Summer here is festival season. Because many Canadians are celebrating Canada’s 150^th year, this year our region of Eastern Ontario has been particularly well provided, even embroidered with concerts, weekend programmes, and festivals that provide several weeks of music. Literary and poetry festivals abound as well, and of course theatrical ones. Some of these are long established, others new.

Westben Theatre – Photo by Michel Proulx

Choosing which events to attend is the challenge, as there are so many you’d really not want to miss. My favourite summer music series, presented at the Westben Theatre (a purpose-built barn with great acoustics) in Campbellford ON, is now in its 17^th year and a flourishing concern. Westben presents a wide variety of music from Bach to Broadway favourites, opera, jazz, fiddle, folk and world music. Performances range from full symphony orchestras, fully staged operas to solo banjo, flamenco guitar and…