Brookfield HighLight
Jeannie Hunter was one of the many wonderful teachers I met when I presented at the Ontario Music Educators' Association Conference back in November. Soon after our encounter there, she wrote to find out what it would take to get me and Voyageur to come to her school in Ottawa. Since this TEDx weekend was coming up, I let her know that she could save considerably on travel and accommodation costs if we could pull something together for the Monday after the conference. She sprung into action and got the school, the board and the students on side.
I arrived in the early afternoon and set up in the generous library space at Brookfield High. We ended up doing two presentations for a total of around 200+ students. I have to say, the students were fantastic. I think the project really resonated for a lot of students in this very diverse school for a lot of very diverse reasons. One student in particular had been having a particularly difficult day due to some family matters and she used Voyageur to turn that energy around and give two very moving performances of a song she wrote. I was so moved not only by her performance but by the comments of so many of the students who came up to see the guitar and talk to me after the presentation.
Thanks so much to Jeannie Hunter and the staff and students of Brookfield High.
On a cautionary note, if you ever find yourself needing to vist the school at 824 Brookfield Rd., don't trust your GPS unit! There is a baffling break in the road numbers that TomTom calculates the wrong way!
Posted at 4:32 PM
Getting into the Spirit
All this activity this weekend and I haven't even thought about Christmas yet – in spite of the relentless Christmas music jukebox in every store. Well, thanks to Twitter, Ian Brown knew I was in Ottawa. Ian runs the Ten Thousand Villages store in the Westboro neighbourhood. We'd met several years ago and he kindly provided us with awesome fair trade chocolate treats when we were working the Ottawa Folk Festival. He got in touch and asked if we had any time to come by the store while we were in town.
The weekend was jam-packed but our school visit to Brookfield High isn't until later today so we said sure, let's do something in the late-morning. Ian put the word out through his network and when we arrived at the store there was a nice little crowd – including Bob Ledrew and my old pal Bob Nesbitt. I did a very short presentation and then a few folks took turns with Voyageur playing Christmas Carols with everyone singing along.
If I was worried about leaving time to get into the Christmas spirit, this was just a perfect little slice of the clock that was like an oasis in the bustle of the weekend. Ian and his daughter even put together a little care package of chocolate and coffee and we bought some fair trade ornaments for the tree that we'll set up when we get back to Toronto.
Thanks, Ian, for making Christmas come a little early!
Posted at 1:13 PM
Kitchen Confessional
OK, this is really bad.
Our favourite restaurant in Ottawa is the amazing Murray St. Kitchen – home to wonderful charcuterie, regional cheeses and various house specialties. Soon after arriving in Ottawa this time around, Sarah discovered that the MSK was now doing a brunch. Well, we just had to go! And it was fabulous: a braised beef version of steak and eggs with Glengarry Celtic Blue cheese and a heavenly breakfast cassoulet with duck confit and housemade sausage and bacon! So rich, so delicious! So that really was our treat for the weekend.
But here's the thing: our friend Wesley Johnston (pictured) – whom I met when he worked at Arc the.Hotel on Slater St. before the guitar was born and who was a fan of the project even then – wasn't working the brunch shift. And since we kind of wanted to at least say hello, we figured it would be OK to swing around the corner from the Velvet Lounge after the After Party just to check in (and have a small board of cheese and charcuterie!)
It's true! Two visits to the same restaurant in one day!
It was definitely worth it and it's all Wesley's fault.
Posted at 7:06 AM
After Party
I confess I'm a bit spoiled. With the exception of the Ottawa Folk Festival (when we were put up at the amazing but remote Brook Street Hotel) and the Dragon Boat Race Festival at Mooney's Bay Park, most of my business in Ottawa takes place downtown. And Ottawa is a very livable city: lots of great restaurants, bars and cultural attractions. And (at least when Bank St. isn't chewed up with construction) it's easy to get around.
Although Allan ended up moving our accommodations to the Lord Elgin hotel, the bitHeads HQ where TEDx was held was in the Westgate strip mall – about as far from downtown as you want to be. So it was great that they organized an after-party at the Velvet Lounge in the Byward Market for Sunday night. It was a great chance to unwind and get to know some of the participants, organizers and volunteers a little better. Naturally, I brought Voyageur along and offered it up to anyone brave enough to get up at the open mic and give a little song. Slowly but surely, lots of folks did but i wanted to make special mention of Susan Murphy (pictured). She and her brother were both working the conference on the technical side and they told me when I met them that they grew up on Haida-Gwaii - home of the legendary Golden Spruce that makes up the top of the guitar. They remember the tree as a living thing and even though I frequently meet people who saw the tree before it was so savagely cut, it's exceptionally rare to meet people who knew it so well. They were both moved by the experience of meeting Voyageur and touching that wood that had meant so much to them and I was moved by meeting them. All that came together quite emotionally when Susan took her turn on the tiny stage at the Velvet Lounge. Thank you, Susan, for doing that.
Posted at 11:51 PM
The Main Event: TEDx Ottawa
It seems like I've already done a lot this weekend – and there's more to come tomorrow! – but today was the event that was really the reason for this trip to Ottawa: TEDx. If you're not familiar with the TED Conference, it's a pretty extraordinary annual gathering in California that brings together extraordinary thinkers in the most amazing array of disciplines to share their ideas. The videos of these talks – available online from TED.com or as podcasts – expand the audience to anyone who wants to watch and listen. The TEDx conferences are independently organized events under the TED banner held in cities around the world. It was a huge honour to be asked to participate in this inaugural Ottawa version.
It was held in the HQ of the software firm bitHeads Inc. – a converted cineplex with popcorn stand still intact! – in what would have been a small theatre but is now a generous corporate screening room.
There were wonderful presentations by Mark Blevis, Bob Ledrew and Tracey Clark from Bridgehead coffee (among others). When the video is eventually posted on the TEDx Ottawa site, I hope you'll watch their talks as well as mine ... and make sure you don't miss the incredible story of Ray Zahab!
Voyageur was played by three different people over the course of the day: a young man (10 years old, I believe) named Graham Stewart played a song he wrote as his parents were splitting up – incredibly thoughtful and mature, Andrea Simms-Karr (pictured) played it as part of Bob Ledrew's presentation and the incredible Alex Houghton improvised a gorgeous instrumental to accompany the portrait reel at the end of my own presentation. She absolutely nailed it! Gorgeous! Check her out here.
Thanks to Allan Isfan and Bob Ledrew for putting together such a great program, the Murphys for making it run so well and all the volunteers and speakers who made it such a special event.
Posted at 7:54 PM