The plan falls apart but the Festival comes together anyway

May 06, 2009
By Paul Knowles. Reproduced from "Forever Young".

A wise man once asked, "Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?" It may have been Plato, I'm not sure.

Anyway, I'm here to suggest that sometimes there is lots to love even when the plan doesn't work out as planned.

Nancy and I, and a few devoted and probably less than wise friends, have spent an enormous amount of time, the last several months, putting together a plan. The concept was simple: the provincial government had offered grants to local individuals or businesses who would develop cultural festivals to showcase their communities to the world at large.

That seemed very appealing, and the New Hamburg Live! Festival of the Arts was born, to be parented by the province on one hand, and some local music, art and literature fans on the other. Except the province never actually showed up for the first date. No grant money was forthcoming, brilliant though our plan was. I may be biased, here.

No, it actually is brilliant. Anyway... the rejection slip from the powers that think they are is probably the signal that sensible people should shred their proposals and slip away into the night. Not us, though. Nope. You see, several things had happened since we applied for the grant.

The community got excited about hosting a real, live Festival of the Arts.

The artists, musicians and performers got excited about participating in a grass-roots-engendered, small-town festival.

And we got excited about creating something unique and wonderful that will showcase great music, great art, great literature, and a great little community.

So even before the province could offer some convoluted bureaucratic explanation for our rejection, we were up and running, anyway, with no visible means of governmental support.

Am I worried? Well, sure... but not nearly as much as I am excited, pumped, and enthusiastic.

Because from May 20 to 24, (which is more or less tomorrow! Yikes!) our motley crew of volunteers and organizers will bring some of the best in Canadian art and culture to the west end of Waterloo Region; and at the same time, let all who show up for any or all of the ten events experience some of the finest talent our community has to offer.

I have been very impressed with the willingness of musical luminaries to get involved. For instance, Juno-winner David Francey, one of the country's finest roots musicians, is performing May 21. In fact, we have an entire menu of award winners, including bluegrass legend Ken Whiteley (May 24), and Mary Lou Fallis, Peter Tiefenbach, and Stratford and Broadway actor Barry MacGregor (together on stage May 23).

That's just the tip of the artistic iceberg. The five-day Festival includes ten events all around the community of New Hamburg. There's an art show, a "Lights of Broadway" opening gala May 20 with six ­ count 'em, six ­ nationally and internationally known performers, meet-the-author events, concerts by Francey and Fallis, an incredible night of "The Best of Opera" with Toronto's Concert Opera Group (who also are performing, May 22, for the love of the event and not for the paltry paycheque they'll receive), and a unique choral singing program which provides a Saturday morning workshop with Whiteley and the great Vicki St. Pierre, followed by the workshop attendees transformed into a bluegrass-gospel choir, singing in concert with Whiteley, St. Pierre, and sundry brilliant musicians on Sunday afternoon, May 24.

Am I excited? Darn right... it is really invigorating to be so involved in something this full of life and potential.

So am I writing this to lure you into participating, attending, getting involved as well? Again, darn right... the New Hamburg Live! Festival of the Arts is an event any lover of music, art, drama or literature will not want to miss.

I'm out of space (and breath, as well, I think). Check out www.newhamburglive.ca. Tell ¹em this crazy, breathless guy sent you.