‘Scream with colour’: How KPU students are using the Wake Up! music festival to spotlight social justice

Gordon Cobb has protested many times. He has held signs, screamed, yelled, and expressed rage. But something he’s picked up on is that people you try to communicate with through protesting can instantly block you out.

Music, however, can be a creative medium for sending a message without people even realizing, says Cobb, chair and faculty member of Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s music department. This is why he runs the annual Wake Up! Social Justice Music Festival.

“Artists need to express their ideas, our audiences need to hear from other artists, and then we all need to experience that together as a community, because community is often the way things are changed from a grassroots level,” he says. “The music festival is a way for us to do that at KPU.”

Organized by Cobb and students in his MUSI 3500 course, the social justice-themed event is returning to the KPU Surrey Conference Centre on March 25 for its fourth year. The lineup at this year’s festival includes six KPU student performers, two band winners of an inaugural high-school contest, and Vancouver-based artist Ruby Singh.

For the past 10 weeks, Cobb says he and his students created the festival from scratch, from branding the merch and managing data and logistics, to promoting the event on social media and rehearsing the performances.

This semester, the class has 27 students from 14 different departments.

“It’s not prescribed, so I don’t get to teach what I’m comfortable teaching,” Cobb says. “Every year, I’m facilitating components of the course that are brand new to me, so I have to be fearless and confident and trust in the process and in the students, and allow it to unfold and reveal itself to me. Then, we just grab on and hold on for dear life.”

Every year, Wake Up! expands into a new area. While last year was lighting design using equipment KPU inherited from a late music student, the 2026 festival has invested in merchandise, Cobb says.

Students used silk screen-printing technology and a Cricut maker to make merch branded under the umbrella of Wake Up! and The House of Sass, a brand Cobb created for the festival based on drag houses from the underground New York gay scene of the 1980s.

“There is now a branch of the course that is merchandising and production,” Cobb says. “We’re making T-shirts, housewares, dog sweaters, plant pots, and notebooks.”

The merch available for sale at the festival is based on suggested donation, he says, and 100 per cent of the proceeds will be collected by the KPU Foundation and put towards a scholarship for a music student who represents what Wake Up! stands for — giving voice to social and climate justice issues.

Cobb says this Wake Up! comes amid social justice issues across North America, including the rise of white nationalism in Canada. South of the border, he points to the war President Donald Trump launched on Iran and ICE detainments and deportations.

“There are crimes against humanity happening in North America, and we don’t have any other way to impact that, except, in our case, by hosting a music party to expose these issues in a way that is joyous and positive and through love and celebration.”

He says there is a way to protest and be political in a way that is “gentle and non-invasive.”

“That’s what artists often do — we find ways to scream with colour or to yell with music.”

KPU performers

Creative writing student Donnie Ao-Asen has been singing since he was a child, whether it be at karaoke parties or gatherings that celebrate fellow Indigenous Filipinos.

“As a child, I had a whole lot of issues going on. I always struggled with fitting in. Also being neurodivergent, I struggled really being myself and feeling seen,” Ao-Asen says.

“The only times I could really feel seen and like myself was when I was singing, when I was performing, and then later on, I was a theatre kid in high school. Whenever I was on stage, that’s when I felt like I could really be my truest self.”

For the festival, Ao-Asen is performing an original called “Brave Enough” while in his drag persona Donnie la Diva Donovici. This is his first year out as a trans man, and the performance will be more vulnerable than his past ones.

“Especially since this is my coming out song, if there are trans folks in the audience … I hope this song can reach out to people of those experiences,” he says. “I just want my music to be like, ‘Here, I’m giving you this hug, and I want you to know that I’m with you and that you were brave, loved, and seen.’”

General studies student Xynth3tic also grew up around lots of karaoke and music as a Filipina. She discovered new metal by Grade 10 and in her first year of post-secondary, she started writing music.

Xynth3tic, who asked to only be referred to by her stage name, will perform her original “Liar Liar,” which takes heavy inspiration from bands Evanescence and Linkin Park.

“The song itself is about my journey discovering my gender identity and the resistance I faced from people around me, specifically my partner at the time and my father,” she says. “I started writing the song when my relationship with my ex-partner ended because they were very against … me just exploring gender expression.”

She adds “Liar Liar” tackles the emotions of confusion and frustration she felt during that time and, to an extent, today.

Xynth3tic will perform in a vampire aesthetic costume, equipped with a blindfold and a red and black outfit. She also has lines drawn by her chin and along her fingers.

“The character of Xynth3tic, as opposed to myself as I am in daily life, is supposed to be like a doll or a puppet,” she says. “The design feature itself is a bit of a double entendre because doll is a word for trans femmes.”

Psychology major Levi Saunders comes from a musical family, having performed in choir and youth musicals as a young child. Saunders then returned to musical theatre in high school and started writing original music around age 18.

“What really inspired me to actually start writing music was someone who I’d fallen in love with was hopelessly unavailable,” he says. “So I was like, ‘Oh, I have to do something with all these feelings.’”

Saunders is bringing two original, upbeat songs to the Wake Up! stage. The first, “Home Sweet Scone,” is about the person he was in love with. The second is “Samson,” which is named after his boyfriend. 

“That same profound feeling of sadness that people can get from music — I want to be able to recreate that, but with happiness and with joy.”

Human behaviour in applied psychology student Tanner Reisdorf Cooper is a third-generation country singer, following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps.

“I remember basically learning to read off a karaoke machine,” he says.

His early music highlights include performing in Cuba with his Grade 9 concert band and taking 16 years of piano lessons, among other achievements and training. Today, he has a home studio and is working on an album in partnership with his dad, Jason Cooper.

At the festival, Reisdorf Cooper is performing Blake Shelton’s version of “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins and “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” by Brooks & Dunn.

“This is the first time where I’m doing something like a karaoke performance. I’m not performing with a live band — it’s just me and the mic and the track,” Reisdorf Cooper says.

“I hope I can spark a bit of a passion for country music at KPU and hopefully develop a bit of a fan base for when I go to release my original stuff or any cover songs I put out. I’d like to start getting into the scene locally.”

Fine arts major Daniel Medel has been dancing his whole life, but he only began taking it seriously in high school, after which he took intensive training programs and worked in the industry for a few years.

“Eventually, through dance, I found music and I tried to branch out that way — and it went really well,” he says. “And then, COVID happened, and I just forgot that I did any of this stuff.”

Wake Up! marks the end of his more than half-decade hiatus from performing dance and music on stage. 

Medel has three pieces for Wake Up! in the urban choreography genre, which encompasses hip hop and contemporary dance. The first is a dance number with two backup dancers. He’ll also be performing his originals “Late Night Thinking” and “Forget to Listen,” where he will be both singing and dancing — something he has never done before.

He also choreographed a dance number for The House of Sass, which he will perform with Cobb and the event hosts.

“I feel like art is what fuels things to move forward,” he says. “I really like the space of Wake Up! because it’s just all inclusive. The brand of what it is [accepts] everybody for who they are, no matter where you are in life or where you’ve been — and it’s embracing all of it. It’s just letting you be as free as you can possibly be.”

Karina Kovalenko, who performs under the artist name Karrality, is also returning to the Wake Up! stage after performing last year.

High-school contest winners

The band KRGC from Langley Christian School and Asheton Tablac from Surrey’s Fleetwood Park Secondary School earned their spots to take part in Wake Up! after submitting a video of them performing.

Having worked with many high-school students while teaching at the Sarah McLachlan School of Music in East Vancouver for 18 years, Cobb says he thought opening the event to teens would be a great opportunity to expand the reach of the festival. So he launched a competition and reached out to high schools across the Lower Mainland.

Formed last year, KRGC is made up of Keelie Klassen on guitar and vocals, Ryan Scott on bass, Gabriel Pineda on rhythm guitar and bass, and Caleb Walsh on drums. The band’s name is a combination of each member’s first initial.

“We’re a bunch of friends in high school who happened to be in the band room one day together … then it became a band and now here we are,” Pineda says.

The quartet is experimenting with the direction they want to go in musically, but they primarily play rock music. They will perform “Meant to Live” by Switchfoot at the festival.

Wake Up! marks KRGC’s first gig outside of school. 

“We don’t get opportunities like this very often,” Walsh says. “We’re really new as a band. But I would also say personally [is that] I’ve always wanted to get out there and use my instrument, play drums, and just have fun and get as many opportunities as possible to get better at music and more invested in it.”

Klassen says the band learned about the opportunity to perform at Wake Up! from their band teacher Connor Murdock, who also teaches music at KPU.

“Mr. Murdock talked to us when we did a recording one time, like ‘Go there and be a representative of a Christian school, reflect God through your instruments.’ So I think that’s a very big focus for us,” Walsh says.

“All of us want to be an inspiration to other people on instruments — and just worship God through our talents that He’s given us.”

Tablac, the other winner of the competition, is a Grade 12 student who started his artistic journey doing musical theatre in high school. In recent years, he also started exploring his sound as a vocalist through local events such as Surrey Jazz Nights, FUSIONpresents, Surrey’s Band-Aid Youth Musician Workshop, and various open mics.

“I feel like music is one of the things that has been very comforting for me as a teenager with growing pains,” Tablac says.

“Also, as someone who gets to express their emotions through music, I found that I would have moments alone where I was just practising or filing through songs that I really related to or just playing the ukulele alone — a tween rite of passage.”

He submitted a video of him performing “Creep” by Radiohead for the contest and will perform the same rendition for the music festival with four bandmates: multi-instrumentalists Drew Storey and Jayden Elnas, guitarist Tanay Bollineni, and drummer Parker Szolga.

Tablac says it’s a cool opportunity to perform at the social justice-themed music festival.

“[Through] being able to perform in that kind of space and also with other queer artists or artists who are of certain minorities, I think it’s nice to have that section of celebration, especially when the music industry has been known for being able to flaunt differences and make that a part of who you are,” he says.

“But there’s still barriers that exist for different artists, and being able to celebrate the fact that art is one of the most important things, especially for these communities, is super sick.”

Ruby Singh

Cobb says he met Vancouver-based artist Ruby Singh as a fellow instructor at the Sarah McLachlan School of Music.

Singh grew up loving music, from watching Bollywood movies with his parents as a young kid to listening to the radio as a teenager. But he didn’t start making music until he was around 20 years old.

He says he used to hang out with friends who were in a punk band during their rehearsals, but when the drummer didn’t show up one day, they threw sticks at Singh and he subbed in, sparking his interest to pursue music.

“From there, I went on to study in all kinds of ways, except for school — no formal schools,” Singh says. “I traveled abroad and studied in India. [I] studied tabla, flute, and vocals there. I was already into hip hop and was doing a little bit of beatboxing and rapping — and then, it just kind of unfurled.”

At the festival, Singh is performing interactive live looping music as well as beatbox, rap, and possibly playing instruments that audiences may have not seen before.

He adds that he may explore biosonification, too, which uses technology to turn electric signals from living organisms into sound and music. He says he has made suite songs based on six biomes in B.C.

Amid intense times in the world, Singh hopes audiences will feel a sense of community and belonging.

“The way we have moved in a capitalist society towards the idolization of stars is messed up,” Singh says. “We take these people and we make them larger than life.”

“What I want folks to take away is that I’m just another human, like this is possible for anybody. It takes work and dedication, but everything in life takes work and dedication to achieve any goals we have.”

For more information, visit www.wakeupmusicfestival.com.