In keeping with the great tradition of music in Frontenac County, the performers who will be performing all weekend are made up primarily of artists who live or come from Frontenac County, supplemented by some from nearby Kingston.

On Friday night, Kingston/Nashville based Rob Carnegie will take the stage at 6pm, following the opening ceremonies, which start at 5pm. Rob is a singer songwriter in the country music tradition. He has been making a name for himself as a songwriter and performer in Canada and the United States, with his 2014 release “Unwind”.

Also on Friday night, a family movie, Big Hero 6, will be screened at 8pm, followed by fireworks.

On Saturday, the festival swings into high gear with a parade at 10am. Across the road from the festival site, the Frontenac County Plowing Match also starts at 10 am and runs until 3 pm. Meanwhile, on the site, mini-putt, midway rides, a strong man competition, heritage equipment and numerous other events are running all day.

On stage at 12:15pm, 14-year-old Abby Stewart will be performing. Abby, who first performed in Frontenac County at the Old Time Music Festivals in 2010 and 2011, played on the Upcoming Artists stage at the Boots and Hearts Festival in 2014, and a few weeks ago she played the main festival at the Front Porch Stage and was featured on the festival poster.

She will be followed at 1:30 by Sydenham-based Big 'Mo and the Blues Mission, whose up-tempo rock 'n blues sound is familiar throughout the region. They play local events and are mainstays at the Limestone City Blues Festival as well.

At 2:45, Rudy and Saddle Up will bring their high energy country sound to the stage.

Later, after the plowing match winners are announced, Bellfonix are playing at 5:15pm. Heather Bell got her start singing at Canada Day and other events in Harrowsmith and Sydenham as a teenager and with the Bellfonix, she performs her pop-rock repertoire often at popular bars in Kingston.

The final musical performer of the day at the festival stage, at 6:30, will be Chris Koster, a Kingston-based performer and songwriter. Chris' music has an emotional edge and a contemporary alternative rock feel.

Although Centennial Park closes down at 8 pm, there is one more event scheduled for Saturday, one that promises to be a highlight of the celebration. The Golden Links Hall, on Colebrooke street, will be the site of the Frontenac Heritage Ball. This is the only ticketed event of the weekend. Participants are invited to wear heritage dress for the ball, which costs $20 and features the eight-piece R&B sensations, Soul Survivors. Tickets also include a light buffet and the ball is a licensed event.

While people may be dressing like it's 1865, the dancing will be more like it's 1975. Tickets are available at Nicole's Gifts in Verona, at Nellie's Gas Bar in Harrowsmith and by calling Pam Morey at 613-372-1578. There will also be limited numbers of tickets available at the door, but buying them in advance is recommended.

On Sunday morning, Fiddlers and Friends from North Frontenac and neighbouring Lanark County will be on stage at 10:30. With fiddles, piano, and guitars they play tunes from the 1940s on, and always entertain.

The final band of the event is After the News from Verona, featuring Lee Casement and vocalist Lisa Menard, at 11:45.

The historical re-enactment, as mentioned earlier, will follow After the News. The closing ceremonies are set for 3 pm.

The Parham Fair is all set for this weekend starting tomorrow, Friday Aug. 21 at 5:30pm with the opening ceremonies and running until Sunday, Aug. 23 in the afternoon with the Demolition Derby to end the weekend with a bang. Cost of admission is $5 a day for Friday and Saturday, with children 12 and under free. Admission to the Derby on Sunday is $10. Ride All Day Bracelets for the Saturday Midway rides are $22 when purchased ahead of time at the Parham General Store - Hope's Place. They are $33 when purchased at the fair, so it pays to be early.

The Parham Fair is a great place to take a family, and show off your musical talents, crops, art and animals! If you wish to enter your pet into the pet show, registration starts at 5pm Friday night before the opening ceremonies.

Bands set to play Friday night are Gilbert Riddell’s old time country band, Old Habits, at 7pm and rock band, HD Supply, at 8:30pm. Saturday bands are local country/rock stars One Busted Ego and country music aficionado Shawn McCullough.

There are contests to be entered for every age and hobby, including but not limited to: crafts, art, knitting, singing, quilting and children’s writing. For gardeners bring your vegetables, fruits, grains, flowers, pumpkins and herbs to see if you can win bragging rights. Do you cook? There are contests available for Honey, Maple Syrup, Jams, Jellies, Bottled Goods and Baking so come out and show them what you’ve got.

The weekend promises to be sunny and warm. Bring your lawn chairs for the shows, park your cars for free at the liberty of Darryl & Gail Fox and Randy McCullough, and get ready for local charm and great entertainment.

The Parham Fair has been celebrating local talent and farmers for 123 years, so come and show your support! For more information visit www.parhamfair.ca

“The Miracle Worker” is an ‘interesting, absorbing and moving’ play, says the NY Post. It is also an intense and emotional drama about family dynamics and the unique challenges associated with raising a sensory-deprived child. In this case, the child became the famous Helen Keller, who eventually graduated, tirelessly and successfully promoted schooling and training for the blind worldwide, and befriended many persons of influence along the way. However, in her early life it was far from easy to imagine these results, when as a child, she lacked discipline, understanding, and three main senses - seeing, hearing and speaking. Enter Annie Sullivan, a seeing-impaired person herself who underwent multiple eye operations, not before, however, she lived a destitute life with her critically ill brother in a state institution for the poor. Her fear-based yet tough-as-nails approach earns her a hard-won place among the proprietary family of Helen at their Southern home in Alabama. With widely differing opinions on the raising of Helen, family dissension is strong, and many strong exchanges take place as a result.

It is a fantastically crafted play of a segment of these real lives, set in the 1880s, just after the American Civil War whose own theme juxtaposes nicely with the tumultuous family dynamics. The timelessness of family values and the needs for change, growth and expression can be related to by all. The North Frontenac Little Theatre's production of The Miracle Worker will be performed the last two weekends of November. www.nflt.ca

A one-time opportunity to see 14 drummers from CADRE (the Canadian Associates Drumming Rudimental Excellence) is coming to Sharbot Lake.

A five-time senior world champion drum ensemble, CADRE, will play in Sharbot Lake before heading to Rochester, New York, to compete in the 2015 World Championships. These 14 drummers play fast and with a high degree of precision. They perform amazing and coordinated drum stick movements. It’s totally mesmerizing and a one-off opportunity to see unique and high-impact drumming like you’ve never seen before.

These senior drummers are playing in Sharbot Lake for the first and only time using rope drums and high-tension drums. This is a performance you’ll want to see and it’s FREE to the public (all ages). Don’t miss it.

The event is on Saturday, August 29, 3 to 5pm at the Sharbot Lake Country Inn.

President of the Parham Agricultural Society, Wendy Parliament, says interaction is the key principle behind this year’s version of the Parham Fair. “We wanted to plan an event where people young and old could enjoy trying their hand at farming activities.”

Friday night’s Opening Ceremonies include the Hay Bale Rolling Contest and the Cattle Calling Contest. The whole family can get in on the Pet Show and the Best Dressed Cowboy or Cowgirl contests.

Saturday is family day at the fair. Critter Corral will include ‘Moooonica’, a cow that teaches you how to milk her, from the Ontario Dairy Farmers. There will also be a children’s hay bale playground, lassoing games, horseshoe games, a giant corn-filled sandbox with farm toys, baby chicks and goats and a Petting Zoo of farm animals with free pony rides. Displays will encourage everyone to learn a little about today’s local farming practices. Extra seating in the shade will be provided to allow parents and grandparents to rest while the younger ones play in the Critter Corral barn.

The afternoon will feature Country Fair Games for kids “of all ages”. The ever-popular egg toss, pie eating, log sawing and nail hammering will be featured in front of the grandstand. Kids races, shoe toss, and sack races will take place in the Fair Games arena.

There is a “Unlimited Ride” program in effect for Saturday’s fair. This makes it easy for parents to outfit their family for a day full of midway entertainment. Coupons for ride bracelets can be purchased at local stores. Check the fair website for details.

The Exhibition Palace will feature displays of handiwork ranging from garden crops to works of art. Just outside the Palace the fair has added four new picnic tables to allow lots of room for people to sit down with meals and treats provided by the local churches.

There will be spectator sports as well. Friday night features the Horse Pull, Saturday morning the Cattle Show and Saturday afternoon the Miniature Horse Show and Lawn Tractor Races. Sunday afternoon the Demolition Derby returns. There will be concerts featuring local talent both Friday and Saturday night. Friday night “Old Habits” opens the evening and “HD Supply” shuts down the midway. On Saturday night “One Busted Ego” warms things up for “Shawn McCullough”.

This will be the Parham Fair’s 123rd year. For more than a century local volunteers have been working to highlight agriculture, horticulture and rural living in an event that brings the community together.  

Organizers of this year's Flinton Community Jamboree spread their net wider than usual in an effort to attract even larger crowds to the annual Flinton event, which has been gathering momentum since its inception years ago.

Kaladar resident Andy Anderson took the reins this year as the festival's lead organizer and when I spoke to him on the last day, Sunday August 2, he was thrilled to report that between 260 and 300 trailers had attended the three-day festival, which housed upwards of 500-600 guests. “Overall this year's jamboree has been a howling success,” he said.

Typically the Jamboree has predominantly been a bluegrass/country venue but Anderson said organizers this year added some '50s and '60s music, which “proved to be a very good move.” Eddy and the Stingrays headlined Saturday night's line up and played a close to three-hour set that generated numerous encores and kept the crowds entertained until 11pm.

Also new this year was a 24 x 32 foot plywood dance floor that was installed to the left of the main stage area. Anderson said it was filled to capacity all afternoon and evening on Friday and Saturday. “In years past people have been dancing in the gravel and we felt we needed something new for them this year, so we raised money in the community from our sponsors to build the dance floor, which has been a huge improvement and I was thrilled to see that it was used as much as it was.”

The event was put on by the Flinton Community Jamboree Committee and headed up by 18 key volunteers, who were assisted by a number of additional community volunteers that included students, who received community hours for their efforts. The committee also served up an early morning Sunday breakfast to over 400 hungry early risers and the Flinton Rec Committee fed hundreds of hungry festival goers throughout the event from their on site canteen.

The well-known six-member band, Pickled Chicken of Denbigh, entertained jamboree goers on the Sunday afternoon when I visited. The band features Dave Guest, Joe Grant, Peter Chess, Susan Fraser, Mike Gibson and Mark Rowe, who delighted guests with their repertoire that included musical favorites by John Prine, The Marshall Tucker Band and more, as well as some of the band members' own original tunes like Joe Grant's “Hold Your Fiddle Low, Joe”, a song inspired by advice he received as a youngster from his fiddle-playing grand father. Long-time fan and spoon player, Bernie Parsons, who has played numerous times with the band, kept the beat on a pair of wooden spoons from his lawn chair throughout their performance and also played on stage at a few of the open mic opportunities offered up to guests.

The Flinton Community Jamboree continues to attract music lovers from near and far and over the years it has become one of the best bluegrass/country, and now oldie rock venues that the north country has to offer.

This year’s edition of the Parham Fair is calling on you to share your creative side. The Exhibition Palace will be packed full of projects from canning preserves and baking, to needlework, paintings, sketches, pottery and photographs. Whether you’re a grandparent or a pre-schooler there are opportunities for you to share your passions.

The Palace is one of the most popular destinations at the fair. It provides a rare chance to share your own interests and to catch an eyeful of ideas for future projects. The colourful arrangement of home garden vegetables and flowers, beautiful photographs of local scenes and delicious smelling fresh baking brings olden days back to mind.

Participants bring their entries to the Parham Fairgrounds on Thursday evening, August 20th, between 5 and 8 pm. There is a $10 fee for adults to enter competitions – children’s entries are free. This gives you free admittance to Friday and Saturday’s events over the fair weekend. Volunteers organize the items and set them out for judging on Friday morning. By Friday evening the Exhibition Palace is open and busy with admirers!

There is a demolition derby for the mechanically inclined. Get that old car running again for a good smash dash in the derby ring.

All of the contests and other fair activities are outlined in the fair book available online through their website (parhamfair.ca) or their Facebook page (Parham Fair). There are also galleries of pictures from past fairs to enjoy. If you have some memorabilia from past fairs – trophies, silver plates, etc. – you might like to loan them to the fair board to display this year. They can be contacted through their website (parhamfair.ca).

Prizes for the various competitions range from a toonie to over $100 in gift certificates and prizes donated by local businesses. Last year’s top winner took home over $200 in prize money! This 123-year-old tradition is not to miss!

It was the trip of a lifetime for the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra when they visited Prince Edward Island from July 15 to 22.

In their 16 years together as an orchestra they have never attempted anything like this. The logistics were staggering. The 37-member orchestra is made up mostly of fiddle players, but there is a violist, a cellist, a bassist and guitarists as well, and all of their instruments needed to be transported.

Since it is an all-ages group, with members ranging in age from under 10 to over 75, the trip was a family affair. In addition to the musicians, families (parents, mates and children in some cases) came along to soak up the atmosphere.

Some traveled by plane to PEI, and others drove, making a family camping trip out of it. Since the orchestra is also based on a pay-as-you-can philosophy, the group spent 18 months fundraising to cover many of the collective costs and to subsidize some members as well. Through bake sales, concerts, grants, busking, and even a Kickstarter campaign, $30,000 was raised.

By the time the planes, vans and automobiles all landed at the Ski Lodge (the hill was never found) next to a potato field on Harmony Road not far from the eastern-most point of Prince Edward Island on a warm evening on July 15, it was a logistical miracle in itself. Surely the trip itinerary would ensure a relaxing week on sunny Prince Edward Island beaches, eating seafood, punctuated by a performance or two and workshops by some of the best musicians on the island.

And it went sort of like that - minus the sunny beach time.

First off, the weather turned windy, then more windy, and by the time the rains came, as those orchestra members who were tenting on the ocean found out, it came in a horizontal fashion, more of a storm at sea than a rain shower.

By the next morning (all the people survived but some tents were in need of repairs) the weather was sunny but the winds were still up. The orchestra met to rehearse that afternoon and then played their first concert in one of the community halls. There was something different about the performance on that night for the orchestra, however. It was partly due to the work they have done under Orchestra Director Cindy McCall over the last three years or so, adding a rhythm section to the orchestra and bringing some talented young musicians along to join with the solid corps of long time members who have remained in place. On top of that, McCall has added new repertoire, using her own arrangements that were tailored for the ensemble. The final piece of the puzzle was the effort put in by the orchestra as they prepared to bring their music to Prince Edward Island, where fiddling is a way of life.

The confidence, the timing, the tone, everything that the orchestra played that night had more musicality than ever before. They had arrived.

The next day the orchestra played at noon next to a lobster shack on the causeway between Souris and Rollo Bay. It was still windy. The members couldn't hear each other, and some of them were a bit the worse for wear after a party the night before, but the players persevered and the view of Souris harbour was spectacular.

The focus of the trip then switched to the Rollo Bay Fiddle festival, which was one of two key reasons for the orchestra deciding to come to PEI, instead of other east coast fiddle hot-beds such as Cape Breton or Newfoundland. The festival is held in a small, bowl-like valley. The wooden stage has seen the best of PEI style fiddling, both the eastern variety that revolves around the Chaisson family, and the more Acadian styles from the west, as well as a few from in-between. The most common combination on stage is a fiddler or two, a piano and a guitar, and many of the players can play at least two or all three instruments without skipping a beat – and they are fast beats.

The orchestra came on as a special guest, and they played their Ontario tunes on this occasion, not wanting to venture into some of the PEI numbers they have learned.

The rains came the next day. Literally and metaphorically. The orchestra played a fiddle service at the South Lake Church, just off from the East Point Lighthouse that separates The Atlantic Ocean from the Strait of Northumberland. They performed some tunes they learned for the occasion, including “I'll Fly Away”, and member Linda Grenier, who performs professionally with the Long Sault Trio and as a solo act, sang the Gillian Welch song “By the Mark”.

As some members were off seeing the sights and others headed over to the Rollo Bay Festival, a cold rain set in.

At the festival, Peter Chaisson, the patriarch of the fiddling Chaisson family, was working with other festival organizers to set up indoors, when he suffered a heart attack and died.

It shut the festival down and devastated the community, the orchestra included. Orchestra members met together and talked, and many went back to the festival grounds for an impromptu wake as family and friends did the only thing they could do under the circumstances, play a few of Peter Chaisson’s favourite tunes.

The next day the orchestra split into groups and took part in workshops at cottages and an artists’ retreat. The other reason the orchestra went to PEI is that one of its members, Finlay Mullaly, lives in Perth most of the year but hails from Prince Edward Island and has a family cottage on the ocean just kilometres from Souris and Rollo Bay. He hosted and helped organize the workshops. Since Peter Chaisson and his nephew JJ were supposed to be workshop leaders there were extra challenges, but the community of musicians came through and the workshops were a great success.

On the final night of the trip, the Fiddle Orchestra played a 90-minute concert at St. Margaret's Hall, near the Neufrage Harbour.

The acoustics in the small hall are superb, the orchestra was playing its fifth concert in six days, and they were primed.

It was their best performance ... ever.

Fieldwork is excited to be partnering with the Ottawa International Writers Festival/Perth

Chapter this summer to present a new event called Framework: Words on the Land - coming up on Sunday, August 23 at 3pm. This event will include readings and conversations with ten writers who will have just finished a weekend of writing on the land at Fieldwork.

Participating writers will be Amanda West Lewis, Amanda Jernigan, Phil Hall, Michael Blouin,

Matthew Holmes, Wayne Grady, Merilyn Simonds, Christine Pountney, Jeff Warren, Troy

McClure

For eight years Fieldwork has been broadcasting the seeds of creative endeavours at its location near Maberly. Expanding on its history of presenting three-dimensional visual art in locations around Fieldwork, a window into the imaginations of writers is being added to Fieldwork’s activities.

Over the weekend of August 21-23 ten writers will be asked to respond to individual framed

vantage points with their stories, poems or writing experiments. The writers were invited to bring to Framework a broad diversity of styles and interests – ranging from poetry to prose and from nature writing to explorations of consciousness.

On Sunday afternoon, August 23, the barn across the road from Fieldwork will become the venue for the writers to go public with their writing and their thoughts about this experiment.

Framework is designed to heighten the experience of being inspired by the land. Whatever emerges from this extraordinary weekend experiment is bound to be fresh, imaginative, reflective, spontaneous and fun. After all who doesn't want to hang out with writers and listen to their backstories. We are challenging them and they will no doubt challenge us.

Tickets for the event will be sold only online through the Ottawa International Writers Festival

website at http://www.writersfestival.org/events/spring-2015/framework-words-on-the-land. Note that space in the loft is limited so it is advised that you purchase tickets early to avoid disappointment. Tickets will be sold at the door only if there are any remaining on the day of the

event. Keep your eyes open for our weekly ‘Sneak Peaks’ on our Facebook feeds where we have been highlighting one or two writers each week. (www.facebook.com/fieldworkproject ) and Twitter (twitter.com/artatfieldwork)

The date change for this year’s 11th installment of the Canadian Guitar Festival, which takes place at Loughborough Lake Holiday Park just south of Sydenham, in no way affected the turnout for the annual three-day event, which showcases some of the best guitar playing gurus from near and far. The festival took place on July 24, 25 and 26, a week earlier than usual, but still attracted enthusiastic lovers of the genre.

Canadian guitar guru Don Ross not only played his usual inspiring and stellar set, but also manned the mic this year as festival emcee, standing in for Holmes Hooke, who had a conflict with this year’s dates.

Saturday evening’s performances rated high on a number of attendees’ lists, including the performance by John Ainsworth of Manchester, England, who was described by festival founder and organizer Del Vezeau as “a very cerebral young artist, a cross between Nick Drake and Sid Barrett” and was making his first trip from his native isle.

Other new and notable performances included the Dave Barrett Trio. Barrett, best known as one of the founders of Platinum Blond, closed Friday night’s show to much applause.

I saw the last performers of the festival, an eclectic virtuoso duo called 2ish, who played a mash up of fascinating originals and highly intricate tunes that come from a number of varying musical influences including jazz and folk, with additional elements sourced in from the deep and rich well of world music. Their sound is exclusively instrumental and is highly original, with Saskia Tomkins playing the nyckelharpa, viola and violin and Brandon Scott Besharah playing acoustic finger-picking guitar and the hurdy gurdy. Both have played and recorded individually with numerous solo artists and bands and together their sound is like none other, an intense intermingling of pure and joyful music that is highly complex and yet sounds fresh, clear and true.

Sunday’s finger picking competition had listeners sitting on the edge of their seats, eager to find out who of the long list of competitors that included players from all over Canada and the US, and from as far away as Japan and France, would take away the various prizes, which were musical instruments donated by a number of instrument-making kings in the field.

The competition was judged this year by five artists from the main stage that included Don Ross, Dave Barrett, John Ainsworth, Justin St. Pierre and Thomas Leeb. This year’s first place winner was Blake Goodwin of Little Rock, Arkansas, who chose a Stonebridge semi-acoustic as his prize and who dazzled fans with his masterfully quick yet subtle style. Like all past first-place winners, Goodwin was invited back to perform and will open next year’s festival. Adam Crossman of Peterborough won second place and chose a Hagstrom semi-acoustic guitar for his prize. Ace Ting, a Kitchener, Ont. native who now calls Toronto home, took third place and snapped up a brand new Breedlove mandolin.

The festival was founded and is run every year by Del Vezeau, who said he believes the festival date change will stick since lovers of the festival will return year after year no matter the date. That way, holiday campers who booked the park solid for the August long weekend, will not be squeezed out. In addition the change will also give Vezeau and other music lovers a chance to visit the Blue Skies Festival, which begins on Friday, July 31 in Clarendon.