Music all around
If you’re ever lucky enough to be winding your way among the beautiful spruce and hardwoods of the Meike Trail on Prince Edward Island’s eastern coast, you may just catch sight of a raptor, a warbler — and quite possibly the occasional musician.
It’s all part of a magical experience first initiated by the PEI Symphony Orchestra to leverage the power of nature and music amid the depths of COVID restrictions.
“People really needed a reprieve from what was going on in the world at that time, and we wanted to help generate some badly-needed calm and give musicians a chance to make music again,” explains the Symphony’s Head of Operations, Laura Ono.
“We needed to think outside the box and find a creative solution for gathering people outside — and that’s how the Tuning into Nature initiative was born.”
Photo courtesy of the PEI Symphony Orchestra.
The idea? Get people from the local community out to interact with the space and beauty of a local nature trail, with different musicians safely stationed along a 40-minute, self-guided walk.
The initiative soon became reality — and a hit.
“Rural communities don’t often have music brought to them in this way, and there was such good feedback from participants about this new opportunity to interact with both nature and musicians that we decided to continue,” she says.
Four summers later, collaborations and partnerships have developed around the initiative, interest and talk of expansion across the Island has grown, and the trail has opened every Labour Day weekend to the sounds of Western classical, Indigenous, Acadian, and eclectic world music — and a steady stream of visitors from across the province and beyond.
Community at the core
In many ways, the organic nature of this innovative initiative — merging music and sounds of the natural world — is an organic reflection of the PEI Symphony Orchestra itself, which has, for 57 years now, been devoted to engaging the local community through music.
“It can be intimidating to reframe what an orchestra does, but the arts are all around us, whether we are hearing a soundtrack from a movie, watching something on Netflix, or listening to the radio in the car,” explains Jaelem Bhate, the Symphony’s new Music Director.
“Music reflects life, and the orchestra needs to go where people are — not ask them to come to us — and to provide opportunity for that reflection."
— Jaelem Bhate
It’s a philosophy that speaks to both to the organization’s long history on the Island and to its way forward as it looks to grow accessibility around its musical offerings and the way it engages with the community.
“Sometimes, symphony music has a reputation that it’s only for certain people, or that you can only relate to it if you studied in a music school. But music is all around us, and it resonates with people from all walks of life … it’s a kind of language that builds connection,” he says.
“When you listen to 60 people making sounds, the music speaks to people just like you and me. It’s not about the name of a piece of music or of a composer, it’s about hearing extraordinary sounds.”
Photo courtesy of the PEI Symphony Orchestra.
The idea of engaging the community not only extends to the way the Symphony approaches the making and sharing of sounds, but how it does business — including the way it hired Jaelem.
“When we were looking to hire a new music director, we wanted to engage in a non-traditional, more community-oriented approach, so we embarked on a Canada-wide search and a year of live audition performances with different candidates here on the Island, with the community giving us their feedback after each concert,” explains Laura.
They also set up a residency for the new music director that included giving talks in the community which helped set up an exciting first season for their new artistic leader.
Canada Council support
According to Jaelem, core funding from the Canada Council for the Arts has been important to the PEI Symphony Orchestra for several reasons.
“It’s the foundation that helps us pay local musicians fairly, helps us diversify and expand our repertoire to better serve this community, and helps us reach out to people here so we can better meet what they want from their orchestra,” he explains.
But he also says the support he has had personally as an artist over the years from the Canada Council also benefits the Island community as well, through both international connections he has made and mentorship opportunities he has had.
Photo courtesy of the PEI Symphony Orchestra.
“It’s not so much about supporting one artist or one concert or one season — it’s about ensuring that one thing can then lead to another, and another, which then leads to greater collaboration with artists in other places like the US and the UK, which can only enrich what’s happening in this community now.”
Find out more about the PEI Symphony Orchestra.