Smiling man look at a camera
Arts

Michael Keith & Iris Gildea: Leaving Cortes Island

Michael Keith and his wife Iris Gildea are leaving Cortes Island. 

 “This was a decision we made a while ago.  My wife teaches at the University of Toronto. It’s quite the communte between semesters and we started investigating the possibility of libving somewhere a bit closer to her work. We found the ideal situation in the Maritimes. The commute is about a fraction of the time and we can get the place that really suited us. So we made that decision. It was tough, but  it’s time for the next part of the journey,”  he explained. 

Image credit: Cover of Nur Michael Keith’s track ‘Is The Any Other Reason?’ – the song used to open (0 to 0:36) and close this story (7:46 to 12:13).
Iris Gildea -submitted photo

Cortes Currents: I heard you found a place in the Annapolis Valley 

Michael Keith: “That is correct. We have a friend down there help us arrange  to check it out and it’s kind of like our dream place. Where we have been here on Cortes has been wonderful and very dreamy. This is a lot more suited to our needs, about six acres of land and right on the ocean. We’re so excited,  but it’s bittersweet.” 

Cover of Nur Michael Keith’s track ‘Mountains re Mountains’

“I will firstly miss just the beauty of this island, which I feel so blessed to have experienced for the last almost eight years. I’m sitting here right now looking over Hague Lake. I’ve recorded so much music, played and created so much right from here. I’ll miss that greatly.”

“I also felt like I made some really lifelong connections with some people but  I really plan on maintaining a relationship with the island. It’s important to me and of course  I felt very supported by just random people  who would come out and see me play and always have kind things to say.”

Michhael Keith and Zac Sukuweh in concert at Manson’s Hall

“I’ve done some awesome gigs with my friend Zach Sukuweh  who’s just a great percussionist and fun guy.  Him and I have such a lovely rapport. We just played about a week and a half ago at the Gorge Hall  with Rick Bockner and Jerome. We each did a set and it was really, really fun.” 

Scotty Martin being interviewed at the Squirrel Cove General Store

Scotty Martin added, “Michael Keith and his wife Iris were a huge part of this community. It’s going to be a giant loss that they are gone. People around here don’t always realize how lucky we are to have such talented people. Michael and I have both been professional players. I could just call out a song, tell ’em what key and off we would play. My wife Shelly enjoyed playing with Michael.” 

“We had a great get together at Rex Weyler’s. He’s got a nice little jam space there, and it was a going away party for Michael Keith, one of the legendary guitarist entertainers of Cortes Island.” 

Rex Weyler explained “I got a call from Scotty, about a month ago and he said, ‘would you host a party for Michael and Iris who are going to leave the island?’ First of all, Michael and Iris leaving the island is a very sad thing ’cause they’ve been such a wonderful addition to the island and they’re just two beautiful people. Michael is funny, talented. He’s really brought the music quality up on the island a notch. His guitar playing and his creativity are wonderful and we will miss him. So anyway, I said to Scotty, ‘yes, we’ll have a party here for Michael’ and we did.  

“Lots of Michael’s friends showed up. We just had an afternoon in the studio here. We played music, we had a little jam, and sang some songs. We had some food, wine and beer.  It was a really nice day and it was people out on the lawn and people in the studio. Some people stayed over for dinner and so it was a really nice day.”

Rex Weyler (centre) and some of the volunteers discussing the setup for Love Fest 2024 – Roy L Hales photo

“We’re going to really miss Michael. he can’t come to LoveFest this year, but I’m going to invite him to LoveFest for 2026.” 

Michael Keith: “I love the idea. I would love  to do that. I know I’d have no problem finding a place to stay.” 

Rex Weyler: “The other thing that I found interesting with Michael and Iris moving,  I would nominate this for the longest move in the history of Canada, from Cortes Island to Nova Scotia. Has anybody moved further inside Canada? It would have to be someone going from Haida Gwaii to Newfoundland or something like that.”

Michael Keith: “I’ll miss a lot here. So  I’m a bit sad right now because of the change, but I’m focusing on the positivity.” 

Cov er of Nur Michael Keith’s track ‘Right Practise is the Moon’

Cortes Currents: Will this move be better for you musically speaking? 

Michael Keith: “It will absolutely be better, this is the added bonus for me.  I have a lot of friends in the Halifax music scene and the last number of years I haven’t played nearly as much as I really would like to have and I really miss that.  I love it here, but  being out this way has been very slow for me and  sometimes that’s got me down. So  I’m really embracing the fact that I’m going to be just outside of Halifax and I already have lots of gig offers and things. I’m  looking forward to being busy doing that again in various capacities. The music I enjoy creating, and performing the most is more on the experimental side.   When I was in Toronto, almost 10 years ago now, it was common for me. I worked for a long time in Toronto’s improvised music community.” 

“It’s a wonderful scene, but  it’s  small. I always say when you take jazz, you lose a huge part of any audience. Then you go to free jazz and then you’re talking fives of people, twos of people. But playing improvised and experimental music has taken me to some of my best gigs of my life to Taiwan and throughout Europe.”

Self portrait – taken from Nur Michael Keith’s SoundCloud page

“I’m excited about returning. There’s a good scene for that in Halifax for the type of music that I love to create, which is a little more eclectic or esoteric, or one of those words.”

“Iris and I felt very welcome when we came here and now that we’re leaving, we have lots of people reaching out to say ‘good luck,  we plan on seeing you again’ and a lot of people going, ‘you’ll be back.’ You never know, way stranger things have happened in my life.” 

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Top image credit: Screenshot taken during the interview.

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