Desirée Dawson is among musicians featured during a virtual Surrey Fusion Festival. (File photo)

Digital concerts and cultural cooking challenges drive virtual Surrey Fusion Festival

Festival is typically held at Holland Park in mid-July, but shifts online during 2021 Culture Days series

Surrey’s annual celebration of multicultural music and food has moved online again, a couple months later than its usual summer date.

For 2021, a virtual Surrey Fusion Festival is part of B.C.’s month-long Culture Days series, which runs from Sept. 24 to Oct. 24.

The Coast Capital Savings-backed festival will feature a digital concert series, “Cultural Pavilion Stories” video series and cultural cooking challenges on social media. Also, a collaborative billboard painted by cultural pavilion organizers and sponsors will also be installed at Holland Park.

The digital concerts will feature music by Babylung, Desirée Dawson & Francis Arevalo, Mini Freeman, Madelaine McCallum, Royal Academy of Bhangra, Yvonne Kush and other artists.

More festival details are posted to surreyfusionfestival.ca.

• RELATED STORY: Surrey’s ‘Culture Days’ series mixes in-person, online events starting Sept. 24.

“We are excited to celebrate food, music and culture virtually in participation with Culture Days again in 2021,” said Mary Rukavina, the city’s special events manager. “This series would not be possible without our presenting sponsor Coast Capital Savings, who has shown unwavering support for Surrey Fusion Festival for over 10 years.”

The festival is funded in part by the Government of Canada.

Surrey Fusion Festival is typically held at Holland Park in mid-July, but shifted online during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with four other major annual events planned by the City of Surrey. The events are Party for the Planet, Surrey International Children’s Festival, Surrey Canada Day, Surrey Fusion Festival and Surrey Tree Lighting Festival.

Both in-person and online-only events will be featured during BC Culture Days celebrations in Surrey. The series includes a “Bees!” feature exhibit at the Museum of Surrey, showcases of art by Phyllis Atkins and Sandeep Johal at Surrey Art Gallery, online concerts by Krystle Dos Santos and Cris Derksen, art lessons, community history sessions, UrbanScreen exhibition visits, tours of Historic Stewart Farmhouse, Band-Aid youth musician development workshop, The Flame storytelling event, and more.

The website culturedays.ca/bc details all BC Culture Days events for 2021.

• READ MORE: ‘To Live and Die in Surrey’: Babylung returns home to record new album (thanks, pandemic).


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