When an eight-year-old Jocelyn Pettit told her mom to get her a violin of her own, she couldn’t have imagined the outcome.
“My mom would always want to borrow my instrument because she had played when she was younger and hadn’t played for awhile and she kept borrowing mine,” Pettit, now 20, recalled. “So I said ‘well go get your own violin’ and she did.”
The effects of her mother’s decision continue to reverberate to this very day.
A year later, her mother, Siew Wan Khoo and her father, Joel Pettit began playing together.
“We just started playing together and then we got asked to do performances and it evolved from there,” she said.
In 2004, that evolution came to fruition when the Jocelyn Pettit Band was formed.
“We haven’t looked back since,” Pettit said.
On Saturday (Feb. 14) Pettit, who has performed throughout Canada, the United States as well as France, Scotland and Malaysia, will be performing with her band on the CBC Radio-Canada Stage at the Maple Sugar Festival at the Beban Park social centre.
“This will be our second year performing at the Maple Sugar Festival,” Pettit said. “It was a blast last year and it will be a lot of fun to return.”
In 2010, Pettit released her debut self-titled record, which features a mix of Celtic, Irish, and Scottish tracks.
“That was definitely based on … the traditions that I’ve grown up with,” Pettit said.
That same year, Pettit, performed at the medal ceremony at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
“That was such a huge highlight,” she said, “It was incredible … I was so proud and honoured to be a part of it.”
The Canadian Folk Music Award nominee is currently working towards her next full-length record, which she is hoping to put out this year and will include more originals.
“I’ve just gone … and explored other kinds of music within the Celtic nation,” she said.
For the Pettit family, music has taken them far beyond the borders of British Columbia and has become a mainstay in their lives ever since they decided to form the band.
“It is something we can do together at home and on the road,” she said.
Jocelyn Pettit and her band perform at the Maple Sugar Festival on Feb. 14 at 12:30 p.m.
For more information about the Maple Sugar Festival, please visit www.francophonenanaimo.org. For information on the Jocelyn Pettit Band, visit www.jocelynpettit.com.
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