Fort St. John City to sponsor Face the Music Workshops

Fort St. John City Council agreed on Monday’s meeting to grant $20,000 in sponsorship funding to ‘Face the Music’, a Music Capital of Northern B.C. initiative, that aims to offer music workshops in the City.

The goal of Face the Music is to hold up to ten workshops with touring artists, who, along with coming to the City to play concerts, will also attend the workshops that will help grow interest, education, professional development, business investment and overall community involvement in the arts.  They also want to build media attention towards the project with the idea of building business support and increasing tourism in the City.  In addition to this they wish to further enhance the visibility of Fort St. John as the Music Capital of the North.

The first artist that is expected to conduct a workshop will be Peter Katz who will offer his skills to provide a workshop on the craft of songwriting.    Katz has stated that Fort St. John is one of his favourite cities to visit, and it is the belief of Face the Music, that workshopos like these will encourage other musicians to feel the same way.

City Council opted to release to money immediately so the initiative would not experience any delays in getting of the ground.  They will allocate the $20,000 sponsorship as part of the 2011 operating budget.