Maine Acoustic Festival

We had a pretty cool weekend checking out the Maine Acoustic Festival. On Saturday, there was a free workshop with Daniel Bernard Roumain, a famous violinist and composer https://www.sozoartists.com/dbr/. The event was very inspiring; he spent a lot of time empowering the kids, encouraging them to declare themselves and be proud of their identity and their instruments. One exercise he did was point to people and have them say their name confidently. Sometimes he would gesture everyone to repeat that name in unison. When it was Meo's turn he said both his full and last name, which led to Daniel coming to kneel down at his level and thanking him for giving him permission to ask for last names and for being brave and for teaching him something new. It was pretty cool!. He also taught them how to make some cool sound effects with his violin, played for them, and orchestrated all of us in playing/singing the National Anthem. We all had a great time and were glad to share that experience with some of our great friends.

Here are some photos that the Portland Press Herald took of the event:

Meo and Emma; photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

Danile playing in front of Meo; photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

I look happy hehe; photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

Portland Ovations posted about that moment between Daniel and Meo on their Instagram feed:

And here are a few photos I snapped of the workshop:

Meo with Kiara and Emma

phone photos of the whole group

Silly pose; photo by Tallie

Photo by Tallie

The workshop was run by 317 Main Community Center, and after the workshop they invited us to attend the student showcase portion of the Maine Acoustic Festival the next day. The boys and I were excited at the opportunity to hear the middle school and high school students make some wonderful Irish, Americana, and Contra music. They were wonderful!