Tina Fedeski, executive director of the Leading Note Foundation, will be presented with a Peace Award.
For the past four years, Tina Fedeski has transformed her lifelong love for music into a Centretown charity, a move making her one of this year’s Peace Award recipients.
Up to four times a week, children aged five to 16 take up their donated instruments and gather in the Bronson Centre to make music. Fedeski calls it OrKidstra, one of the programs she founded as executive director of the Leading Note Foundation.
Now entering its fifth year, she estimates 200 children will register for choir and instrumental lessons this fall.
What began as the Leading Note music store on Elgin Street branched into a charity offering group music lessons to children who otherwise would be unable to afford them. Part of the registration process requires parents to complete a form disclosing their income, which determines tuition fees through a sliding scale system.
“Almost all the children enjoy these activities free of charge,” Fedeski said in an email.
As a professional flutist, Fedeski has felt the bonding experience of playing in an orchestra. “The priority is always on group lessons . . . so that they’re working together and they’re creating harmony together,” she says.
It’s a philosophy that caught the attention of Friends for Peace, a non-profit organization that raises awareness for peace, the environment and social justice. Since 2003, founder Ian Prattis organizes Friends for Peace Day, which takes place this weekend at city hall.
Prattis says the annual celebration encourages people from different backgrounds to mingle in a comfortable environment.
As part of the day’s festivities, Mayor Jim Watson will present the Peace Awards.
The Friends for Peace board of directors issues these awards to acknowledge individuals who have “really gone the extra mile . . . to change things in a positive direction,” says Prattis.
Fedeski says notification of her Peace Award came as a surprise. “We’re completely and absolutely humbled,” she says.
Peace Awards also go to Ottawa’s Bill Bhaneja, co-founder of the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative, and to Peter Stockdale, president of City of Peace Ottawa and CDPI’s National Youth Coordinator.
Jean Beliveau from Montreal committed 11 years to promoting the United Nations International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World. He began his World Wide Walk around the planet in 2000, and will arrive in Ottawa just in time to receive his Peace Award.
In light of Fedeski’s award, OrKidstra will be one of the performing groups at Friends for Peace Day, bringing together people of all colours, languages and cultures. Prattis says the event encourages people to build bridges and to meet someone from a different background.
“We learn to appreciate the difference,” says Prattis.
With more than 24 languages spoken amongst the children in the music group, Fedeski says the diversity of OrKidstra is “very representative” of Canada, where people of different ethnicities form friendships.
“Music is the byproduct,” she says. “It’s the instrument . . . of creating that social development.”
Although the charity holds fundraisers, Fedeski says they are “completely dependent” on grants and donations. She estimates the Ottawa community has donated $100,000 worth of instruments since she started the program. Grant providers include the Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Trillium Foundation, the Community Foundation of Ottawa, the City of Ottawa, and Telus.
The music program’s philosophy echoes the themes of peace, unity and harmony in the fifth annual Ottawa Peace Festival. Bookended by the International Days of Peace, on Sept. 21, and Non-Violence on Oct. 2, the festival offers 23 events, all with free admission.
Events take place at various locations around the city, including the Ottawa Public Library, Carleton University and Saint Paul University.
Featuring art, music and discussions, Bhaneja, who co-convened the festival with Stockdale, says the festival is meant to cover all the facets of peace.
The Peace Awards, coupled with the celebratory ambience of the festival, paints an optimistic picture. To Stockdale, however, the 12-day event also raises awareness for a deeper issue.
“Peace in this country didn’t happen by itself,” he says. “It was something which required time and effort and consideration and good will.”