Huron Waves Music Festival

The Huron Waves Music Festival (HWMF) is planning an ambitious schedule of experiences and concerts to run throughout the entire month of June.

 

The festival will open on June 1 with an installation piece called Gaia that will be set up in the Trivitt Memorial Church in Exeter and serve as the anchor and inspiration to this year’s theme “Our Earth/My Responsibility”. 

 

John Miller, Artistic Director, has brought in the touring artwork for its premiere at a Canadian arts festival. While it has been touring the globe for the past several years, its appearance at Huron Waves will mark the first time it has been at a Canadian festival. The giant balloon sculpture is created from photographs from space to represent earth (or Gaia, in Greek mythology). As the artwork slowly revolves, a continuous soundscape loop plays a sound composition created from voices of astronauts and sounds of space by British composer Dan Jones. The installation has been sponsored by the Grand Bend Rotary Club so that schools will be able to bring classes to tour it from June 1 to 23.

 

Miller has built the schedule of events and activities around the exhibit, including the debut of an oratorio with a libretto by local playwright and author Paul Ciufo and composed by Stephanie Martin. “Water: An Environmental Oratorio” is a story based on actual events, and focuses on the struggle in a First Nations community and the concern for purity of water. The piece is receiving its world premiere as a chamber oratorio on June 4 at 3 pm at Trivitt Church. (The piece will be performed with a full orchestra and choir in Kitchener in May.)

 

On June 21, Huron Waves will be hosting “An Evening with Thomson Highway” at Dark Horse Estate Winery to celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day. Highway is a celebrated Indigenous Canadian playwright and author, but is also a wonderful pianist and composer who combines his Indigenous roots and jazz to create a unique celebration of his love of music.

 

The Elora Singers will perform “Considering Matthew Shepard” on June ___ at 7 pm. The story is of the brutal murder of a young

gay man in Wyoming, but the powerful work finds themes of hope and inclusion. 

 

HWMF is working with the municipality to close Baldwin St (beside the church) to create an information village each weekend in June. Miller is inviting all organizations in the area of like-minds to encourage people to do something about climate change. After viewing something as powerful as Gaia, Miller wants people to have access to information about how they can make changes in their lives that will have an actual effect on the planet. 

 

Tuesday evenings during HWMF are reserved for “Champions of the Earth”, a lecture series by prominent Canadians who are studying climate change. “We are using art and our festival to say ‘Can you find your responsibility to our earth?’”, says Miller.

 

For a full schedule of events, visit www.huronwaves.ca  Trivitt Memorial Church, 264 Main St S, Exeter.