And just like that, the first week of my Debut Atlantic tour with La Fiammata came to an end. It has been a super fulfilling week filled with many firsts and I'm grateful for the deep connections made with audiences through sharing music together.
1. First Weekend: Nova Scotia & Prince Edward Island
On the first sunny weekend, Charissa and I had two concerts back to back in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, and Kensington, PEI for Musique Royale and Under the Spire Festival.
It was so lovely and while in PEI - we even met a longtime supporter in person for the first time! And while in PEI, people have told us we must have oysters and seafood - so of course, we tried it at the Landmark Oyster House in the nearby town of Victoria, PEI.
2. Community Engagement in New Brunswick!
We then drove back to Moncton to record at the Riverview Arts Centre for the Riverview Connects program - the recording will go out to 12 senior homes across Canada as part of their program. The next day, we had our first school show at the Port Elgin Regional School to an assembly of K-Gr. 8 students. To be completely honest, Charissa and I were pretty nervous about giving these school shows because neither of us really had experience giving community engagement concerts to such a big group of kids before but the students were so enthusiastic and we ended up having. a lot of fun with them!
3. Back to Halifax, Nova Scotia!
It is then another few hours of driving back to Halifax where we will be based for the next couple of days - giving a series of school shows and presentations at several educational institutions! So far, I've been really relaxing into connecting and interacting with students of all ages - it's been a fun challenge to tailor our program for each group of audience and reframe our spoken introductions to give the best set of listening tools to the group present. And the fog in Halifax every morning has been unreal! Really misty and beautiful with light rain throughout the day. The rainy days make me happy to chill inside the hotel room with a cup of tea and take some time off in between the shows.
Yes, that's a picture of me trying to figure out how to work an organ at the church where we were recording a webcast. Unfortunately (but probably fortunately for the ears of innocent bystanders), I could not figure out how to turn it on so I lost yet another chance to try out an organ. I'm still hopeful I can take a crack at it sometime soon in the future though - fingers crossed for me!
There is still another 10 days or so left of the tour and I'm excited to see what the future holds! Thank you to my readers for reading as far as you have and you're welcome to comment below or message me with any questions or comments!
Until next time!
Linda