The Nechako Community Arts Council is to host a special event in Beaumont Provincial Park to celebrate the 100th birthday of BC parks.
The park, located east of Fraser Lake, will become a cultural hub for the day on July 16 with a number of musical, literary and visual arts being made available.
Local music guru, Don Rudland, is taking care of the musical arts for the event and has lined up a number of impressive acts to keep park-goers entertained.
Bryant Olender, an accomplished musician from Vancouver will be both performing on the day as well as putting on a songwriting workshop on the evening of July 15.
Olender attended the Royal Conservatory of Music and has opened for Canadian rock icons Barenaked Ladies, has performed with Bif Naked, and was featured on a hip hop album by Swollen Members. He is probably most widely known for the seven years he worked with Michael Buble as his musical director. The two of them also received a Genie award nomination for best song for their collaboration on the song, “I’ve never been in Love Before.”
Local talent Danni Fehr has formed a group with a number of her school mates who will also be performing.
Karen Cruise, a local country-gospel success story, will be doing a set on the day. Cruise has released five albums since 1997 and is currently working on a sixth to be released later this year. Her music sits in the positive-country to country-gospel genre and is listened to globally. Her husband, Allan will also be doing the sound for the event.
“With any venue - it’s only as good as the sound that gets put out and we’re very lucky that Allan will be doing the sound,” said Rudland.
“He has an incredibly good sound system and he’s a great sound man - both from a musicians point of view and an audience point of view ... he puts out a great sound,” he said.
Youthful Fort St. James talent Jerusha Turgeon will be showing off her vocal abilities at the event.
Turgeon, 16, is a vocalist, violinist and a pianist and received the highest scores in the classical voice category at this years Nechako Valley Festival of the Performing Arts, earning her a ticket to perform in Kamloops.
The park stage will also see three well-known solo musicians coming together to form a trio act - Marcel Gagnon, Justin Frey and Don McLelland.
Performances from the Nadleh Traditional Dancers, Sound of the North and Willowvale are also on the line-up list.
“We’ve got some incredibly good musicians coming - it’s going to be a great day for entertainment,” said Rudland.
Rudland has also organized a competition for any budding songwriters...
“We are inviting anybody who wants to write a song about a B.C. Park moment...it doesn’t matter if it’s two minutes long or four minutes long ... they can submit it to me by July 10 and then if they are chosen, they will get the chance to perform that song on stage,” said Rudland.
For any information on the entertainment part of the ‘Arts in the Park’ event or the competition, please email Don Rudland at drudland@telus.net.