This Week In Art/Culture/Entertainment
By John Swartz
First the immediate stuff. There are two Orillia Youth Centre fundraising concerts happening this weekend. Both are sold out, so unless you know somebody who has tickets but can’t go, don’t worry about missing it.
The Old Dance Hall Players have a night of comedy at the Opera House Friday night. This is going to be a good show, or it may not. That’s the nature of imrov comedy, sometimes the bits don’t land. Fortunately this group has their act together and they hit almost all the time. For comparison, I once went to a Second City show and didn’t laugh all night, that hasn’t happened with the Dance Hall crew. You can get tickets online.
The Orillia Silver Band has a concert March 21 at St. Paul’s Centre. It’s all Scottish music anchored by Philip Sparke’s 7th movement of Hymn of the Highlands in the first half. Sparke is one of the best composers of band music of our time. Another great composer, Peter Graham, has Gaelforce in the second half. You can get tickets online.
The Orillia Concert Association ran into a snag. Their performer, Daniel Vnukowski, scheduled for Sunday’s concert had to postpone his appearance until March 31. But all is not lost for those of you looking forward to an afternoon out on Sunday. The OCA has come up with a replacement; pianist Angela Park and cellist Rachel Mercer will perform at 2:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Centre. Bring along your ticket for Vnukowski and you get in and it will be good for the next weekend too. If you don’t have a season pass you can get tickets online, or at the door.
Look Out
Local skateboarders must be pretty happy they are getting a new place to fall down at the Orillia Recreation Centre. The City is moving ahead with it, but told the skateboard community they need to raise $100K.
Saturday night at Higher Ground (Brewery Bay’s second floor) they have a fundraiser auction of skateboards painted by artists. They call them wallboards because they are meant to be hung on walls and not used as originally intended (guaranteed someone will be seen zipping by on one).
This is the third fundraiser the Orillia Skateparkers have had and they have raised $40K so far. They have more fundraisers planned later in the year.
There are 40 different boards up for sale, and bidding will be online starting Friday evening; you can find a link to the auction here. They enlisted the help of Streets Alive to get the artists working on the boards, so the event Saturday night is as much an art show as it is a fundraiser. Bidding will close at 9:30 p.m. Saturday.
Roots North
The dance card for the main stage at St. Paul’s Centre for this year’s April 16 to 19 festival is shaping up. The Friday night show has Doug Paisley and the Dog House Orchestra performing. I saw Dog House a couple years ago at the Mariposa audition concert and at the festival and they were pretty good.
Saturday night its Mary Frances and Meredith Moon. There will be more added to the main stage gigs. The evening venue schedule is not complete yet, other than Quayle’s Brewery has four nights of music happening – Cam Galloway, Ron Whitman, Stephan Bernard and Mark Gunn will play in that order starting the Thursday night. New this year is a music in the round concert at Creative Nomad Studios on the Sunday of the festival. You can get festival passes online.
New Music
Danny Webster has a new EP album out, called DW. It’s a lush sonic exposition of his writing and recording skills. The mix is really good. Without knowing for sure, I suspect there are several tracks of guitars, and several of vocals. This results in a stacking of harmonies, and a sound that fills the room.
One of the things many songwriters have trouble with is arranging the instruments and additional vocals to support their own voices. You know, sometimes the music just doesn’t seem to mesh with the qualities of a singer’s voice. Danny’s tenor singing voice is thin. Without supplementing by doubling and using an effect of the extra track, or adding lower, supporting harmonies, it could become piercing. But that doesn’t happen here. And sometimes those missing lower register harmonies come from the guitars.
He also got the bass guitar levels just right for the style of music he records. You notice the bass lines, in fact I’d say with some of the tunes they are the tune, but unlike going to a live show and getting blasted by bass washing out all the other sounds, in Danny’s case is just there enough to be noticed, same for the drums.
With the first two tunes, The Boys Fell and Second Life, I felt like they were comparable in sound to a Beatles recording, or maybe John Lennon’s solo work. The rest – not so much, but fitting in with the overall sound of the album nicely.
You should give this a listen, and then buy it, and you can do so on his Bandcamp page. That page also has links to his other albums.
Zachary Lucky has a new album out. You can listen to, or buy The Lost River Sessions on Bandcamp.
Bleeker has been working on new music and a new song will be out April 6. You can find some of their other music here. They have a few shows in early May, including the Rivoli in Toronto, and are then heading over to the United Kingdom for some shows.
Lightfoot Festival
The Lightfoot Festival committee has got their house in order. Like last year they are dribbling out information about the festival here and there, which helps them stay visible.
Aside from what is becoming a hallmark of the festival, a performance by the Lightfoot Band (October 29 at the Opera House; tickets) they have added a new event this year, a singing contest.
It’s for young people who are in Grade 12 or below. Submit a recording of you singing one of Gord’s tunes, a short list of performances will be selected to do their work live on the Friday afternoon of the festival and three will be selected to do so again Saturday afternoon at Quayle’s Brewery. There will be prizes. The judging will be done by a ‘celebrity panel.’ The finer details of the competition are not on the festival’s website yet, but there’s no time like now to start rehearsing yourself. Check back frequently for contest rules and applications.
There will be a Q&A session with the band and the Memories of Lightfoot story time and music event is returning.
The Shorts
- There’s an awesome concert happening April 25 at St. Paul’s. It’s a fundraiser for Mariposa House Hospice. The lineup has Michael Martyn, Steven Henry, Ronnie Douglas and Samantha Windover playing. You can get tickets online.
- This one comes from the Holy Cow file. The Youth Centre has a fundraiser concert June 13, venue to be announced, with the Weber Brothers, the Ronnie Douglas Blues Band and Andrew Ali/Josh Small. The first 100 tickets are on sale now online.
- There are a few concerts happening at the Opera House to be aware of. Ian Thomas will be in Apr. 28; Classic Lightfoot Live plays May 3; Marc Jordan is here June 11 and MAT is doing Clue with a two week run starting Apr. 9. You can get tickets for any of those online.
- The Mariposa Arts Theatre’s Film Night March 25 has Meadowlarks, Silver Screamers April 8 and The President’s Cake April 22. All shows at the Galaxy are at 4 and 7 p.m. Tickets at the door.
- Tom Arnold (yes, that Tom Arnold) is doing stand up at the Midland Cultural Centre April 12. He’s calling it My Crazy Ex Wife (Rosanne will tell you she is too). Also appearing are Max Measel, Tyler Rich, and all the way from Orillia, Matt Lund. You can get tickets online.
- OMAH has three new exhibits to see, the annual Women’s Day Art Show and Made in Orillia; and Face To Face: Portraits From the Permanent Collection you can also see Tracing Places: Advertising In Orillia and the permanent display of artefacts from Gord’s estate… Peter Street Arts has Judy Flinn’s art featured all month… Apple Annie’s has new art on the walls; among others, see works by Molly Farquharson.
- OMAH has some job openings, permanent and for the summer. You can check out what is available and application criteria online. They are also look for people who would like to join the board of directors. In particular they are looking for people with these skills: fundraising, legal affairs and governance, human resources, business management, and financial/accounting. You can find out more here.
- Quayle’s Brewery has Jamie Drake playing Mar. 20; Andrew Walker plays Mar. 21; Darcy Windover Mar. 22; Comedy with two shows, tickets; Brigitte Eve Mar. 28 and David Shaw Mar. 29… the Hog ‘N Penny has Corey Taylor playing Mar. 20; Lotus Wight is in March 21 … The ANAF Club has Boathouse Blues Band playing March 21; Back Roads Revival is in March 22 at 2 p.m.
- There a couple reviews being held until next week, plus the ones from this weekend.
(Images Supplied) Main: A few of the skate board art pieces being auctioned at Higher Ground Saturday night.
