billy’s glorious singing voice featured in each. He’s also the singer Burt Bacharach and other high-profile writers and producers call on when they’re developing (fine-tuning!) new material.

My introduction to Billy was a benefit concert he performed in Libbey Bowl years ago. I never forgot it. Fast forward to 2017, VMF’s annual Cabaret fundraiser is approaching and we invite Billy to perform. He was wonderful: smooth and engaging in the style of great cabaret singers – also soulful, original and beautifully in sync with the music and his audience.

Tom Scott & the LA Express were set to perform in this July’s festival with Billy as featured singer. Alas, we have to wait til 2021 for that concert, but you can meet him now and he’ll take you to another festival performance, this one in Laguna a couple years ago. Enjoy!