As fall classes begin and the summer days are coming to a close, one summer-time passion is still thriving: the music festival.

With little travel necessary, the Pygmalion Music Festival, held in Champaign-Urbana, is ideal for hipsters, partygoers and music lovers to come together for a last hurrah.

This marks the fifth year of the festival, which is spread througout multiple Champaign-Urbana venues.

“The Pygmalion Music Festival was conceived in 2005 after determining that Champaign-Urbana could not only support such a festival, but also develop it in a fashion that it might thrive,” the festival’s press release said. “And thrive it has, thanks to generous support of community businesses and national sponsors, as well as the University of Illinois’ Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.”

It seems as though a new music festival is popping up everyday, and creator and director of the Pygmalion Music Festival, Seth Fein, is quite humble to its creation.

“The festival is something that I founded and created. So, there wasn’t a situation where I was applying for a job. I conjured it, and ran with it,” Fein said.

This year’s list of national acts includes Iron and Wine, Ra Ra Riot, Low, Lucero, RJD2, The Books, with many local acts from the state, such as The Hood Internet, Elsinore, Maps & Atlases and Bob Nanna.

Charleston’s local music has also made it on the scene with So Many Dynamos, a band that often played at the Paper Cafe on Sixth Street, and Elsinore, a band in which all members are from the town. For the full weekend schedule visit the Web site 2009.pygmalionmusicfestival.com/schedule/.

“As an independent booking agent and talent buyer, I have strong relationships with a whole host of contemporaries,” Fein said. “We work together year round to put together tours for our artists, and I do them the service of putting on shows throughout the year in Champaign-Urbana. Come January of every year, I start sending out e-mails about the festival, and they start making suggestions.”

With the ray of artists so broad it is easy to assume that choosing the performers isn’t such an easy task.

“I keep my ear pretty close to the ground by staying up with blogs, Pitchfork and the like,” Fein said. “From that, I make choices as to whom I want to bring in. I usually get about 50-75 percent of the artists that I want.”

One thing the festival has always stood for and attempted to do is bridge the gap between the local music scene and the national indie-rock touring scene, Fein said. Past performers have included Andrew Bird, Murder By Death, Of Montreal and Black Mountain.

The festival runs from Sept. 16 – 19. The performances run concurrently at multiple venues, similar to the South by Southwest Music and Film Festival held in Austin, Texas.

The performances stretch throughout Champaign-Urbana at Bentley’s Pub, Blues BBQ, Canopy Club, Channing-Murray Foundation, Cowboy Monkey, The Highdive, Krannert Art Museum, Krannert Center, Mike & Molly’s, Parasol Records Store, Red Herring and Sandella’s.

Festival passes are already sold out, but individual show tickets are still available for a majority of the performances, excluding Iron and Wine and The Books.

Brad York can be reached at 581-7942

or at [email protected].