The town of Big Rapids will be filled with music, art and joy during their annual Festival of the Arts taking place from Feb. 2 to Feb. 25.
This year’s festival has a long lineup of artists from all over, who are coming to share their work with the town. The festival will also include musical performances from Ferris students as well as Big Rapids High School and Middle School bands and choirs.
As this festival has been around for years, the original festival was only spanned from 1958 to 1994. In 1994, the festival was cancelled due to a big enrollment and funding decline happening at Ferris. Just 14 years later, in 2008, Bruce Dilg, a former architecture professor at Ferris, recruited other board members to bring the festival back to Big Rapids in hopes of bringing the arts back into the community.
Professor of music and director of Instrumental Concert Ensembles Dr. Richard Scott Cohen is a board member of the Festival of the Arts and is looking forward to this year’s events.
According to Cohen, the festival provides a lot of important opportunities for students to experience many different types of art at a very affordable cost.
“The festival is a good way to experience different kinds of arts where almost everything is free,” Cohen said. “That has been a big thing for us, sometimes there are some specialized courses with limited participation where they have some sort of small fee associated with it, but for the most part we want this to be free and accessible to everybody.”
Cohen also states that this festival can be an opportunity to grow and try something new.
“That’s what this is all about, just trying to show people that art is a big wide world,” Cohen said. “The arts make our lives better, they enrich our lives in lots of different ways.”
Big Rapids City Manager and board member for the Festival of the Arts Mark Gifford says that the festival was designed as a way to bring Big Rapids and Ferris communities together.
According to Gifford, one of the most special things about this festival is how well it can accommodate to anyone’s interests.
“There really is something for everybody,” Gifford said. “Anybody from any walk of life could find something here that intrigues them because it’s so broad. There are performing arts, authors, learning how to make food, learning how to arrange flowers and cooking things, there are just so many different things that everybody can find a home in this.”
Gifford encourages students to attend the festival because it’s a way to get to know the community of Big Rapids.
“Through the event itself or through the people you will meet there, you will find that Big Rapids is better by getting involved,” Gifford said.
University president Dr. Bill Pink is very excited about this year’s festival because of the growing connection between Ferris and the community of Big Rapids. Even though it’s only his second festival, he has already grown a very strong appreciation for it and the people who put it together.
“Ferris has always had a strong relationship with the Festival of the Arts,” Pink said. “[With] last year being my first year here at Ferris, getting to engage with and understand more of what the relationship with the community was is very pleasing, and to know how Ferris State has been connected to the festival.”
Pink believes that this festival and other organizations in Big Rapids help to create a focus and appreciation of the arts in a rural community.
“Sometimes rural areas do not have a very robust arts community for various reasons,” Pink said. “This festival puts a squash to that theory. You have a festival that pulls together not only artists from the visual and creative arts, but also from the musical sides of things, and that is so important to this community.”
Pink said it’s important for Ferris to explore ways they can continue to make the connection between Ferris and the festival even stronger for the benefit of both the students and the community.
The festival will span throughout the town of Big Rapids and explore various kinds of arts. From music, theater, visual and cinematic arts, to culinary, architectural and textile arts and many more.
Look to future editions of the Torch for coverage of the upcoming events during the Festival of the Arts.