United through music – the importance of culture

The weekend of August 19th to August 21st 2022 united people from all over Germany in Bielefeld.

The reason? They all joined for the music of Canadian musician Morgan Finlay. Morgan is a longtime friend of the Deutsch-Kanadische Gesellschaft and even wrote a song for the DKG – The Long Way – which is played as „intro“ and „outro“ in our podcast.

The IMFF

In 2020, as all other artists, Morgan saw his shows being cancelled and had to find a way to continue playing music. That is when he started streaming live shows(Facebook and YouTube). Many of his fans and also new people gladly followed him online; it was after all, the only way to experience live music for a long time. To be able to interact with everyone, Morgan showed the comments on his screen and read them, greeting all, one by one. A majority of the same people (from around the globe) started to virtually meet at Morgan’s concerts and soon, people interacted with each other using the comments. That’s how a community started to build around Morgans‘ music. One day, Martin Gutsch, our treasurer and big fan of Morgan, came up with the name „International Morgan Finlay Family“. Week after week, the „IMFF“ met for an evening of music and fun to forget about everything else and connect with like-minded people.

And then one day, when life finally came back to „almost“ normal and we could meet in person again, the idea was born for a „live“ meeting with the IMFF. Let me just mention here that most of us had never met in person, this was the first time – with a result of many budding friendships.
And so it is how the weekend in Bielefeld, the city that actually doesn’t exist, came to life. „Our DKG Martin“ and a team of devoted fans organized a wonderful weekend where the IMFF could meet and have their very own Morgan Finlay concert. Friday evening, all (with our star Morgan of course) met in the „Finca-Bar-Celona“ for a chill out. Then we had a wonderful tour of the city on Saturday morning with an enjoyable weather of circa 23 degrees celsius. In the evening, we all gathered at the wonderful Filmhaus Bielefeld, graciously sponsored by the DKG, for an intimate concert with the man of the weekend, Morgan Finlay. Sunday morning, we finished the „party“ with a very nice breakfast, over the roofs of Bielefeld in „The Bernstein“.

It was really a memorable German-Canadian moment in time. Then everyone could not have been more different from one another. But their love for Morgan Finlay’s music and his wonderful, kind and generous personality brought them together. It goes to show how crucial, relevant and meaningful culture and music are for our lives. Thank you again to the organizers, and the DKG for making this possible. And for Morgan of course, for not giving up on music when it got rough; instead using those hard times for even more beautiful and significant songs for all of us to enjoy…and bringing us together.

©dneuhaus
©Rainer Rauch
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