Sounds of music 'Hear Nebraska' in Sidney

Non-profit organization Hear Nebraska was at Sidney's Coffee Corner Monday to film part of a storytelling series promoting music in Nebraska.

Founded in 2010 and launching the website in 2011, Hear Nebraska commits itself to artists across the state of Nebraska. The organization is on a twelve day story telling tour to various Nebraska cities interviewing local members of the community that are involved in music.

"We are a non-profit, founded a little over four years ago, dedicated to cultivating Nebraska's music community," Co-founder and Executive Director of Hear Nebraska, Andrew Norman said, "essentially, we do that three ways, journalism, education, and events."

On the journalism side Norman said the organization tells stories about Nebraska's music community by interviewing artists, previewing albums, write daily news columns, shooting music videos, and podcasts.

"We are a cheerleader for the music industry statewide," Norman said. "There is a lot of multimedia storytelling."

Hear Nebraska was Norman's master's project at Michigan State University. Originally from Imperial, Nebraska, Norman and his wife felt a mocking opposition when mentioning where they where from.

"We would mention we were from Nebraska and it was almost as if it was the punch line from a joke, we found ourselves really defensive," Norman said, "Nebraska is a lot cooler then people think, and so we took it upon ourselves to spread the word.

"We thought that by promoting what is a really cool underdeveloped natural resource, which is music, we could change peoples impressions across the world about what Nebraska is," Norman said.

According to Norman, the Hear Nebraska website reaches 27,000 visitors a month. Sixty percent of the website audience hails from Nebraska, and 40 percent comes from outside the state, including six percent international. Giving Nebraska artists a large and widespread platform.

"Our goal is to make Nebraska an internationally know cultural destination, so those numbers show we are least reaching that audience," Norman said.

The Good Living tour put on by Hear Nebraska, combines the story telling route the group is currently on and mixes it with the concert series set to be held at the end of July. With its base of operations in Lincoln and Omaha, Sidney will be its furthest stop on the twelve day storytelling route.

This year the Good Living Tour will hit twelve towns, in greater Nebraska cities over three weekends this summer, July 21-August 7. Sidney's concert will be in Hickory Square, August 5.

"Last year was the first year and we went to nine different towns across the state," Norman said. "We put on a free all ages concert featuring really awesome, all original, no cover Nebraska bands.

"The idea is to put bands on stage that people in greater Nebraska don't usually get to see, so here there will be a great soul band, country band and local artist Matt Scott," Norman said.

Heather Hausmann, Executive director of the Cheyenne County Visitors center said the Downtown sounds group, which is a combination of the Visitor Center, City of Sidney and the Cheyenne County Chamber, worked to put this together in an effort to pull music into Hickory Square.

"I think that with travel and tourism the natural progression is to look into the future at new and fresh ideas," Hausmann said "It is also a good opportunity for artists to gain experiences and exposure."

For information on Hear Nebraska you can visit the organization's website at hearnebraska.org.