This Week In Art/Culture/Entertainment
By John Swartz
There are three music events happening this weekend. The fun starts Saturday evening at St. Paul’s Centre with two events happening, one upstairs and one downstairs.
Upstairs the Orillia Silver Band will be performing the music they will perform at the North American Brass Band Championship in Fort Wayne, Indiana in April.
At these kinds of competitions all bands perform at least one piece of music and then something of their own choosing. The test piece the OSB will play at this concert is James Curnow’s Laude. Curnow is one of the more prolific and highly regarded composers of music for bands, wind ensembles and orchestras.
I’m looking forward to hearing the OSB play Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. They will also play a piece of music called Music by John Miles, which I haven’t heard for some time and know quite well.. Other music is Paul Dukas’s Fanfare from La Peri, Goff Richards’s Shepherd’s Song, and Malcolm Arnold’s Little Suite for Band.
I have No higher praise for any of our performing groups in town than I do for the OSB, and you know I think several of our groups perform at high levels. You won’t be disappointed seeing the OSB if you haven’t before. You can get tickets for the 7 p.m. concert online, or at the door.
Meanwhile, downstairs, four groups are doing an all ages show to benefit the community fridge. It’s called, Fridge-A-Palooza with Terry Collins, Lake City, Kasey Kohring and Madison Mueller, and Tangents performing. This is rock, some of it metal. The show starts at 6 p.m. and you can get tickets online for $10, or $15 at the door. They are also collecting non-perishable items for the fridge.
Sunday at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian, the Orillia Concert Association has the next of their season’s program happening. The comedy duo of Michael Bridge (on accordion) and Kornel Wolak (on clarinet) are performing. They do a classical repertoire and make some fun along the way. The show starts at 2 p.m. and you can get tickets online and you can get tickets by calling the Opera House box office, 705-26-8011, or by emailing orilliaconcert@gmail.com.
So Much Music
The annual Sunshine City School Music Festival happens most of next week. In past years it has drawn entries from schools as far away as Guelph. Performances are scored and the festival is a stepping stone to invitations for Provincial and National music festivals.
Things get started at 11:35 a.m. Monday Twin Lakes Secondary will have bands performing at 1:10 and 2:40 p.m. Host school Orillia Secondary has their Jazz Band performing at 3:20 p.m..
Eight schools will have bands playing on Monday with the last performance at 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday’s schedule has 8 bands performing, with Orillia Secondary first up at 8:10 a.m.
On Wednesday 9 bands will play starting with Orillia Secondary at 8:10 a.m. They have a different band playing at 4:40 p.m.
Thursday the schedule starts at 8:05 a.m., but Patrick Fogarty gets a little more time to wake up with their performance not happening until 8:55. There are 7 schools sending bands to perform.
There are a total of 30 schools represented at this festival with many of them sending more than one band. Each performance is judged by two judges, sometimes three. And following the performance of two pieces of music, one of the judges will do a 30 minute work shop with each band.
It’s funny how a teacher can work a part over and over, and after a judge focusing the workshop on the performance of the same section of music, saying the same things the teacher has said to the students, how much the sound of the music improves.
It has happened to me when I was teaching. I’ve talked with some of the teachers of these bands and it happens to them too. No one has an explanation for why that occurs.
All performances are open to the public. I’ve tried to take in as much as possible in previous years and can say many of these bands play very well. You can check out the whole schedule here.
Roots North
It’s that time of year again and as is their practice, Roots North Music Festival is doling out main stage (St. Paul’s Centre) performers in bits. I suspect next week we’ll have a full schedule. For now Nicolina (she’s been on American Idol) will be joining headliner Royal Wood on April 25 and Gracie Ella is on April 26ths dance card with headliner Jully Black.
You can get festival passes online. Nixon Boyd is stickjhandling lining up performers at participating venues and he wants to hear from anyone who wants to do an acoustic set at one of the venues. You can get in touch with him by sending a message to his Facebook page.
They have a number of venues participating with music on the Thursday and Sunday of the weekend, but that schedule is not available yet.
Reviews
I can’t speak much about the repertoire of either Amanda Rheaume or School House because I don’t play them much. They both did the Mariposa Folk Festival’s Mariposa-in-Concert gig last Saturday at St. Paul’s Centre.
What I can talk about is how they performed. School House opened the show. I saw then almost a year ago at the Mariposa Audition Concert and I thought they were good enough to make the cut to the summer festival, which they did. They played good tunes and had good stage presence. Well, here we are a year later and holy cow have they gotten measurably better. They are more comfortable on stage, they perform with more confidence, and their music has become more sophisticated. Good job boys.
Amanda Rheaume was at last year’s festival and as usual, I don’t get to see everybody and she was on that list. I’m pretty sure I saw her several years ago. So this was a kind of new exposure to her music. What a great voice. She performed with another guitarist and a bassist. I liked the music and would go to see her play again.
Sunday opera singer Dmytro Garbovskyi performed about 90 minutes of arias at St. Paul’s. I knew he was a good singer, but once again, holy cow. So powerful. He came out holding a mic, but put it down before he sang a note. It stayed down the whole time. He filled St. Paul’s, and likely St. James’ across the street with sound. I know a lot of opera for a jazz and rock guy, but I didn’t know any of those tunes, but I would sit and listen to Dmytro do a replay.
There was a big section of the program devoted to the duets of Garmont and Violetta from Verdi’s La Traviata. Of course to do that you need another singer, a soprano. This is where Mary Ferrari came in. This bit of the concert was so captivating the audience gave a standing ovation – in the middle of the concert – for their performance.
On the audience; when I spoke with Dmytro two weeks before the concert he said they had sold only four tickets and he was worried there wouldn’t be enough bums in seats to cover the expense of putting on the concert. He stayed with it and when I got to the St. Paul’s just minutes before the show, (on the way there I had in the back of my mind I would be arriving to a cancelled show) I was pleasantly shocked to see about 150 in the room. That was enough for Dmytro to clear a bit more than $1,200, which will be used to aid children in Ukraine.
I think everyone who was there should realize they saw Dmytro before he becomes Dmytro. When he performs here next time, soon I hope, you might get the chance to say the same. On the other hand, it would be nicer if his career here in Canada explodes and you don’t get to make the claim.
The Shorts
- Congrats to the Orillia Youth Centre, they sold out fundraising concerts scheduled for March 28 and 29 with Tim Barry, Nixon Boyd and Billy Pettinger. Yesterday at 10 a.m. tickets went on sale for another concert with Frank Turner and Nixon Boyd for May 14 and by midnight it was sold out.
- I know a lot of you love the music of Murray McLauchlan, and you love Cindy Church and Marc Jordan and Ian Thomas, and you really love it when they get together as Lunch at Allen’s. Well they are splitting up and doing a last tour together. It stops in Orillia April 16 at the Opera House and you can get tickets online.
- The Orillia Big Band, which has many OCB members in it, has a dance March 29 at the legion. Milli Schop will be along to sing a few tunes and she’s worth the price of admission. You can get tickets online.
- Mariposa Arts Theater has A Streetcar Named Desire playing a two week run stating Apr. 3 (with Sunday matinees). At this point all I can say is Samantha Windover is playing the part of Eunice. You can get tickets online.
- OMAH has three exhibits – Four Seasons in Orillia , Nathalie Bertin’s Loup Garou and Mocassins, and Heritage in Hues: Orillia’s Story Through Textiles in the small gallery off the foyer; It’s not what I thought it would be (textile art like Molly Farquharson does), but clothing collected, some as old as 19th century, and arranged around the room according to the order of the colours of the rainbow… Peter Street Fine Arts has art by Judy McLaughlin featured this month.
- Quayle’s Brewery has Mark Gunn playing March 22; Rebekah Hawker plays March 23.… the Hog ‘N Penny… Classic Lightfoot Live is at the Opera House May 3 (tickets)
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia and Images Supplied) Main: The Orillia Silver Band with conductor Neil Barlow is in concert Saturday evening at St. Paul’s Centre.
