A six-way musical collaboration was among the kaleidoscope of sounds that kicked off the first night of the 36th annual Midsummer Music Festival.
As part of the province’s “Community Resilience through Arts and Culture” program the festival was able to secure funding for the project, which featured six different artists coming together to create a series of collaborative works.
Participants included Molly Wickham and Cody Merimen of the ‘Ewk Hiyah Hodzli dance group, iskwē from Winnipeg (vocals), Ora Cogan of Victoria (vocals, guitar), Nick Schofield from Montreal (aleatoric samples) and Ben Brown from Vancouver (drums).
Artistic director with the festival Brennan Anderson said the project was done, in part, to acknowledge the potential for harmony among otherwise disparate communities.
“We [wanted] to create an event that would attract both Wet’suwet’en and settler populations so that they can spend more time together,” Anderson said of the collaboration. “The more time spent together, the more we learn from each other and understand.
“The universal language of music will allow each participant to speak in a familiar yet distinct way … music is a metaphor in this project for all of the ways that we are similar yet unique and how these similarities and differences are what can bind us together with mutual respect and understanding.”
