Wellington Water Week

Raising awareness of water through the arts

Festival creators Elissa Lee and Johannes Debus look out across Lake Ontario.

Wellington Water Week opened a full schedule of events with a sublime choral concert by the acclaimed Opus 8 at Wellington United Church on Friday evening. The choral octet filled the church with the power of human voices, with songs including an arrangement of Danny Boy as it could have been sung in the 15th century, a reworking of Stan Rogers’ Northwest Passage and a musically complex and at times dissonant piece by Nicholas Gombert. This concert was the first of a week-long series of events taking place in the village at various locations, including the Wellington Museum, the Studio Theatre and the Drake Devonshire. This is the second year for the festival, which was the brainchild of Maria Gacesa, Johannes Debus and Elissa Lee. “The whole project was born because we were here beside the lake, and also in connection to an event that happened in Stockholm last year at this time where all sorts of people came together to talk about the resource of water,” says Debus. “Water is one of the basic elements of life, and we all need it. Wellington Water Week turned into a metaphor for what life is about in general and how the arts inspire us to think about what’s essential.”

Debus describes the festival as a hybrid of sorts, one that combines music with food—in the culinary sense that the County is known for—and drama and visual arts. The music is the backbone of the festival, and provides the structure upon which all else is based. “Music is a universal language, just like water is,” says Lee. “You don’t need to speak the same language to go to a concert, even if it is a different mood of music. It’s a powerful tool that can express so many human expressions, and I think it is absolutely necessary to survive.” Both Debus and Lee are professional musicians, and they had no difficulty in persuading their musician friends to take part in the festival. “There is no lack of support from the musicians we are bringing here,” says Lee. “The wonderful part of it is that they are so delighted by this place, by the acoustics of the church in particular, they’re delighted by the community and what it has to offer.

They love the food and the drink and the lake and they just want to come back, so we feel like we’ve hit a really nice note.”

Flora Sonneveld plays music on wood blocks floating in water.

The festival is a combination of paid events and free events. On Sunday, the Wellington Museum hosted a free concert by percussion musician Dr. Ryan Scott. He performed the piece Orion Constellation Theory, which was partly inspired by the theory that the three belt stars in the Orion constellation are correlated with the three largest pyramids in Giza. Wellington artist Renee Hiltz then had the kids in attendance create a mural depicting land, water and sky. The mural will be used in a play written and performed by students from Grades 8 and 9 attending a summer camp at the Studio Theatre in Wellington. The play has themes of water and conservation, and the set is constructed from materials scavenged from Wellington Beach.

The paid event on Sunday was a music and food promenade through Wellington. Lee and Debus started the musical promenade at the United Church by playing Mercy by Max Richter. Lee says the piece reminds her of the many moods of the lake, from beguiling calm to raging tempest. The next stop on the promenade was at Sybil Frank Gallery, where Lee—who had to sprint from the church to get there ahead of everyone else—played a violin piece by Bach, and Chef Chris Byrne served a vegan appetizer designed to mimic both water waves and sound waves. The promenade then moved on to the Studio Theatre, where Byrne offered another vegan dish and harpist Sanya Eng played a mesmerizing piece called Scintillation by Carlos Salzedo. Perhaps the most remarkable stop was at the Masonic Temple on West Street. Dr. Scott played a sound sculpture, Spill by Eric Griswold. Participants of the promenade entered the darkened temple along a candlelit walkway and then sat in a large circle to watch Dr. Scott perform. The sound was created by rice falling from a large funnel that was suspended pendulum-like from the ceiling. Dr. Scott arranged items such as ceramic bowls and metal pans under the falling rice to create a variety of sounds ranging from melodious to staccato. To complement the musical offering, Byrne served a dish of sticky rice wrapped in a lotus leaf.

Wellington Water Week events continue daily until Sunday. There are two special performances on Friday. For the first one, members of the public are invited to join a choir at the gazebo in Wellington Park. Debus will rehearse the song Happy by Pharell Williams, and the choir will then perform the song with Sarah Slean. Later that evening another concert will take place at the United Church, with Sarah Slean accompanied by the Kamareli String Quartet. While the festival has the aim of raising awareness of the importance of our water sources, Lee is hoping that the music will have a powerful impact. “I hope people are enriched by the experience,” she says. “I’m hoping it will really uplift the community, because I believe music can truly do that.”

For more information or to register for the public choir, please visit wellingtonwaterweek.org. For tickets to the student play, email boxoffice@festivalplayers.ca.