Tag Archives: Quadra Arts

Arts

Will Rendall: Keep On Smiling

Will Rendall released a CD called Keep on Smiling on May 22, 2024. Some Cortes Island residents will remember him as Julia Rendall’s son. He was 7 when he moved to Squirrel Cove in 1976.

He emailed, “I had always liked music but it wasn’t until I heard Billy Joel in 1978 that i became a rock and roll fan. I always thought his lyrics were amazing. I think it would have been around 1981 when I started writing songs. To me lyrics were the most important part of a song. 

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Arts, Community

Tales from Land Conservancies on Cortes, Quadra & 15 Other Islands

In 2021 Sheila Harrington embarked upon a three-year journey to explore the creation of local nature conservancies on 17 islands. Cortes and Quadra Islands were among them. She conducted more than 50 interviews, and wove together a chronicle of land conservancies and the people behind them since the 1990s. The resulting book, ‘Voices for the Islands, 30 Years Of Nature Conservation On The Salish Sea’ is just being released by Heritage House.

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Arts

Dave Blinzinger: The Art, The Islands And Making A Living

Dave Blinzinger has toured Canada, the United States and Europe but, by choice, primarily plays his saxophone at local venues.

“I’m from St. Louis, Missouri. My father had moved up to Cortes Island in the 70s. I lived there from 88 to 1990. At that time, well, there wasn’t very much happening on Cortes. You could go up to the Cortes Cafe on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, hang out with the fishermen and that was about it. So I moved to Quadra in 1990, basically to get a job,” he explained.

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Arts

Danny Ramadan, the enduring storyteller

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Danny Ramadan has an intriguing way of answering a question. 

“Let me tell you a story,” the Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker and longtime advocate for queer refugees says.

Ramadan is in every way a storyteller, a hakawati, who builds lyrical narrative around dichotomies; contrasting beauty with ugliness, tenderness with violence, love and loathing, all interwoven with memories bitter and sweet. 

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Arts

World premiere performance of the Corona Chorus – audio released

The Quadra Singers released a video of the world premiere performance of Dr. John Hooper’s composition Corona Chorus, which they sang at the Quadra Community Centre on December 10th and 11th, 2021.

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