If you lived in Clearwater in the 1990s or early 2000s, chances are you know the Holtbys.
Four members of the family, Beth, Jess, Teddy and Mitch, plus special guest Jesse Cunningham, plan to return to Clearwater to perform at the first Dutch Lake Music Night of the season on Thursday evening, July 7.
The concert at Dutch Lake Community Centre will begin at XX p.m.
The Holtby family settled in Clearwater in 1989 after Doug Holtby accepted a job as pastor of the Clearwater Evangelical Free Church. He and his wife, Charlene, invested much into the community, with Doug pastoring and coaching sports, and Charlene leading choirs, founding moms and tots play groups, and teaching in Clearwater and Vavenby.
The couple raised four children: Bethany, Jessica, Teddy, and Mitchell. The kids all attended Raft River Elementary and then Clearwater Secondary, before graduating and spreading out across the globe. Thanks to their parents’ passion for music, all four kids became performing artists. Bethany and Jessica would often perform at Sam Willan’s music nights at the former Flour Meadow Bakery (now the Hop n’ Hog).
In 2006 Doug and Charlene moved back to Edmonton, where they met decades earlier while attending the University of Alberta. The kids moved on, too. Bethany, the eldest, has spent the last several years in Europe, where her husband, Jermaine Bucknor, plays basketball professionally. Teddy works as a realtor in New York. Jess and Mitch are in Edmonton, where Jess is completing a Master’s in French translation and Mitch is pursuing his music.
Special guest Jesse Cunningham is an Edmonton-based singer/songwriter and instrumentalist. He’s been performing with the Holtbys for nearly a decade and has recently begun a solo career. His experience with many instruments, and many languages, makes his set multi-layered and intriguing.
