This Week In Art/Culture/Entertainment
By John Swartz
You know, we’re pretty lucky here in Orillia. We’ve got a talent level in music, visual art, theater, comedy, and writing which on a per capita basis I think exceeds many other communities.
When I think back to the community I grew up in and compare the number of great guitarists, keyboard players, singers, songwriters, and especially the number of really good drummers, not to mention the painters, the sculptors, people like John Notten and Peter Fyfe who came up with the current exhibit at OMAH, and the number of people who have written engaging books, and people with no artistic talent (Leslie’s words, not mine) who think up things like the many years of Streets Alive public art projects, and those who organize and pull off things like the Mariposa Folk Festival, and get live entertainment into our waterfront parks, the contrast is like night and day. (That might be a theme here.)
So when it comes to recognizing achievement in the arts, you, even if you have no musical/artistic/literary/acting talent, have an important role to play here. Maybe a bigger role than your commitment to buying tickets.
October 10 is the nomination deadline for this year’s Orillia Regional Arts and Heritage awards.
Wait! Stop keyboard! Here’s some news.
The ORAH awards, which evolved out of the ODAC awards when the Orillia Museum of Arts and History joined their awards program with ODAC’s, is now under the umbrella of North Simcoe Arts. The NSA is the successor to ODAC.
This means we all have to get used to a new name, the North Simcoe Arts Awards. You’ll notice that doesn’t break down to a handy acronym. At least ORAH was easy to say, and kind of had some related meanings that could be attached to it, arty stuff.
We really need to come up without catchy name for this. I’m going to throw this one out right now. I think we should have a sense of humor about it and call them the Spookys. I’ll let you think about that for a few seconds. If you’re still stumped backup two paragraphs and look at the last sentence.
There are still five categories to nominate artists, but they have changed a bit. The only category keeping its name and purpose is the Qennefer Browne Achievement award. This is kind of a lifetime achievement thing which is open to artists and people behind the artists who may or may not be artists themselves.
There is one person who has operated behind the scenes for many years. Event organizers come knocking at his door and he brings out the chequebook. There is almost no event or concert happening in Orillia he hasn’t kicked some money into and I don’t think he gets anywhere near enough credit. And that person is Steve Orr.
The Creative Experience award is for an event, festival or performance of significance.
I want to break here for a moment to mention I have never submitted a nomination. There are two reasons for this. For one I write this column and some might say I have an advantage submitting a nomination. The other is I have been involved in the past in helping to organize the awards, particularly producing the awards night, and of course someone somewhere is going to say I have influence over winners. That doesn’t mean I don’t see any conflict reminding you of things that took place in the last year. And, as has been proven year after year, some of you have your own ideas about nominations.
So back to the Creative Experience award, there is one annual event, certainly I have neglected to mention, and it’s the February Gospel and Blues Concert. This is a specific Mariposa Folk Festival event stickhandled by Lance Anderson for the last 14 years.
Every year Lance puts together a band of the best musicians available. He brought some incredibly talented people to play here in Orillia every winter when those people could be playing or staying in much warmer places. Last February he had Jimmy Bowskill, Brittany Brooks, Emily and Selena Evangeline fronting the band. The year before the key performer was Jordan John. One month later Jordan was named as the new lead singer for Tower of Power. I could go on and on and on dropping names of musicians Lance had perform at this concert. It’s like a Who’s Who of Canadian music. I think it’s time the concert gets a nomination.
Another deserving nominee here would be the Orillia Concert Association. Year after year they put together a concert series bringing in the best Classically trained musicians in Canada and from around the world and they do it for only a $90 for a season’s pass, which by the way is the same price for this coming season. They also seem to find room from time to time for artists beyond the Classical realm having presented acts from the Jazz world, some that are more Pop than Classical, and some comedy on occasion.
I can’t get out of this category without suggesting Kevin Gangloff deserves a nomination. He has become Orillia’s primary concert producer/promoter with all of the concerts he produces every year to raise money, tens of thousands of dollars, for the Orillia Youth Centre. It’s not just the number of concerts, he brings in musicians we don’t know. Musicians we should know.
The above three suggestions I think could also qualify for the Qennefer Browne Achievement award because the Creative award is really meant for things happening in the past year. Go nuts. Nominate these people for both awards.
The next category is the Youth Voice in Arts and Culture award. This is for people under the age of 25 what made, “artistic or cultural contributions, demonstrating bold expression, leadership, or meaningful community engagement.” At this moment I can’t think of anyone because all the artists I know are older than 25. On the other hand I’m sure you can think of somebody.
Next is the Community Impact Through Arts and Culture award. This one is for individuals or groups who use art for education, social connection, wellness, or community advocacy. The obvious one is Arts Orillia. They are constantly snagging musicians and artists visiting the area to do workshops in our schools. They have a summer theater training program they run out of the Opera House and they run dance workshops. And the whole point of what they do with these programs is to expose our kids to different art forms we don’t often see presented here and to a higher level of expert training.
A nice parting gift for Laura Lee Matthie and for Laura Christie, who didn’t retire, would be recognition for the outstanding job with all the bands at Orillia Secondary School, not just this past school year, but for several years. I’m not sure which one came up with the idea but together they managed the Sunshine City School Music Festival which brings high school bands from as far away as Kitchener to perform at what has become a four-day, all day and part of the night parade of bands at the school. Because of this festival we can judge for ourselves the quality of musical education our kids are getting and the visiting kids get exposed to our city.
The last award is for Equity and Inclusion in the Arts and Culture. I don’t know of anything that fits here. Now that I’ve had a minute, I think the Mariposa Arts Theatre’s Queer Cabaret qualifies. They’ve added more performance days and performances in each of the three years they’ve had this event. It also occurs to me the City of Orillia’s culture office, department, whatever they’re calling it now, could be nominated for the various exhibits of Native art they’ve had at the Orillia Recreation Centre. For whatever criticism the City gets on the culture front, especially when we were once the leading light in this province, on this they should get nominated.
The awards night is November 26 and it happens at Creative Nomad Studios at 6 p.m. it’s free to attend. You make nominations online.
Reviews
It’s fall. The last few weeks have almost been nothing but advance notice of all the concerts that are going to be happening. Well that started last weekend and the season couldn’t have started off any better than it did.
Saturday night was a fund-raising concert for the Orillia Youth Center featuring Terra Lightfoot and the Sadies. Terra opened the show and played half her set solo and half of it with her band. She sings a number of really good songs, but I thought the second half with band really cooked. On second thought it was a nice bridge between singing with only a guitar accompanying to the onslaught the Sadies were to provide.
I think Travis Good may just be the best guitarists in Canada right now. Yeah I know, Alex Lifeson, Randy Bachman and Devin Townsend are out there but Travis is certainly playing in their league.
I spoke with Travis after concert and I said it was like hearing Roy Clark, Chet Atkins and Glen Campbell all at once and looking at him. Travis added, “and Jerry Reed.” Yeah him too.
And then I said there were quite a few of the tunes the band did that I thought, ‘you know this could turn into Ghost Riders In The Sky so easily’. Travis laughed and said, “we’ve been borrowing from that song a lot.”
Travis’s doesn’t rely on effects and just uses a more pure tone and great skill to make you sit there and be blown away by the magic coming from his fingers. I don’t think there was a song that lasted longer than 2 1/2 minutes and about a third of the set list was instrumentals.
I caught something drummer Mike Belitsky did I don’t see too many drummers doing, it’s a technique thing. Asking him about it started a lengthy conversation about drumming and drum teachers. His solid playing and that of bassist Sean Dean provided a great foundation for Travis to work with.
One of the interesting things about the music is that even though Travis’s tone is pretty consistent throughout all the tunes, meaning his guitar sounds the same, he uses the guitar so differently from one song to the next we don’t notice he is not piling effects on the sound of the guitar.
One thing is for sure, the 250 or so people who saw this concert got their money’s worth and were well entertained. I’ve heard enthusiastic ovations before, but this one was probably one of the more exuberant. When the band came back out they brought Terra with them and when it came time for the extended guitar solo Travis gave way to Terra and she proceeded to show the audience she can shred too.
Night And Day
Sunday was the complete opposite in that classical music was on the menu instead of rock ‘n roll. The Orillia Silver Band concert was also at St. Paul’s and it was built around their guest artist pianist Kyung-A Lee.
She started the concert solo, playing several pieces by Chopin. She was joined by OSB band members Karen Richards on flute and Kim Barlow on clarinet and together they played Clair de lune, and Rhapsody on Carmen. Clair sounded quite a bit different with only those three instruments and no strings, but of course the melody can’t be denied; it’s one of the most beautiful ever written. The Rhapsody on the other hand has so many well known tunes packed into it, it was clearly the audience favourite and the musicians got a standing ovation when it was done. Kyung-A ended the set with another Chopin piece.
The band didn’t make an appearance until after halftime. They got to display their usual high degree of musicianship and chops playing a piece derived from the work of Thomas Tallis and the well-known Little Suite for Brass by Malcolm Arnold.
Then they got down to business backing up Kyung-A on Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2. The audience responded with a great ovation when it ended. They were clearly quite impressed with the talent displayed by everyone on stage. For those who have had excellent musical training and put it to use, and this goes for both concerts, watching a performance by others who tick all the boxes in terms of excellence in performance is an experience like achieving nirvana. I sat next to a pianist for this concert who is no slouch whatsoever at the keyboard and he was as gob smacked as I was with what we just witnessed.
We’ve got a lot of music to get through between now and Christmas, including from Jesus Christ Superstar which Mariposa Arts Theatre is doing in November and all I can say is I hope everybody is up to their game to build on this incredibly great start to concert season.
The Shorts
- Culture Days is this week with an event at Creative Nomad Studios Oct. 2 at 6 p.m. and tours of the art collection at the Orillia Public Library Oct. 4 at 10:30 and 11:30 a.m.
- The Orillia Fall Fair is Oct. 3 to 5 at ODAS Park. Of note, the demo derby starts at 1 p.m. Sunday. Tractor Pulls start at 5 p.m. Saturday.
- MAT’s Film Nights at the Galaxy have started. The next one with Santosh is Oct. 8 at 4 and 7 p.m.; A Nice Indian Boy is Oct. 22.
- Peter Seitz and Dan McCoy (St. Paul’s music director) have devised a new method to teach music. They have a new six-week program running at St. Paul’s (they say anyone can drop in at any time) that formed the basis for a music education book. The U of T is using the method and conducting a study on its effectiveness. It’s from 4 to 5 p.m. each week and it’s free to attend.
- The Orillia Jazz Festival keynote event is the The Oscar Peterson Centennial Quartet with Robbie Botos on Oct. 18. at the Opera House. The Opera House has a new ‘improved’ website so old links won’t work. Here’s where to get tickets.
- Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital Foundation has a gala happening Nov. 15 at Lakehead University. Music is by John Amato singing jazz standards. You can get tickets online.
- Meredith Moon has a new album out this week. You can listen to From Here to the Sea online.
- Derick Lehmann has two events happening. The annual Trunk or Treat at ODAS Park happens Oct. 26 and it’s time to register your trunk (it’s free even though you click the ticket link). In November he has a 90s Dance Party on the 15th, also at ODAS Park and you can get tickets here.
- Quayle’s Brewery has Jakob Pearce playing Oct. 2; Dave Shaw Oct. 3; Mike Schultz (early shift) and Ashley Woodruff (Late) Oct. 4; Andrew Walker Oct. 5… the Hog ‘N Penny has an afternoon jam session every Sunday with Sean Patrick and others.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia and Images Supplied) Main: Yours To Uncover: An Ontario Road Trip at the Orillia Museum of Art and History
