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Grassroots festival expands this year Michelle Nash michelle.nash@metroland.com
EMC entertainment - Centretown’s Grassroots festival is returning this year and promises to be bursting with free, fun family activities spread across what is now a two-day event. The Grassroots Festival announced its lineup at Pressed Gourmet Sandwich Bar in Centretown on March 6. After a successful inaugural year, organizer Robert Nesbitt decided to expand the festival’s programming to make it a two-day event taking place on April 27-28 at the Legion Hall located at 330 Kent St. “Mark your calendars, you don’t want to miss this event,” he said at the launch. Nesbitt said the incredible support he had with the inaugural event last year provided him with the opportunity to expand the festival. “The success of the festi-
val is due in large part to the volunteers, some 65 of them,” he said. “Everyone associated with the festival is a volunteer, except the performers.” This year Nesbitt said there will be more than 65 volunteers helping with the festival. For music lovers or learners, there is more than 34 hours of free entertainment during the daytime with multiple opportunities to learn a thing or two from some local Ottawa musicians at any of the free workshops and performances during the weekend. In total, there will be 120 musical performances, including a pint-sized choir led by Chris White. “The Sparrows are a group of home-schooled children who wanted to start a choir,” White explained. “One parent called another, and then another, and eventually I was asked to do it.”
“The neat thing is, is that my dad actually ran a children’s choir when I was young, which I was a part of, and now I am teaching these kids who are singing a lot of those same songs,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun.” The choir has 20 members from across the city. White has help from one of the home school parents, who coordinates the group. Six of the Sparrows choir members performed at the launch. The headliners for Saturday night are Wendell Ferguson MICHELLE NASH/METROLAND and Suzie Vinnick, with openAnna Chandler-Marlo, Lindsay Groleau and Caitlyn Gro- ers Ana Miura and Amanda leau sing a few songs for the crowd at Pressed Gourmet Rheaume. Sandwich Bar on March 7. The girls are part of a new On Sunday night the headchildren’s choir, Sparrows who will be performing at the liner is Big Soul Project with Grassroots Festival this April 27-28. opener Andy Rush and the Weekend Choir. Sunday’s White, a local musician who at Algonquin College, said he concert is a fundraiser, to help co-founded the Ottawa Folk jumped at the chance to work raise money for CKCU FM, a Festival and teaches singing with the choir. volunteer-run radio station in
Ottawa. Some of the festival performers attended the March 7 launch, including Missy Burgess and Amanda Bon and the Outskirts. “To be apart of this festival is amazing,” Bon said. Nesbitt, asked many times what a grassroots festival is, explained what he feels this concert and the music associated with it is. “Grassroots means an organization with a voice, members supporting each other and it means family and friends, much like those who are here today,” Nesbitt said. “It means doing something for the community.” Ticket prices are $25 for Saturday night, $15 for Sunday night, and $35 for a weekend pass. More information about the festival is available at www.ottawagrassrootsfestival.com.
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Nepean-Barrhaven News EMC - Thursday, March 14, 2013