KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
Montreal’s Urban Science Brass Band was on hand for an announcement on Mount Royal on Wednesday: Beginning in 2019, the jazz fest will be coming to a corner near you with an additional outdoor stage set up in a different borough every year until 2023. T’C
I biked up Camillien-Houde Way for the first time Wednesday morning. The occasion was a Montreal International Jazz Festival news conference in the presence of Mayor Valérie Plante.
It seemed fitting, therefore, to forgo the jazz fest press shuttle and make my own way to the lookout over downtown by cycling up the route that has become one of the defining issues of Plante’s first year in office.
Camillien-Houde was closed to through traffic at the beginning of June as part of a six-month pilot project. Net result: a total of nine vehicles passed me on my 15-minute ride up.
I heard birds chirping; felt my legs burning; had a pang of sadness as I passed the ghost bike tribute to Clément Ouimet, the 18-year-old cyclist killed on the roadway in October when he struck an SUV making a U-turn; enjoyed the view of the east-end lookout toward the Olympic Stadium as I pedalled past; and arrived at the top hot and sweaty but with a sense of mild exhilaration.
Montreal’s Urban Science Brass Band provided the funky warm-up music, to the delight of media, joggers and shimmying daycare charges, until jazz fest brass stepped up to the microphone around 10:45 to announce a pilot project of a different kind.
The 39th edition of the jazz fest begins next Thursday. But for its 40th birthday, in 2019, our city’s biggest music celebration is coming to a borough near you. The main event will take place all around Place des Arts, as per usual, but beginning next June a satellite stage will be set up in a different neighbourhood around the city, for the duration of the festival, each year through 2023.
“Imagine we carve out a stage and everything surrounding it at the jazz fest and teleport it to a vacant lot, a large schoolyard or a small park,” said festival president and general director Jacques-André Dupont.
He foresees bringing along the jazz fest’s food and beverage operations and street entertainment, while connecting with local organizations in each area.
“We want to bring the festival, but have a durable effect on the boroughs we visit,” he said, noting that the borough for next year’s trial run has not yet been chosen, but they are looking for a prime spot to launch things on the right foot.
The idea was a hit with the mayor.
“I think it’s great news,” Plante said. “It’s fantastic. It fills two important needs: making culture and the arts accessible to all kinds of people, and also giving people access to different neighbourhoods. It’s one of the strengths of Montreal, how the neighbourhoods are so different and diverse. It’s such a good fit.”
She wasn’t involved in choosing the setting for Wednesday’s press conference, which Dupont said was selected for its iconic view, but also because “it’s neutral ground,” so as not to favour any one borough out of the gate.
For Plante, it offered a chance to observe the changes to Camillien-Houde Way, which she said have been receiving a lot of positive feedback. Then, she noticed my helmet dangling from my bag.
“Oh, you came by bike? I brought my bike, too,” she exclaimed, explaining that though she didn’t cycle up the hill, she biked to work, as she does each day, then had her driver put her bicycle on the rack in the back so she could ride back down after the press conference and take in the new features installed by her administration.
“We should go together,” she said — an offer I took with a grain of salt.
I left the lookout on my own about 10 minutes later, and began the ride down, when who did I spot at a newly constructed lookout offering a breathtaking view of the west end — a few hundred metres along Camillien-Houde as you leave the parking lot — but Plante, all alone, no handlers.
“I wanted to check out the installation,” she said, walking down the ramp to her bicycle. “It’s great. They have hammocks and everything. It’s very peaceful.”
A few passing cyclists stopped to salute her, and then we were on our way.
She chatted with oblivious tourists at the east-end lookout, asking them how they liked the wood lounge/café structure, before informing them she is the mayor.
We talked a bit more on the rest of the way down, then lapsed into silence for a few moments before coming to the traffic light at the bottom, and back into city life.
“I don’t want to go back to work!” Plante lamented, with a laugh.
Truth be told, she had been on the clock the whole time. And from my front-row ( bike) seat, I can say: job well done, Madame la Mairesse.