This Week In Art/Culture/Entertainment
By John Swartz
A series of unfortunate events interrupted the ability to post new pieces recently. It didn’t knock SUNonline/Orillia offline, but posting new stuff was not happening. It’s all fixed, and now we play catch up with this column and some other stories. Here we go.
The Leacock Associates announced who the three authors making the shortlist are for this year’s Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. They are:
Gregg Kearney for An Evening with Birdy O’Day, Patricia Parsons for We Came From Away, and Natalie Sue for I Hope This Finds You Well.
This follows the recent announcement of those whose books made the long list. The other seven authors are:
| Emily Austin | Interesting Facts About Space |
| Frankie Barney | Mood Swings |
| Steve Burgess | Reservations: The Pleasures and Perils of Travel |
| Rodd Carley | RUFF |
| Deborah Kimmett | Window Shopping for God.. |
| Leanne Toshiko Simpson | Never Been Better |
| Drew Haydn Taylor | Cold |
The 2025 medal winner will be announced at the annual Leacock medal dinner June 21 at Hawk Ridge Golf Club. The winner, aside from getting the medal, gets a $25,000 prize sponsored by the Dunkley Charitable Foundation. Tickets for the award dinner are available now and you can get them online.
The Leacock Associates also announced the winners of the 2025 student humorous short story competition. The contest is open to Ontario students ages 14 to 19. The winner is Nina Yu, who is a student at Mark Garneau Collegiate Institute in North York, for her story Error 404: The Life Of A Search Engine. She will recognized at the Leacock Meet The Authors event June 20, which is also at Hawk Ridge Golf Club.
Nina Yu 
Hamza Siddiqi 
Iris Matthews
There are two runners up as well. Iris Matthews, a student at Barrie’s Bear Creek Secondary School, called her story A Scroll Down Memory Lane. Hamza Siddiqi, of Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, is also a runner up with, The Great Escape.
The winner receives a $1500 prize and runners up each get $750. All three are invited to read their stories at the Meet The Authors event, which is hosted by Terry Fallis. Tickets for this event are also available online.
What They Said
Arts Orillia has their annual Gathering: Festival Of First Nations Stories happening May 30 and 31 at the Rama Community Hall.
I’ve been to each of these storytelling festivals and never been disappointed. I’ve learned a few things too. Native culture has a rich oral storytelling history, which in this day has become a written exercise for many. Some of the authors tell their own stories, which can be maddening, thought-provoking, or funny. Some of the authors write stories passed down from generation to generation.
They also serve great food.
The Festival opens at 7 p.m. May 30 and is hosted by Sherry Lawson and Chief Ted Williams, both of whom are excellent storytellers. The evening also features five short films, How To Lose Everything, by Christa Couture.
Author’s scheduled for Saturday are, Thomas King (2021 Leacock Medal winner), Bridget George, Christa Big Canoe, Christa Couture, Julie Pellissier-Lush, Lynda Partridge, Keesic Douglas and Darrell York.
The Saturday program starts with a sunrise ceremony at 5:37 a.m. at the John Snake Memorial Multi-Purpose Groundsfollowed by a community breakfast from 7 to 9 a.m. Arts Orillia is also bringing some of the authors to area elementary and secondary schools during the week.
If you’ve never been before, I guarantee you will learn something about our friends across the lake you’ll wish you’d always known. This event is free to attend and made possible by sponsors Toronto Dominion Bank, Canada Council for the Arts, Canada Arts Presentation Find, The Community Foundation Of Orillia and Area, The City Of Orillia, Sun Ray Group, Stinson Storage, The James Burton And Family Foundation, And The Mariposa Folk Foundation and they will accept donations online.
Concerts
The Orillia Silver Band has their final concert of the season June 7 at 7 p.m. at St. Paul’s Centre. The menu features music from the movies. They’ll be playing music from Casino Royale, Out of Africa, ET, 1941, and Rocky. It’s all good music, but I can’t wait to hear the music from The Cowboys by John Williams. That one does not get played very often. They’re also going to play The Appian Way from Respighi’s Pines of Rome which is music that’s been used in a lot of movies.
Robin Watson and Debbie Silverthorne will duet solo on Count Basie’s DuetandMichele McCall, solos on Skylark. You can get tickets online.
The concert at a Orillia Secondary School a week ago was an interesting affair. The program had performances by several of the typical school bands, the junior concert band, the intermediate stage band, and of course the senior concert band. Then there were the smaller groups, the Dixieland band, the jazz band, the choir, and other small ensembles.
One of the rules of programming music is to start with a bang, so opening with the Hawks Jazz Band was leading with a strong hand. The first tune, Trofeo De Bolos, featured a sax solo by Ben Basso. He soloed in all three tunes jazz band played. I also remember pretty solid trumpet playing by Abby Howard, though it may not have been during the jazz band set she stood out because she performed with several of the other bands and ensembles.
Notably she was an anchor of the Dixieland band. Dixieland is kind of weird thing. Essentially they are a group of various musicians, in this case eight, who play like they’re soloists-all the time, but they play a songs together. Aside from Abby’s trumpet playing indicating where the melody is, there were some great counter flourishes and solos provided by everyone.
I have to mention Josh Young. He played clarinet most of the night (and saxophone, bass guitar, and I think he hit some ging gongs along the line too). I noticed him during the Sunshine City Music Festival, and I think this is the one student who thinks and acts like a musician with many more years experience then he obviously has. In fact, later in the program the saxophone ensemble played a tune, Licorice Stick Stomp, he wrote.
The Grade 9 band, which only started in February, obviously played fairly easy music, but it’s worth noting the band sounded remarkably balanced and showed a good foundation of a sense of tempo and timing. Their opening tune called Power Rock, was of the type of arrangement one would bang off (in this case, an old acquaintance, Paul Lavender) just to say you wrote something that day; sprinkle quarter notes all over the page so it sounds vaguely like We Will Rock You, and you’re done. The problem is, as easy as it sounds, without a good control of the tempo using their best timing, not only will it sound more cheesy than it needs to be, it would be a gooey mess. So congrats to the Grade Niners for learning making music is more than playing the right pitch.
The senior concert band pulled out all the stops to do Primal Dances (which I heard them do at the music festival) and something called Time Detective. The former uses a syncopated rhythm and phrasing that floats around the various sections of the band, and the latter had a battle of solos, properly hammed up by Josh on clarinet and Ben on saxophone.
Then it was time for my favorite part of any concert, the speeches, and handing out some awards to the students. As usual the microphone was passed around a lot to people who had no training how to speak into a microphone. Combined with the wonderful acoustics of a cafeteria/auditorium I didn’t really get a lot out of what was being said, oOther than it became clear to me this was music teacher Laura Lee Matthie last concert because she’s retiring.
Let me say something about that. There’s always that one teacher who seems to make a huge difference from a student perspective. It could be a shop teacher. It could be a science teacher. Heck, it could even be a math teacher with the ability to create easily understandable analogues for complex problems, but my experience it’s usually the music teacher.
During Laura’s tenure she had to create a program when she became the head of the department, she had to create another one when they mashed ODCVI and Park Street together, and then another unique to the new school. And let’s not forget reinventing music education during COVID; the momentum of strengthening the music program up and down the chain was severely disrupted because of the pandemic.
I’ve said it before, the quality of music education and the resulting performances of bands from high schools across Ontario left much to be desired, especially for those students who wanted to be musicians. That was certainly the case when I was in high school and, accept for a few islands, was the case until the end of the last century. Orillia was one of those islands thanks to having great music teachers like Stan Passfield, Suds Sutherland, and Ross Arnold, and then after they retired Christina Bosco, Robin Watson, Laura Christie and of course Laura.
Since COVID I’ve noticed great improvement in how the various bands sound, and the quality of the arrangements they play. There have also been several good soloists; the measure of how good could be determined at the music festival comparing the quality of soloists from other high school bands – they know the notes, but not how to play.
There were some words from the students, flowers, and some tears, and then all the music students from all the bands played one more tuned to end the night.
Painty Things
The Orillia Museum of Art and History has the 28th annual International Women’s Day Show in the main floor gallery. Also see Orillia: Then and Now a collection of historical photos of Orillia landmarks and buildings contrasted with recent photos of the same by Samantha Vessios.
June 14 OMAH opens two exhibits related to Gordon Lightfoot. A permanent exhibit of their acquisitions of items from Gordon Lightfoot’s estate, Gordon Lightfoot: Turning Back The Pages, and an exhibit of photos of Gord taken over the years by Edwin Gailits (1970s era) and, Deb Halbot, at the Mariposa Folk Festival Voices Through Time: A Mariposa Journey. The opening reception is at 11 a.m.
Now is the best time to get tickets for OMAH’s Music for the Museum event, November 1. Jacquie Dancyger Arnold, Hugh Coleman, Ross Arnold, Blair Bailey, Laura Kelly, and Gail Spencer are performing.
Cloud Gallery’s Collector’s Corner features works by Maria Iva. Peter Street Fine Art is featuring work from the Bayside Artists group of Barrie. Hibernation Arts’s guest wall is being turned over to a group show in June. If you want to include a piece email mollytas@gmail.com.
The Shorts
- The Orillia Public Library has Drag Queen Bingo with the Haus of Devereaux June 6. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., show starts at 8. Admission is $15, which gets you six rounds of bingo (cards and dabbers included) and light snacks, plenty of prizes. There is a cash bar for this 19+ event. Tickets available at the library check out desk.
- Higher Ground (2nd floor, Brewery Bay) has improv comedy entitled Beer Me with The Old Dance Hall Players June 5 and you can get tickets online. Lake Country Grill has a comedy night happening June 14 with Jimmy England, Dair Shendale, Matt Lund, Jake Leland Bryon Johnston, Rochelle Bechard and Oqen Yaz. Get tickets online.
- Anne Walker’s Coulson Concerts series is happening again this summer. The schedule is: Katherine Wheatley and James Gordon June 22, Gathering Sparks (Eve Goldberg and Jane Lewis ) July 27 and Anne September 28. All concerts are at 2 p.m. and you can get tickets online.
- Arts for Peace is back. It will happen June 22 at the Leacock Museum from 1 to 4 p.m. This time around they have a rain location at St. Paul’s Centre. This is a family event with lots of activities for kids. Admission is free, but they will take donations.
- The celebration of life for Suds Sutherland is June 22 at Hawk Ridge Golf Club from 1 to 4 p.m. There will be a graveside service at 11 a.m. at St Andrew’s/St. James’ Cemetery the same day.
- The Orillia Youth Centre has another fundraising concert June 27 at Quayle’s Brewery. The Ronnie Douglas Blues Band and the great duo of Andrew Alli and Josh Small from Virginia will be playing. It’s outdoors in a tent I’m told is about the size of the pub tent during the early years of the Mariposa Folk Festival. You can get tickets online.
- North Simcoe Arts has a new bursary for post-secondary art students. Five $1,000 awards will be made each year from the Harry Mason Future Artist Bursary. Students can apply online until June 6, 2025.
- The Orillia Vocal Ensemble raised $6,100 for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Orillia at their concert May 22 at St. Paul’s Centre. Their guest performers were David Jefferies and the Orillia Community Children’s Choir.
- The Canada Day committee has updated their website and it’s time to sign on as a volunteer, or apply to be a vendor.
- Bleeker has a new video out and you can watch Florida on Youtube.
- Battlescarred is entered into an online contest called America’s Next Top Hitmaker and you can vote for them here.
- The Coldwater Duck Race happens May 31 with festivities stating at 11 a.m.; at the same time the Coldwater Studio Tour (June 21/21) is having an online silent auction for ornamental ducks painted by local artists; bidding starts at 11 a.m. Also, Coldwater has a blues festival happening June 7 at the Legion. See Rick Robichaud, John Simon, Sandy Clark, and the Coldwater Blues Band. It starts at 1:30 p.m.
- Sunday evening band concerts at the Aqua Theatre start June 22 with the Orillia Concert Band. There will be music every weekend of the summer starting at 6:30 p.m. There will also be music on Friday nights starting in July, and there will be an artisan market too; vendors can still apply to be part of the market.
- Quayle’s Brewery has Paul Morgan playing May 29; Sidney Riley May 31; and Rogan Mei June 1… the Hog ‘N Penny has an afternoon jam session every Sunday with Sean Patrick and others… Mil & The Thrills play the ANAF Club May 31… The Orillia Community Children’s Choir has a concert at St. Paul’s Centre June 1 at 2 p.m. (admission by donation).
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia and Images Supplied) Main: 2025 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour shortlisters, Gregg Kearney, Patricia Parsons and Natalie Sue.
