For Immediate Release – November 16th, 2020 

Deep Roots COVID programming continues

Deep Roots announces residency project and continues Sing-Alongs

WOLFVILLE, NS 

Thanks in large part to our Federal Government’s department of Canadian Heritage, specifically the Building Communities through Arts and Heritage (BCAH) program, we were able to pivot and create online programming, after having to cancel the 2020 edition of the Deep Roots Music Festival. 

A series of Deep Roots COVID Concerts was presented online, bi-weekly from May through September, as well as a popular Sing-Along, where our audience was invited to “sing along” with chosen artists by submitting videos.  People are invited to view any or all of the COVID Concerts series – over nine hours of programming – as well as a Deep Roots Retrospective of festival memories, the presentation of the 17th annual Valley Arts Award to Fred and Nancy Chipman, and the edited Sing-Alongs. All material can be found on our YouTube Channel: Deep Roots Music Videos, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1BIPZRR571DqozUjKDn8Pw

The Deep Roots Music Cooperative is pleased to announce that through further funding from BCAH, the COVID-19 Emergency Support Fund for Cultural Heritage and Sport Organizations, we will continue online programming.

The Deep Roots Residency is our second COVID series. The residency is an agreement with 10 artists to take 5 days and write a song or a tune specifically related to their pandemic experience thus far, giving insight into their thoughts and process during this strange time. They will record their daily progress with video, and play a short set at the end of their residency. A compilation video will be created for each residency, by Deep Roots program director Dave Carmichael, and these videos will be presented on the Deep Roots Music Videos You Tube channel from November through March, 2021. 

The first will be Kirsty Money, a renowned violinist with Symphony Nova Scotia, an enthusiast and budding player of the nyckelharpa – a traditional Swedish musical instrument. Kirsty has chosen to write nyckelharpa variations on an Indigenous melody from the Wolastoqiyik nation, The River Song. The Maliseet called it the Wolastoq, meaning bountiful and good, and seek to restore this name to the river now known as Saint John River (Bay of Fundy). 

We will also reprise The Deep Roots Sing-Along with 1 sing-along per month until the end of March. The first features local stalwart John Ebata, Mary Lou Sicoly and Waleed Abdulhamid, singing their version of James Taylor’s ‘Shower The People’.

Submit your video, via email,  to  

or upload to Deep Roots Google Drive

The deadline is December 4 and then a video compilation will be posted.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive notification when new content is available:  Deep Roots Music Videos

These Deep Roots initiatives are productions of the Deep Roots Music Co-operative, a registered non-profit organization, incorporated in 2003 by a group dedicated to developing and promoting the music scene in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. The mandate of the organization is to develop year-round musical programs culminating in an annual festival and to encourage meaningful connections between cultures, community groups, artists and audiences.

For more information, please contact:

Dave Carmichael, Program Director, Deep Roots Music Festival

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