Stayed tuned for a series of three videos. Each video will feature three artists performing 2 songs dedicated exclusively to the Harrison Festival and the people of Harrison Hot Springs.
One thing that unfortunately has been lost since this pandemic began has been the opportunity to verbally acknowledge the land on which the Festival gathers and is based out of. Even though the video contains performances from across Canada, we would still like to acknowledge the land on which it has been compiled and produced.
“We would like to acknowledge the sacred land on which we gather, as the unceded territory of the Sts’ailes Peoples.“
“From Roots to Routes!”
Our first video of our pre-taped video series, “Off and Running”, featured four western and northern Canadian artists. This second video, “From Roots to Routes”, takes us farther afield, digging into regional roots from Toronto to Colombia, and beyond to Ireland and the rooftops of Rome.
Beny Esguerra
Born in Colombia – JUNO Awards Nominee – Ruben ‘Beny’ Esguerra is a multi-instrumentalist, lyricist, arts educator, and community worker. We are excited to have him take part in this project following a well-received beach stage performance and participatory workshop at the festival a few years ago. As a musician, Ruben leads the New Tradition big band; originally created to accompany international artists with some of the most sought after musicians in Toronto, Canada. As a composer, he has written original scores for the CBC, City Life Film, Amnesty International and the National Film Board of Canada. As a lyricist and spoken word artist, Ruben has presented his pieces in festivals held in Canada, the United States, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, and Chile. Highlights of his diverse career include being commissioned by the Remix Project and the Department of Canadian Heritage to create and perform a spoken word piece, welcoming Canadian Governor General Michaëlle Jean to deliver the opening speech introducing the ‘Ignite the Americas’ conference. Ruben is also an accomplished arts educator who has worked at York University and Ryerson University teaching, lecturing, and designing curricula since the age of 22. Ruben currently facilitates workshops through the Ontario Arts Council’s Artist in Education Program, bringing drumming and storytelling as a healthy form of self-expression to inner city schools, as well as schools in rural areas across Ontario. In addition, he is the Music Director of several programs based in Jane-Finch, Toronto.
Nuala Kennedy & John Doyle
World renowned traditional singer and flute player Nuala Kennedy grew up playing Irish music in Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland and currently resides in Ennis, County Clare with her Appalachian singer husband A. J. Roach and their two young children. She is a prolific collaborator, with recent projects including vocal trio The Alt (John Doyle, Eamon O’Leary), traditional Irish group Oirialla (Gerry O’ Connor, Martin Quinn, Gilles Le Bigot) and The Snowflake Trio (a collaboration with Norwegian musicians Frode Haltli and Vegar Vårdal). While her roots are first and foremost in Irish music, she is ‘something of a genre bender’ according to Living Tradition magazine. Outside of traditional music, Nuala has toured and recorded with Indie-Poet Will Oldham/Bonnie Prince Billie, with Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), Euros Childs (Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci), and with cutting-edge Canadian composer the late Oliver Schroer (a duo album of original compositions nominated for two Canadian Folk Awards).
John Doyle is the quite simply the most influential traditional Irish guitar player of his generation. A masterful rhythm guitarist, fingerstyle guitarist, and singer he first gained notice internationally as the driving rhythmic guitar behind the Irish group Solas in the mid 1990s. Upon leaving Solas, John released a series of solo albums in which he excels both as an instrumentalist and song interpreter. His longstanding duo with fiddler Liz Carroll, work with violinist Martin Hayes and flute player Kevin Craford in the Teetotallers, and recent work with Irish supergroup Usher’s Well are other highlights in a busy career that goes from strength to strength.
Ilaria Graziano and Francesco Forni
While the duo Ilaria Graziano & Francesco Forni are from Naples, Italy their music is a very cosmopolitan mix of folk, blues, and la dolce vita, reflecting a musical world view that is broad and open. Each had individually successful careers of their own—composing, recording, performing, and touring—but found inspiration and compatibilità working as a duo, recording three albums together to date, with their most recent release Twinkle, Twinkle this past March.
Singing in their native Italian along with English, French and Spanish, their performances are fascinating travelogues that take listeners across Mexico and Texas, into the American heartland of blues and folk, beyond into Argentinean Tango, Central European cabaret, and Neapolitan song. The duo also travels through time, with references to tradition living alongside contemporary styles, while maintaining a magical balance between a lightness of musical textures and expressive depth. The result is a continuous game and role exchange between the soft, warm, and fascinating sound of Francesco’s guitar—which sometimes seems to be close to catching fire—and the evocative voice of Ilaria—which could as well be coming from another time and space, hypnotic, sensual and fiery. Their performance is an experience that can hardly be forgotten and holds onto one’s heart and mind for a long time.
Enjoy this free video and please consider making a donation to the Festival Society.
The Festival Society is providing these videos free of charge for the public, but we still pay the artists for their performances. Needless to say, any donations that you, your family or business might be willing to make would be greatly appreciated. Like the buttons we sell on the beach, this helps us keep quality arts and culture accessible to everyone! Thank you in advance. Donations over 25 dollars are tax-deductible as well!
If you missed out First video “Off and Running” check it out here! That video features artist, Doug Cox, Boyd Benjamin & Kevin Barr, as well as Maria Dunn!
A big shout-out to our funders!
