Harmony Bazaar 2010

Harmony Bazaar 2010 Headliners - Quartette
L to R
Caitlin, Gwen, Cindy, Sylvia (now 69 yrs young)

A truly fabulous weekend!! Thank you to Errin Williams-Spidle and the rest of the Harmony Bazaar Board of Directors/Committee for yet another wonderful festival - they get better every year.

Welcome Tea - first guest Alice Lloyd

Friday's events began with a Welcome Tea in the Anglican Church Hall. The tea was put on by the Ragged Island Historical Society - scones, clotted cream, lemon curd, jam, fancy tea sandwiches, raw veggies, fancy desserts, tea, coffee, lemonade. Even if I did make some of it myself, I must say the food was very good and visually very appealing.

Guests entered through the church itself where we were playing a selection of CD's by some of the musicians performing this year at the festival. By sheer coincidence, Irish Mythen's CD was playing when she arrived for the tea and Pat Watson's was playing when she came in.

We could have accommodated 72 guests - we had perhaps half that number - we'll need to reassess for next year considering the amount of preparation involved.

Friday's Rising Stars Stage - hosted by Christina Martin (L), Kate Surette, Molly Thomason, Natalie Lynn

Performances began at 7:00PM on our beautiful new stage - those musicians who had been part of HB in previous years were very impressed with the new facility. The weather was wonderful, warm, sunny, little breeze (very helpful to the mosquitoes in finding their targets). When the sun went down, we had a lovely full moon shining down on the stage. There was a good crowd on hand too. The area directly in front of the stage has been concreted over - no more gravel underfoot or mud. The town has also bought another 200 patio chairs so seating was comfortable, easy to stack and move around. Saturday was another great weather day.There is also a wonderful system of 16 ft square canvas walls designed to be hung around the pavilion walls on huge grommets to keep out wind and rain from the audience when needed - a marvellous addition and used fully on Sunday during the windy, foggy, rain storm.

The festival headliners this year were the group "Quartette" - Sylvia Tyson, Cindy Church, Caitlin Handford and Gwen Swick. Their performance closed out the Saturday lineup - a lovely professional concert, particularly pleasing to me were their a cappella songs with their amazing harmonies.
But there were TONS of other wonderful artists on the bill - irrepressible Irish Mythen performed all 3 days, including a CD release Friday evening - she loves to encourage the younger musicians and to bring her friends (new and old) onto the stage to perform with her. She and Coco Love Alcorn and Theresa Doyle were outstanding together
.

Friday - Christina with Coco Love Alcorn, Irish Mythen and Theresa Doyle

We had offered to billet 2 performers and were thrilled with our assigned guests - Christina Martin and Norma MacDonald. Both are very talented and very nice young women - we hope they will return to visit us again. Christina's partner, Dale Murray, from Cuff the Duke stayed with us too. (Christina has decided to join our family so we now have a fourth Chris boys.)

Norma MacDonald hosting the Home Grown Showcase Saturday afternoon


Christina and Dale - Saturday evening

There were 2 breakfasts provided by the Legion and a baked beans and Ham traditional dinner provided by the IODE Saturday evening. Also, at noon Sunday, there was a BBQ and corn boil by the Sable River Volunteer Fire Department. Sunday, an Aboriginal morning sun ceremony was held at the Beach Centre (too much fog and then rain for being out on the beach unfortunately). There were also a craft fair and a vocal workshop and chances for aspiring musicians to meet with industry professionals for advice and some coaching. Saturday there was a late night after-hours dance (we missed that but Tim was working security for it).

Other than the tea Friday, our only real work was on Sunday setting up the Green Room (there is a real one now in the new stage building with a lovely washroom for performers (shower and all), a kitchen area with sink, cupboards, fridge etc. and a lounge area and there are 2 washrooms for the audience on one end of the building as well. The rest of the year, the space will be used by the First Responders (and there is a garage area for their vehicle as well). Because of the weather the entire Sunday show was moved into the Pavilion area so Wayne helped pack up and move the electronics to the smaller protected venue.

We had a marvelous weekend - great shows, good friends, wonderful house guests. Looking forward to next year's Harmony Bazaar - plan to be in Lockeport for the last full weekend in July!

PS - for supper on Sunday we headed out to Sandy Point Community Centre for a creamed lobster dinner - another great meal with the added highlight of a minck whale frolicking in the harbour around the lighthouse - neat!!