Live and Local is more than a Tideline page, although the Tideline page advertises all of the shows on Cortes Island from Gorge Harbour Marina, Manson’s Hall, Gorge Hall and the Village Commons Music Series to pop-up independent shows. It is also more than the radio program, which is broadcast over CKTZ 89.5, FM shortly after 8:00 AM on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
According to Jemma Hicken, one of the best known personalities behind it:
“Live and Local is an umbrella program, run by Cortes Radio, that encompasses the Live and Local page on Tideline, the Live and Local radio interviews that I’ve been mostly doing, also all of the promotion that we’ve been doing through Cortes Radio, social media, Tideline, all of the rest in terms of posters and the Village Commons Music Series as well.”
Jemma Hicken during our interview – This podcast opens and closes with audio snippets of music by Josie Simpson, one of the local artists whose music was brought to the Village Commons this summer by Live and Local. Cortes Currents made the recordings at Lovefest 2025.
She explained that Live and local came about through a collaboration with Bryan McKinnon, the President of Cortes Community Radio.
Jemma Hicken: “One of the reasons it came about is because Bryan and I started working together on a grant called Radiometers that comes through the Community Radio Fund of Canada. We were envisioning what we could do that would involve live music on the island. We noticed that there were so many cool pockets of live music popping up on the island, but quite separate from one another.”
“Bryan and I were envisioning how to connect all of the different live music things that are happening this summer specifically, but also during the winter. So we came up with this idea of Live and Local.”
“The radio had just taken over the stewardship of Tideline. It was partly inspired by this change in Tideline, but we really wanted to create a central location where locals, and tourists could go online to find all of the different live music events on Cortes.”
Cortes Currents: When did it come about?
Jemma Hicken: “Well, we’ve been working on it all year. In the winter we were launching it, figuring out what would work best, but it has grown over the summer.
There have been so many live music events that have happened.”
“The Tideline page is super helpful and any live music that happens on the island can go on that page. It’s more than welcome on that page. You can either post it yourself or you can get in touch with Bryan or I, and we’ll help you post it and help you advertise.”
“Live and Local is broader than that in the sense that we’ve also been doing artist interviews on the radio all year, which has been so fun. It’s a really varied group of musicians and performers too. We’ve been highlighting writing events, spoken word and theatre too.”
“This summer they’ve been running Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 8:00 AM. Usually there’s about five minutes of news right at eight o’clock , and then they come on right afterwards, so sometimes it’s like 8:05 in the morning.”
“It has been going really well. I’ve had so many people come up to me throughout the summer and say that they’ve enjoyed listening to one of my interviews, which are often with people that I’ve never met before. A lot of them have been over Zoom unless they’re with local artists.
Cortes Currents: Some of these interviews are with people that Jemma has not met before.
Jemma Hicken: “You’re listening to our first meeting and sometimes we’ve heard of each other because I’m in the music scene as well and often not.”
“It’s been really cool for me, as a musician, to get to do those interviews and I’ve learned a lot about different genres, particularly electronic music. This year I’ve done a couple of interviews where I’ve learned a lot about a genre that I’ve never really been interested in. I’ve become interested through learning just how passionate folks are about it and how many different kinds of sounds and different genres within the larger umbrella genre of electronic music there are.”
Cortes Currents: What’s happening here today,
Jemma Hicken: “Today is one of the Village Commons Music Series afternoons.”
“This is the third year of the series and for the first two years, it was running in the Village Commons tent. Many of you might remember the big white tent that we gathered in every Friday from 1:00 until 2:30.”
“This year is extra exciting because we’ve all been anticipating this build of the beautiful pavilion behind the radio station in the Village Commons, and it’s finally here and ready for us to use. We’ve run the whole series this summer in the pavilion. It’s been a joy.”
“It’s been so exciting just to see people coming back here for the first time after seeing what it was like during construction. It’s been really, really nice and we have a little bit of new sound gear. It’s just sounding better than ever and there’s a lovely, big, shady spot – whereas the tent was getting pretty hot the last couple summers. It’s much more comfortable in many ways.
Denise Wolda, Owyn Pengelly and Thomas Aerie performing on July 4 2025 – Photo courtesy Jemma Hicken
Cortes Currents: Are you still running the Village Commons Music Series?
Jemma Hicken: “Yes, I’m booking it for the most part and Aaron Ellingsen has been helping out a lot this year as well. It’s quite different from regular live music events in the sense that it’s both live in person and broadcast live on the radio. So we usually have a host, which is generally Manda Aufochs Gillespie, although people fill in for her. We have the artist who’s on stage and then there’s Aaron and I, this year, who have been doing all of the sound setup and the organizing of the series. Then Sean Coyote, who has been valiantly doing all of the live broadcasts for the last three years through all of the technical hiccups, as you can imagine, live shows. It’s a different kind of audio that he’s running and he’s doing an amazing job. We’re very grateful for the whole team that puts it on and for everybody who comes too.”
“It’s been really busy this year. It’s been so fun to see people gather and eat their market lunches and listen to this music and get an idea of what Cortes Radio does too.”
Cortes Currents: How long is the Friday Music series running this year?
Jemma Hicken: “It runs every Friday in July and August. So I believe there’s nine of them.”
Cortes Currents: What about the Live and local, how long is it going for?
Jemma Hicken: Well, the grant has just been from last September to the end of this August. So the funding is going to dry up at the end of August, but we’re hoping to keep running the program through the winter. It’s been really successful and also fun in the sense of community building between all of the different people that have been organizing music because it’s become this little hub. I’m getting messages from Shaun Canaday (who’s booking shows for the Gorge Hall), Shannon Marks (who’s booking shows for Gorge Harbour Marina) and Matt Cuscianna (who’s been doing a lot of the bookings for Manson’s Hall). It’s been really sweet to band us all together and work on programming the island’s music scene as a group.”
Top image credit: People dancing to music provided by the Awakeneers at the grand opening of the Village Commons on June 27, 2025.
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