With a year to spare before the opening ceremonies for the 2016 Saskatchewan Summer Games, a theme song has been chosen and to the delight of many locals, a familiar musical dynasty has risen.
Not only will the games themselves be taking place in Estevan; athletes at the 2016 Summer Saskatchewan Games and 2018 Winter Saskatchewan Games will walk into the opening and closing ceremonies to the sounds of Estevan-born Luc Johner’s musical talents. The announcement had a particularly good reception, having been made at a pancake breakfast on Saturday morning, at the Estevan Farmers’ Market.
“It’s exciting that one of the Johner boys is going to be performing at the opening ceremonies as the composer of the theme song,” notes Brenda Lyons, co-chair of marketing and promotions for the games. “The Johners are well-known and highly respected musicians in southeastern Saskatchewan.”
Luc is from a family of talented Saskatchewan musicians, and will be playing a song entitled: The Spirit of the Games. He’ll be busy that day, since he’ll also be performing at the ceremony with the Johner Boys, a band consisting of himself, his brothers Quinn and Jesse, and Simon Jasieniuk.
“His dad and uncle were a well-known country group back in the day. Luc’s father Brad decided to go on as a solo artist and he moved to Saskatoon, where he’s done quite well,” said Lyons. “The second generation of Johners is now going out and doing music, too.”
The contest was held this year because the last theme song in use at the 2014 Saskatchewan Winter Games reached the end of its licensure. The 2016 Saskatchewan Games Comittee sought to commission a new song working with sponsorship from SaskMusic. The two groups held a contest that ran from April to June, to choose a new song.
Nineteen artists submitted a total of 23 songs for the contest. A shortlist was drawn up and submitted to a jury to select a winner. The jury consisted of committee members, board members and games volunteers who ran each song through a gauntlet of qualifying questions, narrowing down the shortlist until a winner was established.
Lyons noted how supportive the locals and local organizations involved were, saying, “We thought it’d be nice to do a big event on the Saturday (which was) the one-year mark until the games. The Estevan Farmers Market has been really supportive, ever since we’ve got up and running.”
