This weekend, there will be fiddlers galore in Mackin Park in the historic Maillardville district of Coquitlam. They will be there for the 37th annual Festival du Bois, which celebrates francophone culture from various parts of Canada. It runs from Friday (March 6) to Sunday (March 8).
Maillardville was founded in 1909 by 110 French Canadians who moved west from Ontario and Quebec to work at Fraser Mills. They founded Our Lady of Lourdes, a Roman Catholic church that still stands today in the heart of the community.
“When I started planning the lineup, I kept coming back to the fiddle,” Festival du Bois artistic programming director Gabriel Dubreuil says in a news release. “It’s the heartbeat of so many francophone, folk and world music traditions. I wanted to show the many ways it can shine, whether it’s driving the tune, holding down the groove, lifting a song, or leading a dance.”
In pursuit of this goal, he sought out artists who can show different facets of French Canadian music.
One such example is Jocelyn Pettit, a Vancouver-born fiddler, stepdancer, singer, and composer. She and her band will perform at Grand Chapiteau in Mackin Park at 3:25 p.m. on Saturday (March 7).
Pettit integrates Celtic and folk traditions rooted in her Scottish, Irish, French, and Malaysian heritage. She has released five albums, including Here to Stay, which dropped last June.
Delhi 2 Dublin headlines Saturday lineup
She will be followed at 4:30 p.m. by Montreal-based indie-folk musician and fiddler Aleksi Campagne. His 2024 album, For the Giving / Sans rien donner, includes the same 10 songs in French and English. It earned him and his sister, Michelle, a Canadian Folk Music Award for French Songwriter(s) of the Year.
The Saturday fiddle-fest will continue at 5:35 p.m. with Nicolas Pelleran et Les Grands Hurleurs. Pellerin is a fiddler, vocalist, and foot percussionist. He will be joined on-stage by Louis Thibault (vocals, bouzouki, mandolin, guitar) and Philippe Girard (vocals, guitar) as they perform a danceable acoustic set drawing on Québecois, folk, rock, and other influences.
Closing out the performances on Saturday is Delhi 2 Dublin. Launched at Vancouver’s Celtic Fest in 2006, this unique band integrates Celtic fiddle-oriented sounds with Punjabi bhangra in an international musical smorgasbord that also includes dub and reggae.
One of the band’s founding members, Serena Eades, is a Berklee College of Music-trained classical violinist with a passion for various other genres, including Cape Breton, Bluegrass, and jazz. Sanjay Seran handles vocals with Ravi Binning playing the dhol (a North Indian drum). The newest member, Kal Mattu, is a master of tabla, electronics, and keys.
Locarno closes out Sunday performances
Festival du Bois will kick off Delhi 2 Dublin’s 20th-anniversary tour, which includes 19 other dates in four western provinces. (For concert dates and tickets, visit the band’s website.)
One of Delhi 2 Dublin’s founding members, Tarun Nayer, now performs as Modern Biology and won’t be on-stage in Mackin Park. Nayer has attracted 960,500 followers on TikTok as he has followed his fervour for making music with mushrooms, ancient trees, moss, seaweed, and cotton.
On Sunday (March 8), Campagne and Nicolas Pelleran et Les Grands Hurleurs will return to Grand Chapiteau on the final day of Festival du Bois. The Vancouver band Locarno will close things out at 3:15 p.m. with its high-energy, Mexican-oriented party music.
Société francophone de Maillardville will present Festival du Bois at Mackin Park in Coquitlam from Friday (March 6) to Sunday (March 8). For tickets and more information, visit the website.
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