The Collingwood Music Festival kicked off last night with an outdoor concert at Millennium Park with a grand entrance.
Jeremy Dutcher arrived to the park by sailboat stepping onto the pier and right onto the stage to perform with the the National Academy Orchestra of Canada led by Maestro Alain Trudel.
Dutcher is two-spirit and a Wolastoqiyik member of the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick. He is a composer, tenor, performer, and award-winning musician. Dutcher has completed a research project that involved transcribing archival wax cylinder recordings of Wolastoq songs between 1907 and 1913 and composing songs inspired by and featuring those recordings.
The orchestra played for two hours even with the intermittent rain and audiences kept the drops away with umbrellas.
The festival continues through July 15.
There will be nightly concerts from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church from July 9-15.
For the full festival lineup and tickets visit collingwoodfestival.com as well as from their box office, phone: (705) 416-1317. All concerts are from 7 to 9 p.m.