Northern Sask. teen siblings gear up for gig at bluegrass music festival

Teen siblings Leander and Eris Worm have travelled south from Stanley Mission, Sask., to jam with other musicians and perform at the Northern Lights Bluegrass and Old Tyme Music Festival. 

Eris, 14, and Leander, 16, are excited to hit the stage together during the festival this weekend at the Ness Creek festival site.

"It's a lot better than just being solo because you can have a lot more confidence," Leander said. 

"Because we've known each other all of our lives, we're so comfortable with each other," said Eris, who sings and plays guitar and ukulele. Her brother plays the bass. 

The duo is relatively new to performing. 

"We first started a few months back," said Leander, explaining that they have only played a few gigs, at places like the Stanley Mission graduation and the Napatak Ramble in La Ronge. 

Their music teacher Eliza Doyle said they didn't hesitate when asked to play a "tweener" set on the mainstage for this festival. 

"These guys are really really brave, like a lot of people when they start playing music don't necessarily perform in front of people, or they can be really shy," she said. "They were like, 'yeah we're going to do it, let's do.'" 

Doyle met Eris when the girl was in Grade 5 and Leander last year when he started taking bass lessons. Doyle, a musician and educator, has established a community arts mentorship program (CAMP) that operates in remote and under-served communities like Stanley Mission, which is about 390 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

The program runs in eight northern communities. Doyle said CAMP partnered with the festival so that people from all eight communities could participate in a music camp that took place just before the event. 

"Then they get to perform on the main stage, so we're really grateful for that partnership this year." 

Doyle said the purpose of CAMP is to create opportunities for connections throughout the province, helping musicians and music teachers travel north and south to collaborate and learn. 

CAMP's goal is to strengthen the role music and art plays in culture, community, identity and self-esteem for youth, adults and elders in the communities. 

Doyle said she wasn't planning on starting the non-profit. She had only planned to run a five-week music program in Stanley Mission in 2019. But at the end of the five weeks, the community members asked her to keep it going. 

She said they told her, "don't be like everybody else who comes in and leaves."

Doyle is a touring musician, but figured she could swing a couple of months a year in the community. She also worked to bring other music educators on board and now has a "whole fleet" of teachers to run programming in the communities. 

She said they don't branch out into a new community until they're sure they can commit for the long-term. 

"It strengthens communities, it brings people together. It's really fun to play music together and to perform." 

Doyle is also hopeful young musicians who go through the program, like the Worm siblings, will help carry on the music education for the next generation.

Even though the duo is new to performing, the pair has already learned a lot of lessons about playing music.

"It doesn't always go the way you planned it, you just have to go with it," Eris said.

"You can't really just start shredding on the guitar, like slappin' the bass or just doing anything cool. You've gotta start with the basics first," Leander added.

Doyle and her fellow music educators will also hold workshops this weekend throughout the festival on reconciliation and about their programming in northern Saskatchewan.