What: Coastline with guests Ivonne Hernandez, Mairi Rankin, Colleen Eccleston and Nellie Quinn
When: Saturday, 7:30 p.m. (doors at 7)
Where: Fairfield United Church, 1303 Fairfield Rd.
Tickets: $20 at Long & McQuade, Larsen School of Music, and Ivy’s Bookshop; $15 for students/seniors/Victoria Fiddle Society members
Information: 250-415-3898
Coastline, a local 15-piece youth fiddle orchestra, has plenty of moving parts. Making it work requires volunteers and parental help to check items off its never ending to-do list. And when the current agenda for Coastline includes a two-week trip to Scotland for the Aberdeen International Youth Festival, July 21 to Aug. 1, planning is important.
Integral, in fact.
“We don’t have any grants or outside funding,” said founder Ivonne Hernandez, who also writes the music for the ensemble. “All of it is our own doing. It’s a lot of work, and lot of stress. But it’s good.”
Hernandez, 31, formed Coastline two years ago at the request of her fiddle students. A former child prodigy and decorated fiddle player in her own right, who won the Grand North American Fiddle Championship and B.C. Provincial Fiddle Championship during her youth, Hernandez serves as mentor, coach, instructor and chaperone. And with Scotland looming on the horizon, her schedule is busier than ever, especially having returned last week from a two-week working tour of Cuba with one of her musical associates.
Coastline is set to host a fundraiser Saturday at Fairfield United Church, one of many such events the group has produced over the past year. It’s a necessary course of action, considering the $50,000 cost associated with taking 15 teens, two chaperones and Hernandez to Scotland. They have already raised about half the money through various means, from sponsorships and busking to Coastline’s CD release party. The expectation is that this weekend’s event, along with funds raised through a Go Fund Me online campaign, should put the cap on Coastline’s budget concerns.
The concert on Saturday offers great value for the price. Not only will Coastline perform, the ensemble will be joined by both Hernandez and some of her close friends, Mairi Rankin, Colleen Eccleston and Nellie Quinn.
Hernandez is now managing both her own career, which includes her award-winning folk band, the Fretless, and all manner of Coastline activities. But she has the background to do so, having graduated from Boston’s Berkelee College of Music in 2009 with a degree in violin performance and music business. She is certainly putting her schooling to good use, what with the amount of frazzled nerves, tired bodies, and action-packed schedules leading up to the 14-day run.
Hernandez said many of the teens, who range in age from 13 to 19, have not been on a trip of this magnitude before. Coupled with the daily performance schedule while at the festival, it’s a huge undertaking.
“It’s quite the feat. The kids are doing so much work to get ready.”
She is instructing her charges to remember why they were accepted in the first place. The Aberdeen International Youth Festival is one of the finest of its kind, and a juried one at that. No one gets in who doesn’t belong there, Hernandez said.
“The kids are great performers, and for them to pull off playing these crazy difficult tunes, that really caught the judges’ attention.”
