Carolyn Phillips Cusson may be one of the organizers of CeltFest 2006, but it goes deeper than that.
Carolyn and her husband, piper Rene Cusson, are passionate about all things Celtic and work nearly all year to bring the July 8 to 13 festival to 91原创 Island, -- which they call 'Canada's other Celtic coast.'
"It's a labour of love that's for sure," Carolyn said, standing in a living room stacked with papers, a Celtic drum called a bodhran and bag pipes. "We're crazy, passionate people about Celtic arts -- music and dance."
Carolyn and her husband attended similar camps and festivals when they were children and wanted to bring the experience to a new generation.
"It's a great experience getting to know all sorts of people in an educational atmosphere -- the music stays with you for a lifetime," she said. "And I think it's something that's really living on, we'll probably see marriages out of this. Some of the young people have just become life-long friends."
The event starts with a CeltFest kickoff ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) which means party in Gaelic. This new event will be held at the Coast Bastion, 8 p.m. on July 8 and feature students and teachers performing.
The instructing part of the festival takes place July 9 to 14 at Tigh-Na-Mara resort and Riverside in Parksville.
Teachers are coming from all over in various disciplines including three different types of bag pipes, drumming, highland and Irish dancing, celtic harp, fiddling, cello, penny whistle and more. Instructors include fiddler Pierre Schryer, Highland bag piper Ken Eller and Glenn Simpson, a co-lead in Riverdance. Breabach, a band of young musicians from Scotland will also perform and instruct. Rene will teach piping and Carolyn, while she's busy with the organization of the festival, will also instruct in Highland dancing as needed. Students have come from 14 countries to be part of the festival-- this year an Irish dance school is coming from Mexico City. People of all skill levels and ages can take part.
"It's a real mix of younger and older (students)," Carolyn said. "Some of them have always wanted to learn how to play an instrument and after five days of immersion they jump right in."
There are student performances July 10, 11 and 12 at the Tigh-Na-Mara ballroom, which are free and will have ceilidh dances everyone can join in.
The gala concert will be held at the Port Theater July 13, the first time it's been indoors. It will feature instructors and students. This is the first year events are being held in Nanaimo and Parksville. For the first four years CeltFest was held in Shawnigan Lake as more of a summer camp for students of all ages. As it turned more into a family-friendly festival, organizers decided to move it north. There are about 300 participants over the five days and the gala usually has more than 1,000 spectators.
For more information or to register for the summer school call 758-0208 or check out the website at www.celtfest.ca