It’s time to bring on the music in Thornbury and Clarksburg.
It is the 19th annual Georgian Sound Festival which begins tonight and continues until Sunday.
Festival Organizer Tony Bauer says this year’s event is bigger and better than ever before.
The festival encompasses many different genres of music from Friday night’s Jazzmania to Big Band Saturday, a Jazz Brunch on Sunday as well as Gospelfest on Sunday.
New this year to the line up is the Thornbury and Clarksburg Youthfest running all day today at the Beaver Valley Community Centre.
The youthfest has nine different high school bands participating from Port Elgin to Penetanguishine.
Bauer says it took several years to get the youth component of the festival organized and he hopes to see it grow in spades in the coming years.
There will be a special concert to finish off the youthfest involving the principal flute player of the Georgian Bay Symphony with three of the adjudicators playing a classical piece.
Friday evening there are ten different jazz groups playing at ten different venues in Clarksburg and Thornbury.
Then on Saturday — there is the Big Band event that runs both in the afternoon and evening that features the host band which is the Georgian Sound Big Band – the Star Dust Big band as well as the Toronto All Star Big Band.
There will also be swing dancing featured as well on Saturday.
Then on Sunday there is the Jazz Brunch featuring several jazz artists — one being Juno award winner Terry Clark.
Bauer says he is one of the best drummers in the country who also holds the order of Canada.
Bauer says the festival wraps up with Gospelfest featuring several strong gospel performers.
Bauer thinks one of the reasons the festival continues to be popular is it focuses on different types of music and compared to just a jazz or big band festival.
He adds the musicians from the area as well as from the province are very supportive of the event and they never have any trouble booking artists.
For more information on the event — go online to www.georgiansoundfestival.ca