Jon Bartlett (Special Event)

Jon Bartlett is one of the most knowledgeable resources on the folk music of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. He's got a great voice, too. His singing history begins with being a choirboy in a high Anglican church, followed shortly thereafter by hearing singers on the Aldermaston to London anti-bomb marches of the early sixties. The songs he learned there, mostly Scottish parodies of American folk tunes, drew him to British folk clubs, his local being the Stanford in Brighton. The first song he ever led there was ?Solidarity Forever!?. He found the Vancouver Folk Song Society (VFSS) within weeks of emigrating to Canada in 1968, and he's been a member ever since. It was through the VFSS that he met and began to work with Phil Thomas, on his collection of songs of British Columbia, and then on his book, Songs of the Pacific Northwest.Jon also met his wife Rika Ruebsaat at the VFSS. They sang at folk festivals and folk clubs across the country and in the US. They published Canada Folk Bulletin, a bi-monthly national magazine about folk music. Frustrated by the beginner-level educational workshops they were continually forced to give because of limited schools budgets, Jon and Rika decided in 1981 to train as teachers so they could pursue the incorporation of Canadian folk songs into the curriculum. Rika became a Music specialist and then a classroom teacher in Surrey, BC (from where she retired in 2007) and Jon became a classroom teacher in Vancouver and later a researcher on First Nations issues.Jon and Rika moved to Princeton, BC, in June 2007, where they founded the Princeton Traditional Music Society. Modelled on the sister VFSS in Vancouver, the Princeton group, in addition to regular meetings, organizes the Princeton Traditional Music Festival, held each August. Jon and Rika are carrying out research in the Princeton Archives into vernacular song in southern BC. They are also working on a new history of Princeton, which they hope to publish for the 150th Anniversary of the founding of the town.Contact Andy or Sondra Wallace by phone or e-mail to make sure they reserve space for you in the front hall of historic Mount Lubentia for an evening with Jon Bartlett.