Hillside Music Festival celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2023. And there is a lot to celebrate.
“Everyone always talks about the music, and definitely, the music is something to talk about,” mused Hillside marketing coordinator Christian Quaglia. “But there is a lot more to Hillside than just that.”
Hillside Festival is also known for its wonderful location, on Guelph Lake Island. It’s known for its community involvement, forward thinking, Indigenous involvement, and its greening initiatives. Hillside has been green since its beginnings in the mid-1980’s.
Hillside Executive Director Marie Zimmerman outlined some of Hillside’s green initiatives and what they have meant to the festival and the community, over the years.
“For 16 years, we have provided clean water from a tanker and banned plastic water bottles. That’s a savings of about 343,000 single-use plastic bottles. The City of Guelph sponsors the water tanker. We have been washing dishes for 6,500 people for over 25 years (no disposables). We have transported people in bio-diesel fueled buses for over 35 years; and use non-fuel options for moving things around. We have been streaming waste for 26 years, digging compost holes for 10, and offering environmental workshops for 26 years,” she explained.
Zimmerman finished, “Altogether, we've saved 2057 tonnes of CO2 with our green initiatives. That’s equivalent to taking around 394 cars off the road for a year or enough to power approximately 324 homes with electricity for one year.”
Since the 1990’s, Hillside has had an Indigenous Circle component, with a sacred fire, drumming, dancing, singing, and storytelling. This year, “the Indigenous Circle is moving to a different area of the festival where there is less sound bleed and where they are in a better position to greet people as they arrive on the Island. This was the Indigenous Circle members' decision,” said Zimmerman.
Another special and unique aspect of Hillside are its Learning Hubs. This year, Hillside will be focusing on Peacebuilding, and more specifically, making it an active instead of a passive state.
“Our aim is to include everyone in a conversation about how we can take actions everyday to (heroically) build peace. We are featuring DakhaBrakha from Ukraine, Balaklava Blues from Ukraine/Toronto and Emmanuel Jal (Sudan/Toronto) at this year's festival. All have suffered through war first-hand and all have convictions about how we can effect peace,” said Zimmerman.
She continued, “Bringing people together to experience the collective joy of being transported beyond yourself and lifted up by art and kind people is what we do at Hillside. We also want to inquire into how we can make living in harmony an everyday experience. How can we reconcile ourselves to each other and to our pasts?”
Hillside’s 40th anniversary will finish with a big Sunday night community closer. Zimmerman explained, “We will perform a song that Hillside students wrote over the winter in two online courses: the first was Collective Songwriting with Katherine Wheatley; the second was Harmonizing with Jane Lewis.
“In the first class, the students wrote a song about Hillside called "One More Song"; and in the second class another group of students learned to sing it in harmony. We are going to perform that on the Main Stage on Sunday night as a special tribute to our 40th. The Guelph Symphony Orchestra will play on that song, too. And it will be followed immediately by an hour-long epic Can-Con Choir! Choir! Choir! singalong with musical accompaniment by the Guelph Symphony Orchestra.”
She concluded, “We will end the 40th festival with everyone singing together.”
If you would like to join in the singing, the music, and the community, tickets for Hillside Festival 2023, July 28-30 on Guelph Lake Island, are available online here.