This Week In Art/Culture/Entertainment

By John Swartz

Mariposa Arts Theatre starts their season Thursday night with Macbeth in Gord’s Room at the Opera House.

It’s Shakespeare. So there’s that. The last time MAT did Shakespeare I thoroughly enjoyed it, much more than I did with his stuff in high school. Stevie Baker is directing this one, which has a large cast.

If you don’t; know the story, it’s certainly timely, given what is happening south of us.  A Scottish general is prophesized to become the King of Scotland, which then goes straight o his head and he sets out to make it so by killing and scheming.

In short it’s a tale about how power, or the quest for power corrupts.

The play runs for two weeks and you can get tickets online.

Silver Band

The Orillia Silver band has a concert Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Centre. They have three pieces on the menu I can’t wait to hear; music from Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian, Ritual Fire Dance, Manuel de Falla and Entry of the Gladiators  by Julius Fucik.

They are also playing music by Carl Maria von Weber, John Williams and a suite of music by Peter Graham (who does epic pieces for brass and concert band) called Call of the Cossacks.

You can get tickets online, or at the door. The OSB also has their draw for a $100 gift certificate to any restaurant in Simcoe Muskoka and the Kawarthas; all you have to do is show your receipt from lunch on the way in to be in the draw.

Reviews In reverse order

Last weekend was the annual Lightfoot Festival. Things began Thursday night at the Opera House with a sold out show by the Lightfoot Band. I heard everything I wanted to hear, and they still left out some tunes from the show. The new guy, Bill Bell, who replaced Carter Lancaster on guitar fits in very nicely.

As Bill mentioned in the story here, he was trying to go back to playing the guitar parts as Red Shea and Terry Clements created them, but as musicians can tell, there is always a bit of the player’s own style and personality that seeps into a part and when Bill played The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald, even though he was playing as was the original, there was enough of Bill Bell in it that he owns it now.

The band has added some tunes to the show like Baby Step Back and a couple of songs the band hasn’t played in years. There were moments when Andy Mauck sounded just like Gord did.

Friday the Student Singing Competition happened at Creative Nomad Studios. There were three entrants, Sienna LeBlanc, Blake Clarke, and Adyson Nathan who performed and placed in that order. The judges were the members of the Lightfoot Band (except for Bill, who by that time of day would have been in Vancouver already), and me.

I can’t begin to imagine the willies those three students would have had singing Gord’s tunes in front of the folks who recorded them, yet all three did very well. They had the opportunity to repeat their performances at Quayle’s Brewery on Saturday and get a second round of applause for their effort.

Saturday stated with a showing of Lightheaded: A Gordon Lightfoot State of Mind  a documentary made by John Corcoran of an extended trip to the U.K. with his family on the occasion of Gord’s first tour there in 30 years. This was shown last year, but it was nice watching it again and seeing the bits shot at Gord’s home (and being reminded of what his music room was like).

Jeff Monague opened up the music at Quayle’s on Saturday. It is to be expected he will play Christian Island, which was the case and some other tunes by Gord. After the students performed, The High Stepping Strutters (Scott Thompson, Steve Porter, and Vince Therrien) did a set after which the audience demanded an encore, in which they played Song for A Winter’s Night, which happens to be my favourite.

Samantha Windover was next. I missed the first bit of her set, so I don’t know if she sang any of Gord’s tunes (she does do his music), and what I heard were a couple tunes from her new album (out in a couple weeks) and three songs made popular by Patsy Cline. To say she killed it is understatement. Steve Porter was along to play second guitar for Samantha.

Then Andy Mauck did a set of tunes, most people have never heard Gord perform and the Lightfoot band has not done. He picked stuff well off the hits and popular concert numbers list and the audience thought they were in heaven.

There were people who travelled to Orillia for the festival from Belgium, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Louisiana, California and Ottawa. Many of those were not making their first trip here for the festival and it was kind of like an old home weekend for them. I spoke to one young guy who came from California; he said he only discovered Gord’s music earlier this year, went down a rabbit hole listening to all he could find, heard about the festival and decided he needed to be here for it.

Two weeks earlier, the Orillia Jazz Festival happened at the Opera House. The Friday night of, featured music in the studio theater composed by three students, Cassia Stoodley, Alida Tomasini, and Nico Christie. Each wrote their own pieces and were tutored by Alondra Vega, Jacob Thompson and Cole Mendez. Jacob and Cole were seated in the audience and jumped in with the last tune so smoothly it had to be seen to be appreciated.

The James Brown Trio (with Clark Johnston, and Hannah Barstow) did a set. There were a few moments I thought reflected things I’ve heard from Pat Metheny, just a few.

The real show happened next. Nate Robertson took over the stage and played music he made up as he went along. He layered guitar parts on top of each other, and then set a loop going while he moved over to the drums and played incredibly well. He also had a bunch of ging gongs to add into the sound. I wouldn’t say it was jazz music, but the creation was certainly in the spirit of jazz improvisation.  There was also a video playing that added to the atmosphere of the set. Nate gets an A+ for creativity and doing so in a way we want to keep listening to see what comes next.

The next night Jane Bunnett and Maqueque played the Opera House. Dancers Melissa Noventa, and Yordan Gutierrez made appearance at intervals. I’m not always keen on improvised dancing as a feature because  its hit or miss with me for how it works with the music, but for this show, the dancers definitely added to the colour of the show.

Jane’s band is billed as a Cuban, all-female group, which the first thing I noticed was three of the females were in fact men. Jane did make mention of this and I asked her for more after the show. It turns out the three missing musicians are from Miami, and there was a issue they weren’t sure they would be able to get back to Miami (no thanks to the goofball’s immigration and border policies).

One of the things I ruminated on during the show is with jazz it’s not necessary to know the songs being played (and I don’t know much of the band’s music) great jazz music played very well is still just good music to listen to. I liked everything I heard, and Jane’s pianist, Dánae Olano, is outstanding.

Youth Centre Does it Again

The Orillia youth Centre has three fundraising events happening at Creative Nomad Studios this weekend. Nov. 6 Kevin Seconds, Roger Harvey, Lenny Lashley, and Nixon Boyd will be performing in-the-round at 7 p.m.; Nov. 7 and afternoon gig with Roger Harvey, Lenny Lashley. and Alex Kaye Black happens at 1:30 p.m.; then at 7 p.m. Kevin Seconds, Nixon Boyd and Alex Kaye Black have a concert.

I’ve seen all these people perform and this will be a good time. You can get tickets online (when you are on that page, look for the calendar on the top right, click one of the dates with a purple dot and a drop down menu appears to make your order).

Also the move-in to the new facility at the old train station is weeks away.

Finally

I don’t think I’m the only one who was waiting to see Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple on another platform other than CBC Gem. I happened to catch it the day the CBC put it out on Youtube two weeks ago. What a well done documentary. Some of the footage I’ve seen before, but the main draw is watching Alex and Geddy playing some tunes with Danny Carey, Stewart Copeland, Chad Smith, Gavin Harrison sitting in for Neil and hearing those drummers talking about their relationship with Neil.

It is an exciting video, but it gets pretty heavy near the end. There has not been another documentary done I am aware of that explores the life and career of a musician like this one. Congrats to the documentary makers and the CBC for doing it. You can watch it here.

Stay for the end credits. You’ll see some familiar names fly by, namely Robert Gronfors and Phil Lalonde, who provided some footage they’ve been restoring originally shot by Speedy (Jim Kelly).

The Shorts

• Registration is open for the Orillia Kiwanis Music Festival, which take place next April. You can find all the details on the Kiwanis website.

• The Cellar Singers are performing Handel’s Messiah Nov. 28 at St. James Anglican Church. You can get tickets online.

• The Dough Bros, from Gravenhurst are making a concert recording Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Centre. Yu can get tickets, $15, at the door.

• Won’t Be Denied, has an all ages concert happening at St. Paul’s Centre Dec. 112 and it’s also serving as an album release for a band called Bad Egg. Also playing along are Fish Guts, Hyper war, Reliever, Last Will and Skidmarks. Admission is $10 aafor youth, $20 for adults.

• The Orillia Native Women’s Group has a poetry night happening Nov. 26 at Hawk Ridge Golf Club. It comes with diner at 5 p.m. and the event functions to raise awareness of violence against Indigenous women. The event is for those 16-yers-old and up. You can register online.

• Storytelling Orillia has an afternoon of storytelling and a workshop with Tim Greenwood happening Nov. 14 at OMAH. You can get tickets online.

• The Mariposa Folk Fest audition submission for new artists period is open until Nov. 30. Details for how to apply are online. The audition concert is Apr. 10.

• Arts Orillia has a showcase of area bands called Forever Young happening Nov. 26 at the Opera House. The Hip Parade, a band Nixon Boyd put together (Taylor Knox, Mike Van Dyk, Stephen Henry, and Scott Olgard)  for last summer’s Mariposa Folk Fest to do a set of music by the Tragically Hip will also be performing. You can get tickets online.

• The Ugly Sweater Bowling Party is back for another year. This annual fundraiser has raised $40K over the previous 11 years. Donations have been made to the Sharing Place, but this year proceeds will go to area toy drives. It happens Dec. 18 and tickets go on sale Nov. 12

• Green Haven Shelter for Women’s annual fundraiser, A Christmas Carol, is happening December 16 at the Opera House. The lineup of readers includes  Patrick McKenna, Colin Mochrie, Aurora Browne (CBC’s Baroness von Sketch Show); Neil Crone (Little Mosque on the Prairie); Linda Kash (Kraft’s Philadelphia Cream Cheese Angel); and Debra McGrath (Colin Mochrie’s wife, Women Fully Clothed, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Sunshine Sketches of a Small Town)That should do it for prompting ticket orders, but there’s more. Bruce Pirrie (Red Green) is directing and music is by Jim Clayton You can get tickets online.

• The Opera House has a number of concerts happening; the Jim Cuddy Band is in Nov. 19; Susan Aglukark plays Nov. 20; the Great Canadian Road Trip with Doc Walker, Jason McCoy, and Michelle Wright happens Nov. 22; Derek Edwards performs Nov. 27 – you can get tickets for any of those online.

• Mariposa still has a few, and only a few, tickets on sale now for the Nov. 21 stupendous concert at the Opera House with Lance Anderson, Matt Weidinger and Cole Mendez, along with two members of Matt’s band, The Tonewheels, Chris Latta (guitar) and Mike Rajna (drums). Lance, Matt and Cole will be fighting over who gets to play Hammond B3, there will be tow of those on stage. Get tickets here.

• The Orillia Concert Association has their season lined up. The Toronto Concert Orchestra performs Jan. 17 at St. Paul’s Centre; Payadora plays March 14 at the Opera House; and Spirit 20 performs Apr. 18 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian. All show times are 2:30 p.m. You can get tickets ($90, best deal in town) online, and there’s a lower price ($30) for students of all types up to grad school.

• The Orillia Museum of Art and History has the annual Franklin Carmichael landscape show, Tradition Transformed  up and a collection of art from the museum’s holdings called Chasing the Light and Homegrown; The Story of Orillia at the same time; don’t forget to see the permanent exhibit of Gordon Lightfoot’s personal effects… Peter Street Fine Arts has the work of Renee Van der Putten featured all month; the gallery also has boards for the annual 6×6 show available for pick up now, they are $20 for two boards and a artists get all the proceeds from each sale.

• Quayles has Chris Staig playing Nov.. 5; Chris Lemay Nov. 6; Jojo is in Nov. 7 and   Phil Lisotti plays Nov. 8… The Hog ‘N Penny has Scott Olgard playing Nov. 6 and No Great Mischeif is in Nov. 7… the ANAF club has Beal Street playing Nov. 7 and a jam from 2 to 5 p.m. Nov. 8 … Studabakers has live music Thursday nights… Kensingtons has an open mic every Tuesday evening.

(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia and Images Supplied) Main: Cast of Mariposa Arts Theatre’s production of Macbeth (phto by Darren Summersby)

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