. Where there i is music there can bie no 0 evil:

a gual © Cervantes |

: Pree. can be no such thing as too much music,
“too much spoken poetry and literature, too much
dance, too much art. With this early spring in the

- Northwest comes the Pacific Northwest Music

- Festival, a sustained outburst of performing arts

‘ising in unison with the crocus blooms in every

corner of the city. Like the sunshine, it’s free and
i something to be enjoyed while it’s there. _

One of the fundamental failings of our society's
prevailing and accepted attitudes is the low regard in
which the arts.in general are held, with anything
that fails to produce hard goods or hard cash being

viewed as a frivolity. We haven't come far from the .
old patronage system of the pre-industrial era, when —

‘artists were dependent on the support of the rich and

- the influential. When the adversity of circumstances.
~~ -through history for artists is taken objectively, it is.

‘a testimony to the human need for art that it ig still
with us at all. —

“. \ 4 Which is the reason the festival i is so remark-.
“able. Although it is supported financially by B.C.

Lotteries, corporations and individuals, the desire .

~and will of the organizers and performers is the
festival's structure, lifeblood and essence. There are
few ‘opportunities to unite a large audience with
artists outside the industrial-scale profits game of
pop music capitalism. This festival is, like spring, an
' annual miracle. From the ingenuous simplicity of
‘children chanting fairy tales to the arrayed complex-
. ity of a senior conservatory student playing a Bach
fugue on Piano, the festival is a chance, for a

16. |. Terrace Review — March 27, 1992

~ “ “moment, 't to put aside the. évils we. have set loose in
the world and celebrate’ the. genuine: human actom-

plishments of our society, to hear the voices of our

| : ‘cultural elders speak through our young people and

our contemporaries.
_ In the same manner. the ancient: Celts heard
their cultural voices through the. bard,- a human

repository of the tribe's: history and a musician and

poet held second only tothe: ‘king i in the social hier-
archy.. It would be difficult to sustain such a calling

today in our world of fragmented imperatives, but if

collectively we can continue to come up with a yearly
spring solstice celebration that includes readings of

William. Butler Yeats and: Robert Service then
- perhaps the'bardic tradition can remain’ alive i in a

multitude of voices.
The cost of this festival and other. regional

festivals, along with.the B.C. Festival of the Arts, is

offset by grants and sponsorships from a number of
sources; the’ major source being the provincial gov-
ernment working through the somewhat. besmirched
B.C. Lottery Corporation. That funding has not
increased since 1982, although the festivals have
grown — the B.C. Festival of the Arts is now one of
the biggest events of its kind in North America —

steadily through creative fund raising activities and
the acquisition of a variety of sponsorships. We can

only hope that, at the very least, that basic funding
from the government somehow remains intact after
the effects of yesterday's budget have shaken down.

. Even though art in its various manifestations
brings a surprising amount of money and employ-
ment into this community, the arts are worth sup-
porting simply because it is right, good and necessary
to support them, because without art our lives would
be grim, colourless, savage and for the: most part
unjustifiable, ; .