Connecting Artists, Students, and Community during the Annual OCFF Conference

Art Beat is an intimate, interactive, and organic opportunity for artists to share their talents with students, elders, and patients in the OCFF conference's host community each year. This program is a voluntary service and no fee is charged to any of the schools or organizations that are chosen to host a workshop or concert.

Folk music is ultimately about expression, reflection, creativity and community, and what better way to embrace the roots of Folk music during the OCFF conference than to share an hour of  time with students and local residents who might not otherwise have had an opportunity to hear, learn, discover, and connect with our community.

Students, teachers, administrators, social workers, and musicians alike have been delighted with the programs offered during conferences in Sudbury, Guelph, Kingston, London and Ottawa. One high school student's parting comment at the end of a workshop was, "That was the best history class I've ever had," while a teacher at another school said: "You don't understand, we have no music program, and that was the first time some of those kids have seen a guitar or heard a song sung in this building."

Art Beat artists offered sessions with topics ranging from graphic design to belly-dancing, and from traditional storytelling to guitar techniques and songwriting styles. The common connection is folk music in its many forms.

The artists and venues for 2009 were: