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    Organiser of Wimmera's On The Brink Festival, Claudia Haenel, has arranged her line-up of musicians to live stream their performances this Saturday.

Wimmera artists to perform online for inaugural On The Brink festival

By DYLAN DE JONG

 

Organisers of an inaugural Wimmera music festival planned for Easter Saturday will forge ahead with the event, online.

Wimmera musicians including Neil Murray and Jeff Woodward will live stream performances for On The Brink festival, which was to be at Claudia Haenel’s Trust For Nature property at St Helens Plains, near Horsham.



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Ms Haenel said after COVID-19 restrictions forced her to cancel the festival, she decided to move everything online.

She said she created the festival to raise much-needed funding for Australian wildlife facing extinction, especially following this year’s catastrophic bushfire season.

“It was to fundraise for species and native animals facing extinction. All money raised will go to Wildlife Victoria,” she said.

“We’ve now had to readapt everything on the Facebook page to deliver something – we didn’t want to let go of the festival, it being our first year.”

Ms Haenel said she thought it was crucial for her to provide people with a way to stay connected in uncertain times.

“This is about maintaining everyone’s positive mental health – our mental health is affected when you can’t go out and do the things that keep us connected as social beings,” she said.

“Music is a way we can connect with other people. When we come out of this and we can deliver a live event in a space here when people are able to interact again, that’s going to be important to put smiles on our faces once again after being so restricted.

“In a decade’s time when On The Brink festival is going strong, we’ll look back on this time – it will be quite an historic time to look back on.”

Ms Haenel said she was planning to reschedule the actual live event for later this year.

“We’re looking at rescheduling the live event for September 26, and then it will become an annual event,” she said.

Wotjobaluk elder Annie Moore will lead a Welcome to Country before live streams start at 11am.

A different artist will broadcast from their home each hour, including Wimmera musicians Liz Loke, Russ Kellett, Col Funky Williams and Townsville artist Matilda Duncan.

Ms Haenel said following the festival, she would like to keep live-streamed performances going.

She encouraged musicians to get involved.

“The day after the festival, we’re going to continue to do live-streaming sessions with a different artist each evening through the On The Brink Facebook page, and 100 percent of donations will go to that particular artist,” she said.

“There’s nowhere they can go at the moment to earn money, no concerts, pub gigs, festivals – going forward we’ll continue the live-streaming event to create an income stream for these artists at 9pm every day, providing we get artists who are interested.”

Live streams will be available Saturday from 11am on Saturday online at: www.facebook.com/onthebrinkfestival/

People can donate to the festival online at www.trybooking.com/au/donate/onthebrinkfestival