 have for you a couple of wonderful entertainers here, both have been entertaining us through this conference. Darla Daniels was at the Norquist social event last night entertaining us and Al Crawford was one of the drummers with Kiana on Monday. So thank you so much for coming back. Darla Daniels is from Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement. She began performing in 2003 playing at festivals, old-time dances, and community events. Within five years she began performing for crowds of thousands, sharing her love for her roots in traditional Metis fiddle music. She is known for her lively tone, passionate compositions, and the ability to make your toes tap. And then we have Al Crawford. Al Crawford is a cre-man from the Big Stone Cree Nation. He's a recording artist with a solo album on all streaming platforms. You can find his album titled For the Children. He is also the lead singer of the drum group Red Elk, which also has a new pow-wow album on all streaming platforms titled The Origins as it is their first 12-track live album. So these two musicians have come together for us today. So please give them a warm welcome. Thank you so much. Let me just have a conversation with myself. Wow, it's so good to be back with you guys here today. Who was here yesterday? Or who was at the conference yesterday? Oh, everybody. Okay. Awesome. So good to see you again. I almost wore the same outfit. I was like, that's not wise. Let's not do that. Awesome. Once again, for those who don't know me, my name is Darla Daniels. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. So nice to be here with you guys today. I feel like a pretty woman with a fiddle. That first tune is an original tune that I wrote back in 2012. If you hear the rhythm and the drive of the tune itself, it sounds like a matey tune. It has the dance ability of a matey tune, but it also is infused with a little bit of Celtic as well. So a lot of our music is, well, pretty much all of our music is influenced by other folk music and other world music as well. So a lot of people don't know this, but when it comes to matey fiddle, compared to folk that you see a lot of fiddle in or even old time styles, you will see in matey music that sometimes there is an added measure, so an added bar of music. And so what we do, we call that crooked. So we call the tunes crooked. And that really trips up country people. You try to play some of these matey tunes with an old time country band, you know, they're doing the Merle Haggard thing. And then they're like, Darla, play a tune. And then you do, and they're like, why did you add an extra measure? I'm like, because it's cool. It's just way cooler if you do that way. But it's awesome because our instrument was obviously brought over by the early settlers of Canada from Europe, so Scottish and French people. They brought the violins over. And the early matey people started to make it their own. So where the style comes from is they took the rhythms from First Nations drums and First Nations music, they took the rhythm of that. And then they took the melodies and the scales from the European violinists. And then this awesome matey fiddle music baby was born. So that's why it makes you want to dance. And at the same time, just kind of sit back and just let it wash over you and just take it all in. It's a lot of fun. Our music is about celebration, as I said yesterday. And it's about togetherness. It's about family. It's about community. It's about people, people that we love and want to share these moments with. So to my right and to your left, I have a good friend, Al Crawford here. He's going to share a little bit about the tunes that he's going to play for you. And you guys are in for a treat. How about a hand for him? Hello, hello. Mic check, pension check, GST check. All right. I just wanted to make sure this thing's on. I just want to say good afternoon, good evening to everybody here. A big honor of mine to be invited back. I actually was here on Monday and I was kind of saying, yeah, I was here on Monday and this stage was really small. And I kind of dawned on me that this is the last day. So if you were here on Monday, you would have seen me crammed in a corner over here with a big red drum and kind of trying to belt out what I could with my morning voice. So, yeah, just an honor to be here. I'm a recording artist. I have a pow-wow album now, too. Drum group, cultural educator, part-time comedian. My wife doesn't think I'm that funny, but I think I'm pretty funny. And I just want to say that all around, I guess music has been a big part of my life as a young man growing up. And I've had some really awesome opportunities to perform for the Queen's Daughter. I've been on TSN. I've been on Sportsnet. A lot of fine culture and recreation has really kind of went hand in hand for me lately. And so I'm just going to start with a song. I don't want to take up too much time, just like 73 minutes, if that's okay. No, just a quick song for sharing the time here today. This is my first collaboration and just kind of, like was mentioned in the bio, too. I was tapping my feet right away and I was really feeling the music. So I don't know if I'll really use this mic. I can sing pretty loud. But yeah, so this song that I'm going to sing is titled Thankful Off of My Album. So if you go on Spotify, Apple Music, those types of places, you'll find my album titled For the Children. And I believe this is track number 10. And I recorded that three years ago. So yeah, just a very special song to me. Thank you. And it's an original song of mine. I'll pass it back over to Darla here. So, all right, I'm being told to sing again. So I better be getting a little bit more for this. No, I'm just kidding. But no, typically we, I guess, when I'm invited to sing and stuff, too, I always kind of keep it relevant to what we're doing. And to my understanding, this is a global education conference. So I'm just going to assume that you guys talked about snow globes for the last three days. So getting excited for winter and snow and all that stuff. But it's very important work that a lot of us do. You know, we pour a lot of our heart and soul into it. And I guess before doing my own thing and being self-employed full-time, I guess I do travel extensively. But with that, too, I find that even the cultural education around the drum and singing and music is so relevant to everybody. We all have artists here. We all have our favorite genres and things like that. And so although maybe you don't fully understand what's going on up here, you just see a chubby guy with long hair kind of hitting a drum and singing these notes. Maybe you've never heard before. It is vocables and it is, there is a spiritual energy to it. And there's a vibration too, also, that comes off the drum. And same thing for your voice. So I always tell young people and youth to be mindful of that because we all have powerful voices. As you all know, we've sat here for three days and shared a lot of good information verbally. And so I'll sing another song. This one's titled Prayer Song off of my album, also. And to us, every song is a prayer song because of the energy and the things that I guess that we use, that we articulate when we sing. But I titled this one Prayer Song. It's just going to have vocables. So the last one did have some words, some kri words. And yeah, just hope you're enjoying the music and I'll sing another one, I guess. So, yeah. So thank you. Again, another original song of mine. I'm going to pass it back over to Darla. Hopefully she's ready to play now. I think the violin is very interesting too. And so yeah, I just want to give her that space again. Thank you. And once again, hopefully you're enjoying the music. When I hear the drum, I immediately think of my dad. So it's so cool to be here and blending two beautiful styles of music, two cultures together on one stage. I don't get to do this enough. So my heart is so full. Thank you, guys, for your ears and your eyes and your hearts today. And my goodness, thank you so much, Al, for joining me. Okay, the next student I'm going to play. And I think we're going to wrap it up with this one. This is commonly known as the Metis National Anthem. It's called the Red River Jig. I did play this yesterday for a young Ivy that did the Red River Jig. So anyone who learned anything yesterday, feel free to get up and dance. I'm looking at y'all. Absolutely. And I might, we're going to need your guys' help for this one. So feel free to clap along. Feel free to, yeah, give us a little bit of a beat. And thanks again so much for having us. I hope you enjoy. So much to Darla and Al. Thanks again. Well, that was just such a lovely way to wrap up today. I would love if you could give us a little bit of a warm welcome to our friends from OE Global and the Norquist Planning Team and the Program Chairs could make their way to the stage for our final farewell. This wraps up our OE Global Conference Building a Sustainable World Through Open Education. Our themes of sustainability and braiding were built intentionally and we were delighted to hear that these themes came through in your own sessions. You have inspired us with your support, your comments and how you each engaged with these themes. We are filled with gratitude for all of you. Here are some comments that we collected from our padlet over the last couple of days. There was an incredible effort by the conference team to embrace and welcome remote participants by livestream, chat, OEG Connect, sharing keynotes and sessions. I have the feeling of actually being there. Another one was buoyed by warmth and companionship. Thank you for the gift of storytelling and to I'd seeing. Taking time to reflect is essential. And another one, we met, we bridged and we carried. This is the end. Got me. I'm probably a bit tired. It's okay. It's all right. I just want to thank you all for being here and hopefully we will see you next year in Brisbane 2024.