Cover Photo Credit: Abby Keenan
Girls+ Rock is a program made for girls and trans and non-gender conforming youth to learn to play music and participate in a creative community.
During the five day program, youth ages 11–18 will learn how to play an instrument, be situated in a band, and write songs. They also have chances of performing live at Girls+ Rock hosted events. Their ultimate goal is to provide a chance for youth to express themselves in an accepting community, unafraid of societal expectations.
It’s a great chance to learn new skills, as no experience is required. Members are greeted with pop, rock, punk and many more genres, with a wide variety of instrumental choices.
Abby Keenan, (stage name Abby McCartney), is the lead facilitator for Girls+ Rock Camp for 2026. You can find her music on apps like Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp. She introduced her professional opinion on what the camp is about:
“[Girls+ Rock] is a very special, unique kind of space, environment, and energy that is always really exciting, and that everyone really looks forward to every year, and some of the bands even stay together after the program ends … It’s just a really cool initiative that we have in the city.”
Abby later highlighted the importance of the community the camp provides, explaining why she joined:
“I think just the experience itself, well the opportunity to kind of pass anything down to the younger generation, I think is an honor to be a part of, and then also I even get to meet other femme and women musicians.”
Abby, who pinpointed the importance of community, self-expression and growth, highlighted the difference between ages. She acknowledged that as we get older, social pressures tend to weigh us down, and we become more aware of certain external expectations. She expressed how the younger girls tend to have an easier time expressing themselves. She compared the difference between the vulnerability in the older campers, and the freedom she observes in the younger ones, reflected in the difference in their music writing.
Kira Maya Tecu, a program coordinator for 7 years at Girls+ Rock, shared her own experience as well as how the program has grown:
“The program has come a really long way and presents a lot of other cool opportunities, like not only songwriting but giving them a showcase and putting them in bands and teaching them instruments … It gives them the opportunity to do the business side of it, like make a logo and you know, have a single out, which is really cool.”
Kira explained her own experiences regarding womanhood, and how as a society women and those outside of the binary are often expected to be silent.
“And I think just being a woman, from a personal point and maybe other women that I know, you kind of just automatically have that subconscious feeling and thought of, okay, maybe I’m not as important,” Kira says.
She argues this is why self-expression through music is important, as well as having a safe space to be vocal of who you are:
“Being in a room full of women and gender-nonconforming people who usually make up the minority, especially going to a show or being someone who plays at a show, it’s definitely super empowering and I see it within these girls … They know that they need a way to express what they want and they need a way to fit in, and that’s exactly what Girls+ Rock does.”
Both Kira and Abby mentioned the band The Pigeons, who formed after meeting at Girls+ Rock, and how they have multiple performances throughout Fredericton, showing that this camp is not only a great place for musicians to find communities, but also a way to start with their future music careers.
Finally, Kira mentioned how the most important goal: supporting the youth that join the camp:
“I think the biggest goal from all of it is presenting girls this opportunity and hoping that they’ll be part of the music scene.”
Most recently, camp-formed band Penumbra released a single, “Umbra,” on September 15, 2026. Penumbra debuted at the 2026 Girls+ Rock Final Showcase on August 29 at the Fredericton Playhouse alongside fellow camp bands Musica Minions, Dazey, and Metamorphosis.
So join in on the initiative: support Girls+ Rock on their socials, and stream their bands’ music, including “Umbra” and many other songs.
