By Maryam Khan
As children danced barefoot in front of the stage and others settled onto the hillside overlooking a forest on a summer Saturday evening, the Convent Glen Orléans Wood Community Association’s inaugural Music in the Woods Festival on July 25 delivered something Orléans has long been missing: a major live music event close to home.
For lead director Arnold van den Hoeven, the idea began with a simple question: Why should Orléans residents have to leave their neighbourhood to experience live music?
Inspired by festivals such as Bluesfest, CityFolk and the Ottawa Jazz Festival, van den Hoeven envisioned a much smaller event that could grow into an annual summer tradition for the east end. Funding through the Ottawa 200 Civic Events Grant made that vision possible
“You tend to have to leave your neighbourhood to go and do just about anything,” said van den Hoeven, describing Orléans as a “bedroom community” that lacks many of the attractions of downtown Ottawa.
He said suburban life often provides few opportunities for neighbours to connect outside of passing one another in their driveways.
“Especially in the winter, people arrive, and the garage door goes up and they drive in and it goes down,” he said. “There are just less occasions to be bumping into your neighbours.”
Music in the Woods was designed to create what van den Hoeven calls “happy collisions” — moments where people who otherwise might never meet spend an afternoon together.
“People are going to have a really amazing musical experience here that traditionally we’ve had to travel across town to have these kinds of moments,” he said.
With support from the Ottawa 200 Civic Events team, city councillors Matt Luloff (Orléans East-Cumberland) and Laura Dudas (Orléans West-Innes), plus a team of volunteers, the association organized the free, all-ages festival featuring local food vendors, family activities and live music throughout the afternoon.
Association members and artistic directors Jason Yin and Leah Cogan assembled a lineup that showcased local talent alongside award-winning Indigenous singer-songwriter Mimi O’Bonsawin, the headline act.
Yin said he and van den Hoeven first met through their children, and their friend group evolved into the Convent Glen Orléans Wood Community Association. As the organization grew, so did conversations about bringing more cultural events to Orléans.
“People shouldn’t have to leave Orléans every time they want to see live music,” Yin said, echoing the sentiment expressed by van den Hoeven.
Yin also recruited students from the Allegro School of Music, where he studies under owner Juliette Kirk, giving young performers an opportunity to share the stage with established local artists.
Kirk said her students don’t get a lot of opportunities to perform locally. Her daughter, Morgan Hamilton-Kirk, said she hopes attendance at the inaugural festival demonstrates that residents want more events like it.
“I think this will show the movers and shakers that people in Orléans do want this sort of thing,” she said. “We deserve the funding for it.”
The festival ran from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. beside a wooded area overlooking the Ottawa River. By mid-afternoon, much of the hillside surrounding the stage had filled with lawn chairs and picnic blankets, while families wandered between booths serving local beer, lemonade, ice cream and food from local vendors.
A tent for free massages attracted a steady stream of parents taking a break while their children played, moving between the face-painting booth, the bouncy castle and the playground just up the hill.
For some attendees, the festival created exactly the kind of unexpected connections van den Hoeven hoped for.
Gilles Bergeron, a senior Rockland resident, had not planned on attending the event at all. Cycling his usual morning route, Bergeron heard one of the bands rehearsing and stopped to see what was happening. Enjoying the music, he decided to stay for the rest of the afternoon.
“It’s refreshing for Orléans, because to have fun you usually have to go to Ottawa or Kanata,” Bergeron said. “Orléans is realizing it’s bigger than it used to be.”
By the evening, Bergeron had discovered local musicians he had never heard before, received a free massage that helped him walk straighter, and spent hours talking with people he otherwise never would have met.
He even left with a woman’s phone number.
His experience reflected the kind of community interaction van den Hoeven hoped the festival would create: neighbours and strangers coming together through a shared experience.
The lineup reflected the festival’s emphasis on local performers from all demographics. Students from Allegro opened the afternoon before children’s entertainer Kieran Howes of Monkey Rock invited young audience members onto the stage for an interactive performance. Local bands Foule Pin and Willow and The Deep followed, featuring van den Hoeven and Cogan themselves, before O’Bonsawin’s closing performance.
By 6 p.m., even more people had gathered across the hillside as O’Bonsawin took the stage.
She called the gig “the most local I’ve done,” despite growing up in the Ottawa Valley. She mentioned that her parents’ medical practice is in Orléans.
Performing barefoot throughout her set, O’Bonsawin drew families toward the front of the stage. Young children danced while parents clapped from lawn chairs and blankets, and audience members sang along as the sun began to set over the hill.
For van den Hoeven, this was the moment he had been waiting for, and which confirmed the festival’s success.
“That moment where people are unified and having an experience together … that’ll be the real success, seeing what I like to call collective effervescence,” he said prior to the event. “When everybody comes together and you’re having a positive experience at the same time.”
Near the front of the stage, a little girl wearing an oversized Canada Day T-shirt was the first to start dancing. Before long, more children joined her, while parents watched from the hillside and voices across the lawn joined O’Bonsawin’s.
It was exactly the kind of evening van den Hoeven had hoped to create — a place where neighbours could gather, meet one another and imagine what Orléans’ own summer festival might become.
