More than 60 neighbours from near and far brought chairs and blankets and sit in the street one sunny summer evening in East Vancouver. Together we enjoyed a full concert by our resident fiddle players, Caitlan Read and John Lyon who both play gigs around the lower mainland together and separately. They often practice outside our house, hence the motivation to share music more formally with neighbours, and the dream of our fiddle concert was born. People who attended the show admitted to being so curious to actually meet the fiddlers, and also told us that they open their doors and windows whenever they hear the fiddle playing in the air.
Savanah, Ilia and Misha are neighbourhood kids who delivered invitations in the weeks leading up to the show to more than 150 homes. No wonder we had such a good turnout!
Following the concert we had a raucous and entertaining no skills necessary music jam all together. Due to the numbers of skilled musicians who showed up the jam sounded really great too, and kids and adults got the rhythm and caught the beat creatively.
Everybody ate watermelon!
Two tours were offered of the Beehive Collective House, which is an established collective house where 6 adults and 1 kid share space, food and many values as we support each other in our daily lives. The Tour featured a detailed look at our bulk and food-sharing systems, and also many of our environmental practices. You can learn more about Collective Living at http://collectivehousing.weebly.com or at https://collectivehouses.wordpress.com
We were so pleased to have the support of the Vancouver Foundations Neighbourhood Small Grants program to offer a free Fiddle Concert, community music jam, and collective house tour.
Learn more about Caitlan Read’s music at https://www.facebook.com/CaitlanChika/
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