One of the Sunshine Coast’s most community-minded ensembles, the Coast String Fiddlers, launched its new season in September with a redoubled commitment to renewal. The group is known for lively performances and has been typically guided by a dedicated instructor. This season, though, the group has been following a new path without a permanent instructor.
The board of directors for the Coast String Fiddlers has faced difficulties in securing a regular leader for the group. Its president, Atsushi Sato, emphasized a consistent message to members: “Don’t stop the music.”
“The group will not only survive but grow stronger with each challenge,” Sato wrote in a message to the Coast Reporter. “This season happened to have become a unique opportunity for members to build leadership, resilience, and deeper friendships through shared experiences.”
Local music teachers have stepped in as guest instructors, including Michelle Bruce, who founded the ensemble in the 1990s. Simon Gidora, a former member of Coast String Fiddlers with training from McGill University and the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music, also offered his support. “I’m already getting excited about the possibilities with such a strong group,” said Gidora.
In April 2025 the group plans to attend the Rocky Mountain Fiddle Summit in Calgary. Inspired by positive experiences in Nanaimo last April, the group is eager to connect with other fiddlers at the summit while gaining new skills to enrich the Sunshine Coast music community.
The fiddlers have announced a special fundraising event: the Coast String Fiddlers Beer and Burger Fundraiser on Tuesday, Nov. 26, at Tapworks Brewing Company (537 Cruice Lane, Gibsons). The group has invited community supporters to indulge in music and food while raising funds for its journey to Calgary.
“Together, we can keep the music alive, bringing joy and inspiration to our community and beyond,” added Sato.
Tickets can be purchased online by browsing to tinyurl.com/coaststringfiddlers.
Lip-smacking entertainment
The Sunshine Coast Film Society will present the award-winning film The Taste of Things on Monday, Nov. 25 at 7:30 p.m. at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons and on Thursday, Nov. 28 at 2 p.m. at the Raven’s Cry Theatre in Sechelt.
The Taste of Things is a French historical romantic drama set in 1885 that stars Juliet Binoche as Eugénie. Eugénie has worked as a cook for the preeminent gourmet Dodin (Benoit Magimel) for the last two decades. Their mutual admiration turns into romance which gives rise to succulent dishes.
But Eugénie is fond of her freedom and has never wanted to marry Dodin, so he decides to woo her by doing something he has never done before: cook for her. Cinephiles who relished Babette’s Feast will savour this movie.
Film society membership is required to attend screenings. Memberships and tickets are available for cash at the door and online at scfs.ca (ages 18+).
Metamorphic masterpieces
An ongoing exhibition at Joe’s Lounge at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery features acrylic paintings by Sunshine Coast-based artist Colin Righton. His series of bold canvases (“Rocks in Hard Places”) interpret familiar landmarks of the Coast and beyond. Gospel Rock, the monolith on Langdale Beach, and brilliant-hued bluffs of Thormanby Island are among more than a dozen landscapes on display.
Righton’s visions are distinguished by dynamic upswells of geologic energy. “I think we’re standing on top of chaos,” he said, “and that’s what my paintings are. You go down a kilometre and everything’s bubbling away, it’s hot, it’s energized. Even the mountains are actually growing.”
Righton was raised in an English coastal town with a view of the Isle of Wight. A childhood drawing of The Needles (three chalk sea-stacks) presaged his later crimson-hued acrylic rendering of the same site. “This is a revisitation, not better, but different,” he wrote in an accompanying statement.
Artistic representation of nature, in Righton’s view, is synonymous with motion. Even the flesh of his Nude on the Rocks seems to ripple and heave atop her granite perch. “That’s the nature of art,” he said. “It encapsulates one person’s experience and how they’ve been able to communicate it in either a piece of music or within a frame or an hour’s worth of dance. It’s all a little capsule of energy that is being communicated to anyone who can recognize it as such and absorb it.”
Righton’s paintings are on display at GPAG until Nov. 30.
