ZOOM wants to celebrate the people whose talent, drive, and devotion serve to elevate the sunshine coast. For this issue we’ve chosen hardworking people who consistently “take it to the next level.”
Duane Burnett
A familiar name and a familiar figure here on the Coast, Duane Burnett has worked as a television host and producer, an actor, MC, and has twice won the Community Spirit business award. His fearless ebullience has given confidence, tone, and support to many important events and fundraisers here. A great many causes and businesses have him to thank for their visibility and success. Originally from Gibsons, Burnett grew up in Ladner, where he first learned the satisfaction of making a difference by championing wetland protection and education. He earned a BA in political science from UBC and eventually returned to the Sunshine Coast for work.
Burnett created the Sunshine Coast BC Canada Facebook page in 2010, which in the past decade has grown to become the number-one community page on the Coast, with 36,000 followers reaching upward of 2.5 million people a month. Over the years he has worked for local and national media as a photographer and videographer. Now he enjoys his broad reach as an influencer to help empower, elevate, and celebrate our community. Many locals know him as “Mr Sunshine Coast” and the “#1 Ambassador for the Sunshine Coast.”
“I partner with a lot of local businesses, charities, fundraisers, and events to make my social network and followers accessible to them so we can come together to empower the community.”
Burnett was ZOOM’s first featured photographer, with a multi-page spread in our inaugural issue ten years ago. His dedication to life on the Coast has been unwavering, and ZOOM is honoured to shine the spotlight on him again.
Kenneth Norman Johnson
Some people take it to the next level and bring as many others along with them as they can.
Kenneth Norman Johnson’s involvement in music spans more than six decades. As a composer, educator, performer, recording artist, director, and producer he has always made it a priority to connect with listeners and to inspire collaborators. His original solo piano recordings found audiences around the world, and he still gets emails from fans. Like the couple on safari in Kenya. “They were sitting watching the sunset, enjoying a glass of fine South African wine,” he laughs, “and they wrote that they’d brought one of my CDs with them. They thought I might like to know. They were right.”
Johnson has been on the Sunshine Coast more than ten years and has always sought ways to contribute. He served as chair of the Loon Foundation and on the board of Chamber of Commerce. Putting together fundraising theme nights for the Chamber, using local caterers and a line-up of local performers, has been a highlight. The small community’s enthusiasm was gratifying. “The Theme Nights (New York Club Night, Chicago Club Night, Masquerade) have been a blast. People come in costume, ready to party and donate. I can’t wait till we can do these again.”
His original productions, including The Quest, Castles in the Snow, Black and White with a Touch of Colour, and Eutierria, all used local casts and musicians. Eutierria (a nature-themed production commissioned by the Sechelt Arts Festival in 2018) came together with a small but mighty cast including children, teens, a dancer, chorus, soloists, and musicians. It is Johnson’s passion to bring out the best in performers, a drive that serves him well in his role as director of two local choirs, the Pender Harbour Choir and the Coastal Lights Choir. Grim times to be involved in choir? “Well yes, it has been. It’s been a year and a half of no gathering to sing. We have all missed it so much! But after checking with some of the larger choirs in Vancouver, and realizing that they are finding ways to proceed, Coastal Lights is going ahead, masked and vaccinated, according to health orders. We’ve chosen what we hope will be an engaging, low-stress program for our winter concert, to ease us back into it.”
Linda Williams
It’s not easy to summarize the contributions of Linda Williams to the arts scene on the Sunshine Coast. Williams has been involved as a producer, organizer, musician and collaborator, board member, representative, and as a volunteer in both the visual arts community and the music community since what seems like the dawn of time. She has worked in almost every capacity, from deftly running the show to cheerfully adding volunteer muscle. As ZOOM communicated with Williams for this article, she was busy putting the finishing organizational touches (brochures, online launch party, everything in between) on this year’s Art Crawl.
Her producing, steering, and/or organizational contributions extend to a wide array of events including:
The Sunshine Coast Jazz & Entertainment Society (since 1995), the Gibsons Landing Jazz Festival (for twenty-six years), dances in the Roberts Creek Hall, concerts all over the Coast (too many to count), the first Virtual Jazz Festival (last year), the Coast Cultural Alliance (since 1998), many programs over the years, including the Purple Banner Guide (since 1999), the Malibu Arts Retreat, the Artesia Coffee House (for seventeen years), the Sunshine Coast Art Crawl (since 2010), an interactive website with an ongoing community calendar (since 2003), the Sunshine Coast Arts Council (for ten years), and Music in the Landing (2003–2017).
As well, she performs in the Balkan singing group, Sokole, and in the Knotty Dotters, a high-energy, talented marimba band.
How why does she do it? “I seem to have a deep sense of service.”
Williams has mothered our arts scene with energy, tenacity, and integrity, taking it from from nascent to something that is big and growing in surprising ways. She attributes her efficacy to an emphasis on inclusivity. She says it is vital “to be as inclusive as possible and as non-judgmental as possible. With the Coast Cultural Alliance this is part of our ‘Basis for Unity,’ which also means we will never jury art of any discipline.”
Connecting artists to each other and to eager audiences leads to powerful synergies. “I also love to observe the results of the connections I am able to make between/among artists . . . and I’ve been fortunate to be able to meet and work with an amazing community of folks. All of this seems to feed my soul and energizes me to look forward to just what might happen next!”
Jane Davidson
Sometimes “taking it to the next level” can be a strenuous and uncomfortable process. And sometimes a person comes along with exactly the skills, contacts, and drive to make an already thriving event take off like never before. Jane Davidson has lived on the Sunshine Coast for twenty-eight years and has, for the past fifteen years, been artistic and executive director for the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts.
With a background in arts administration and having been general manager of the Vancouver Writers’ Festival for six years, she brought to our already thriving festival all that was needed. “It was wonderful,” she says, “to be able to build on the relationships I had with funders, publishers, and writers at the VWF and bring them to my work here on the Sunshine Coast.”
The astounding location, top-notch presenters, and keen audiences make an invitation to our smoothly run festival a coveted thing in writers’ circles. Davidson works hard to maintain this reputation.
“Our focus is twofold and really quite simple: to produce a festival that reflects the diversity of contemporary Canadian writing and to create the best possible experience for writers and our audience. We are so fortunate to host this event in this beautiful territory, shíshálh swiya, with such incredible support from our volunteers, community, and audience.”
The Festival will be forty years old in 2022 and, while definitive planning is tricky at this time, Davidson is optimistic. “I’m hopeful, and have already started the programming process. I know we will find a way to celebrate this amazing achievement.”
Frances Heinsheimer Wainwright
The Coast Recital Society, founded by Allan Crane, has been quietly organizing high-quality musical experiences for Sunshine Coast residents since 1994. Bringing the best musicians to smaller, more remote communities, and assembling and nurturing receptive audiences, takes the right connections, a flare for organization, and a great deal of passion.
Frances Heinsheimer Wainwright has all that and more. After working as a CBC music producer for thirty years, she retired and moved to the Coast and immediately joined the Coast Recital Society as artistic director.
The society’s mission is to engage world-class classical musicians. Operating as a non-profit, it is dedicated to the presentation of the finest recitals and chamber music for Sunshine Coast audiences.
These performances have featured a long list of musicians, such as pianists Angela Hewitt and Janina Fialkowska, conductor and trombonist Alain Trudel, and the sought-after Elmer Iseler Singers.
The society also supports local musicians through scholarships, master classes, and workshops. These are valuable opportunities to work with the very highest calibre of musicians. Katherine Hume, president of the Sunshine Coast branch of the Registered Music Teachers Association, is personally and professionally delighted with Wainright’s efficacy in providing opportunities for students of music. This is taking it to the next level, indeed.
Hume states, “The Registered Music Teachers of the Sunshine Coast Branch are very grateful to the Coast Recital Society and Frances Heinsheimer Wainwright, whose vision and commitment to excellence have provided our community with the opportunity to hear great artists perform live. Our students have directly benefited from master classes with guest artists and the generous scholarship program offered annually to local music students at the intermediate, senior, and post-secondary level.”
From the perspective of visiting performers, many of whom are dedicated to outreach, Wainright’s achievements are equally valued. Lydia Adams, artistic director of Toronto’s Elmer Iseler Singers, enthuses,“The Elmer Iseler Singers were so thrilled to be a part of the concert series in Sechelt for the Coast Recital Society and to sing in such an inspiring venue as the Raven’s Cry Theatre in the midst of so much intense beauty, and before such an appreciative audience. It was a most memorable night for us, and we applaud the work and dedication of Frances Heinsheimer Wainwright and the Coast Recital Society’s entire leadership team in creating such a magnificent concert series within the magic of BC’s glorious Sunshine Coast.”
