By MEGAN WARREN
FOR ARTSPRING
The curtain goes up this Friday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m. for the Salt Spring Community Showcase! Emceed by Grace Jordan, the Showcase is a night dedicated to the world-class artists that call Salt Spring Island home. Last week, we introduced lullaby creator Lisa Maxx, alt-folk musician Matthew McKinney and puppeteer Tangle McClaron. Now, we turn the spotlight toward the final three acts of this remarkable lineup: fiddler Wesley Hardisty, the duo of Edgar Hann and Em Walker, and the student-creators of GISPA.
Showcase tickets are available now at the ArtSpring box office or online at purchase.artspring.ca.
Wesley Hardisty
For fiddler Wesley Hardisty, stepping onto the ArtSpring stage for the Showcase is a full-circle moment. Having spent his teenage years in the building as a GISPA student, Hardisty views this performance as a chance to return as a full-fledged professional and share his evolution with the community that nurtured his start.
Hardisty first picked up the fiddle at age 12 in his hometown of Fort Simpson, NWT. He began composing original music almost immediately, developing a signature sound that pays homage to West Coast and Métis styles alongside the “odd time-signatured, crooked fiddle tunes” of the Gwich’in style. This creative drive has culminated in a landmark year: Hardisty was recently awarded both a Canada Council for the Arts grant and an OHSOTO’KINO Recording Bursary. He is currently preparing to record two separate 10-track albums of original material, slated for release early next year.
At the Showcase, Hardisty will ignite the room with jigs and reels from his “Exodus Set.” While his technical mastery is undeniable, he views music primarily as a vessel for connection. He speaks joyfully of sharing the stage with Charlie Gannon and Sam Howard at the recent Stowel Lake Hootenanny Square Dance and looks forward. At the Showcase, he’s thrilled to be supported by guitarist Justin Kelley of Fawkes and Hownd. “It’s one thing to be a solo player,” he says. “But to be a musician who gets to work with others. At that point, it feels like community.”
Edgar Hann & Em Walker
When Edgar Hann draws the bellows of his button accordion and Em Walker strikes a rhythm on the ugly stick, the 5,000 kilometres between Newfoundland and Salt Spring Island seem to vanish. As the only duo on the island performing with these traditional instruments, they bring a singular East Coast energy to the local scene. If you caught their performances at the 2026 Newfie New Year’s celebration, you know their sound coaxes even the most resolute non-dancers to tap their feet.
Edgar, a Newfoundlander who spent his youth living off the land, is a self-taught master who plays entirely by ear. “I didn’t know what was happening at first,” he recalls of his start at age 12. “All of a sudden, I was picking up short notes, then melodies, and suddenly it was a fast jig. It was a gift.”
Em, a former professor who researched the ancestral links between Irish and Newfoundland melodies, provides the historical heartbeat. She explains that the music carries echoes of the Irish famine, blending resilient joy with a longing for what is left behind. While songs like “Fields of Athenry” are plaintive, Em notes that people from anywhere can relate to the themes of home and displacement.
Joined by Wilf Davies on keyboard and William Steiner on bass, the pair will perform two songs with Newfoundland and Irish ties and a stirring cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” They will close with a high-energy jig, punctuated by Em on the ugly stick—handcrafted by Edgar and complete with beer bottle caps and a cowbell. In the spirit of a true kitchen party, they invite the audience to do more than listen: they invite you to tap your feet, dance the jig, and find a joyful sense of home in the music.
GISPA
At the Gulf Islands School of Performing Arts (GISPA), the stage is a laboratory. For the Showcase, 16 student-creators in Grades 10–12 will premiere an excerpt from their year-end production of The Little Prince, based on the novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This is no traditional adaptation; it is the result of extensive collective creation where every note, step and line is student-led.
Music teacher Michelle Footz notes that the original score “comes from their brains,” with students composing pieces that range from psychedelic textures to Baroque-style waltzes. Meanwhile, dancers (led by Sonia Langer) choreograph the movements while theatre students (led by Jason Donaldson) refine a script. The three disciplines then work together to weave a cohesive piece. Beyond the spotlight, these students are the designers and builders behind the sets, costumes and lighting. It is a true ensemble-based program where even the lead characters help move sets backstage.
Their Showcase set spotlights three scenes: the Introduction, the Rose Garden and The King. These vignettes explore childhood wonder while offering, as GISPA says in the performance’s description, “an indictment of adult priorities that hasten the loss of that wonder.”
Through this work, one theatre student wants to “bring people back to childhood ideals, where they can be less concerned with matters of consequence and more concerned with joy and creation.” Says another, “With age, you do lose pieces of your past, but we’d like to show people how to bring back and unearth the joy that they once had.”
As the students prepare to take the ArtSpring stage, they invite the community to unearth their own sense of whimsy and witness the clarity that emerges when a young creative ensemble finds its collective voice.