The benefit is being put on by Friends for Refugees (FFR). FFR is looking for your help to privately sponsor a refugee family. The family - father, mother and two young children - are currently located at a Syrian refugee camp near the Iraqi boarder. FFR needs to raise enough money to bring the family to Halifax and to support them during their first year in Canada. Friends For Refugees will also need help with settlement once the family arrives this winter.You can find out more about the group by visiting their site.

The concert is being put on in order to raise funds for the families. Headliners include Stephen Fearing, Don Ross, Jeff Torbert and Scott Macmillan. You can download the poster for further information.

"Ordinarily you would ask, why is a guitar player writing fiddle tunes? But there is nothing ordinary about Scott Macmillan."

"Macmillan is a wonderful musical ambassador for evrey genre of music from this area and a joy to work with." — Susan Mitton, CBC Halifax

"Scott Macmilan has helped us define our culture" — The Coast

Halifax's Scott Macmillan enjoys a stellar reputation in Nova Scotia and abroad for his unusual versatility working in the fields of classical, pop, jazz, blues and celtic music.  A master guitarist, he has worked professionally for more than 30 years widening the audience for the music of Atlantic Canada, both nationally and internationally. Mr. Macmillan played a key role in the rise of the Rankin Family Band, Rita MacNeil, and the Nova Scotia Mass Choir, as well as the highly successful Maritime Pops Series with Symphony Nova Scotia (SNS).  He was the inaugural Host Conductor and Arranger for this series from the mid 1980s to 2004, building bridges and creating relationships between the classical world and the diverse Nova Scotian musical and cultural communities.

Mr. Macmillan's creative passion has led to many exciting opportunities to compose new works.  He received creative support from Canada Council to compose "Currents of Sable Island" and his first symphony "Summus".  The NS Dept of Culture & Heritage support the creation of a series of scores for his own 12-piece group "Scott 'n' the Rocks" as well as "Within Sight of Shore", depicting the last Canadian warship sunk in WWII, HMSC Esquimalt, of which his father was the Commanding Officer. Macmillan's much-loved Canadian choral classic "Celtic Mass for the Sea" has been performed over 60 times since its premiere with SNS in 1991, including in Carnegie Hall, the U.K., Germany and Switzerland. Annual Mr. Macmillan directs "Le Grand Cercle", a cornerstone of a major community/cultural/tourism initiative in Cheticamp, NS, which he co-created with writer and artistic director Paul Gallant.

Mr. Macmillan is an original member of The Guitar Summit and a multiple East Coast Music Award winner for his recordings with the innovative group Puirt a Baroque, "Bach meets Cape Breton", and for his own collaborative recordings "The Minnie Sessions Volumes 1, 2, and 3" and the "MacKinnon's Brook Suite" which he composed for Ian MacKinnon and SNS and later broadcast for CBC television.

In 1977 Mr. Macmillan received a Doctor of Letters from Cape Breton University and in June 2008 was bestowed an Honorary Diploma from the NSCC School of Applied Arts and New Media for his significant role in the design and development of their new Music Arts and Business Program.