After 134 concerts, the “Facebook Live Corona Family Concert Series” comes to an end in just three weeks.
Edwin Brownell is a professional musician based in Montreal. He plays piano for retirees and seniors at the senior residences, and is currently working on new music as he has worked on almost two new albums since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But that is not all, as he has taken it upon himself to create a concert series live at home, every Saturday night since March 2020, gathering an average of 100,000 views in total. Most of these concerts are from his broadcast studio in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood.
The series has also been a great aid for families who are mourning their loved ones during the pandemic, and musician Brownell created the series in hopes to give support to the ones suffering during these dark times.
“Despite these traumas, we have always come together in friendship and solidarity to give support to each other as we try to survive the many horrors of this plague. Soon after the series began, we started having regular listeners tuning in from every country in Europe, from Africa, from South America, Australia and the Far East in addition to our local followers. In the end, we all became family” said Brownell.
His audience on his Facebook Live platform includes many frontline and health care workers.
“I think it’s almost a healing session because you’re there and you know there’s other people like you that are working very hard to make this thing work,” said Lucie Tremblay, director of nursing for CIUSSS West-Central Montreal. “People that saw things that weren’t very pleasant for example, seeing a lot of very sick patients, people in ICUs, people being in hospital for a very long time or seeing people dying.
“So, having this time together to share our experiences, and to have a session where we were all together knowing that we were there for each other and taking the time to enjoy beautiful music, I think that was very comforting.”
These shows come with a lot of preparation as Brownell would also teach himself news songs in just one day at the request of his audience who would ask for certain songs to be played during the concert. He would also include some adult only version shows on certain occasions for parents who have put their children to bed and would want to hear something different.
“I’ve written maybe two albums worth of songs and premiered them at these concerts. I’m going to actually launch another album on the 17th of July, which is on my mom’s birthday. It’s a concert I want to do in Ottawa, but our finale will be on July 24 and then I got to go back to work,” said Brownell.
“But the family will live on even if the concerts don’t. We’re going to stay in touch and support each other when times get tough and celebrate each other when times are good.”
Brownell will be missed by the people who have tuned in since March 2020 for support and comfort in a time of isolation.
“I think that it was very important when it was there. I’m telling you it was the highlight of my weekend every single time I had a chance to turn on the Facebook Live I did it, my husband and I even danced together on the balcony two weekends ago because it was my favorite song,” said Tremblay.