The Elora Festival kicked off its season with classical and contemporary concerts – the classical being Haydn’s Creation on opening night before a packed house and on Saturday with a traditional Out of Africa concert to promote HIV-AIDS awareness.
It is the first time in the festival’s 35 years that a concert has been played to raise awareness of work being done in Africa to fight the deadly disease. It featured guest speaker Ilana Landsberg-Lewis executive director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation which, since it was established in 2003, has been promoting awareness and support of those suffering from the devastating fallout of AIDS in Africa.
Both concerts were performed under the guidance of festival co-founder and conductor Noel Edison who, through his interpretation of the music, brought the crowd to its feet at Friday evening’s Haydn concert.
“Noel Edison is a great champion of Haydn,” said concert master of ceremonies Rick Phillips.
He noted that Haydn’s music was written depicting, “the wonders of God” with Haydn’s Creation first played in 1798. Phillips said Haydn’s work has often been overshadowed by the works of Beethoven and Bach.
“The genius of the work is how Haydn sets it,” he told the crowd.
The concert featured strong performances by soloists Lesley Bouza, Charles Davidson and Stephen Hegedus joined by the Elora Festival Singers, Elora Festival Orchestra and the 35-member Trinity College Choir from Cambridge, England.
It was a memorable evening in the Wellington County Gambrel Barn known for its acoustic excellence. The evening was topped off with a fireworks display.
Prior to Saturday’s concert, Landsberg-Lewis talked about ongoing efforts to combat the AIDs epidemic in Africa that has seen communities devastated and how she assisted with local efforts to help survivors. Among the efforts is the grandmother movement spawned by the plight of grandmothers who have had to take care of orphaned children whose parents have died from the disease.
“Tens of millions have died,”Landsberg-Lewis “The grandmothers were inheriting the care for all of these infants. Today there are 16 million of them.”
Landsberg-Lewis said when the foundation was established little effort was being put in to “meet the apocalypse that was unfolding.”
In many cases it was the grandmothers who were responsible for the orphaned children in their families. The circumstances fostered the creation of a grandmother support group among inhabitants which would lead to the creation of grandmother groups in Canada that were formed to raise money to assist their African counterparts.
In one family, according to Landsberg-Lewis, a grandmother saw her eight children die of AIDs and as a result took in their children. In another case the deaths resulted in a grandmother taking in 24
to house and feed them.
The grandmothers have persevered by joining to form organizations aimed at improving the lives of the orphans and making their future brighter.
“These women have become the health care response in their communities,” Landsberg-Lewis said. “The rebuild and reclaiming of lives they are still doing it.”
The effort has also raised awareness and assistance across the globe, she said.
In 10 years the foundation has disbursed some $72 million in program spending to over 1,100 initiatives, partnering with 300 community-based organizations in the 15 African countries hardest hit, including $21 million for grandmothers in Africa and the orphaned children. Millions have also been raised by thousands of grandmothers across Canada who are part of the foundation’s “Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign.”
The Out of Africa concert was based on multimedia work created David Fanshawe who spent years travelling the Nile River recording indigenous music. It was an excellent concert with the Elora Festival Singers and Instrumental Ensemble and featuring outstanding performances by soloists Sheila Dietrich and Lesley Bouza.
The festival runs until July 27. For more information about festival performances go to elorafestival.ca.
