Burnaby receives national award for music program

The City of Burnaby announced on Monday, Oct. 21, that it received the Creative City Network of Canada I.D.E.A. award for the Harmony for All program. The program officially launched in 2022 and provides musical instruments and scholarships for Burnaby residents in financial need. 

According to the Creative City Network of Canada website, “The I.D.E.A. Award recognizes significant contributions by an individual, organization, or municipality working in the cultural sector that exemplifies the principles of I.D.E.A. (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) through cultural programs and initiatives including reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and communities.” 

The Beacon spoke with Coun. Joe Keithley, who started the program, about where the idea came from and Burnaby’s plans for the program. 

In the 2000s, Keithley noticed a trend in which the provincial government cut spending for music lessons in school. As a musician and member of D.O.A. punk rock band, he said he found the trend concerning and saddening. As a high-school student in Burnaby, music played an essential role in improving his social life and connecting with other school kids. 

“When I was going to high school, I went to Burnaby North, and I grew up here in Burnaby, me and my friends weren’t the most popular people in school, but when we started playing guitar and drums and stuff like that, some of the other kids would go, ‘Wow, you guys got a band’,” Keithley said. “We were just starting out; we weren’t particularly good or anything like that, but so many people were impressed, and it was a friend-maker.”  

When Keithley was elected to council in 2018, he wanted to create a program that would combine music with community building in Burnaby and help children and adults who would not otherwise have access to musical instruments or lessons. 

“We’ve got so much diversity in Burnaby; there’s over 130 languages spoken. This is a way for people to make friends. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, who you are, or what your background is because everybody loves music,” Keithley said. “Music is a unifier, a friend maker, and I call it the international language of harmony. That’s where I came up with the idea for the title Harmony for All.” 

The program was supposed to start a few years ago but was delayed due to COVID. Keithley and Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley led two instrument drives during the Christmas season in 2018 and 2019 along with some local firefighters to collect donated instruments from people throughout Burnaby. They gathered almost 900 instruments.

“The mayor and I and about six firefighters were just collecting instruments and taking down the people’s information and thanking them and storing them in the truck because I think both times we did, it was raining like crazy since it was around Christmas time.” 

Then COVID hit, and everything was put on hold until 2022, when the city finally launched Harmony for All. Since then, fine arts coordinator Tanya Rankin and arts manager Yvonne Chu have managed the program.  

Keithley said the biggest challenge was providing music lessons for people who faced barriers to participation. The Burnaby Firefighters Charitable Society pledged to donate $100,000 over 10 years, at $10,000 annually, to start a scholarship program. 

“You can buy a guitar and a guitar scope for $300 or $400, lessons could be well over $1,000 to get to a point where you start becoming good at playing it,” Keithely said. “That’s a lot of money for families that don’t have the money. And we know in the time we’re in, people are having a hard time paying for rent, paying for food, paying for their kids’ sports and stuff like that.” 

According to the City of Burnaby, since it launched in 2022, more than 2,500 Burnaby residents have benefitted from the program. The city has refurbished 618 donated instruments, with 363 currently on loan. Since the scholarship program started in 2023, 24 individuals have received scholarships for music lessons. 

The city funds the program through a combination of tax funds and donations. Community members can donate either cash or instruments, though not all instruments suit the program. For example, the city has received calls to donate upright pianos from many seniors, but they are too big and heavy to move and lend out. 

“They’re too hard to move, and we don’t have anywhere to store them, so we probably, on the phone, graciously turned down 30 of those,” Keithley said.

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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