New festival putting roots down in Ottawa
By Michelle Nash
A new festival promising to be a celebration of bluegrass, roots and folk music will be coming to Centretown on April 28.
The Ottawa Grassroots Festival will hold their first of what organizers announced will be an annual event at the Montgomery Legion Hall on Kent Street. The festival will offer free events during the afternoon and a ticketed evening concert.
Read more: New festival putting roots down in Ottawa
88 x 2 (Charlap-Rosnes piano duo booked for Ottawa Jazz Festival)
By Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
Photo by Peter Hum
More good news for Ottawa’s fans of jazz piano: the husband-and-wife duo of Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes is booked to play the TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival, according to Rosnes’ website.
The impeccable exemplars of modern mainstream jazz piano are to play June 29 in the NAC Studio.
Read more: 88 x 2 (Charlap-Rosnes piano duo booked for Ottawa Jazz Festival)
New Orleans on the Rideau
June jazz festival to feature Trombone Shorty, Allen Toussaint
By Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
Photograph by: Rick Diamond, Getty Images , Ottawa Citizen
A New Orleans-themed night at this year’s TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival will feature the return of hearty funkster Trombone Shorty and his Orleans Avenue band, followed by the iconic musician Allen Toussaint.
Those two groups play the festival’s Confederation Park main stage June 25. Shorty, who was born Troy Andrews, will be making his third appearance there in
Read more: New Orleans on the Rideau, June jazz festival to feature Trombone Shorty, Allen Toussaint
Westfest’s Domicile Main Stage Moves to Bigger Space
In its eighth year running, Westfest, Westboro Village’s Festival of Music, Art and Life, is making a few changes that will ensure this year’s experience is one to remember.
This spring, from June 10-12, Westfest’s Domicile main stage will return to the eastern end of Westboro Village, at the corner of Byron and Kirkwood Avenues. The Domicile main stage will open each day of the festival at 5 pm, leaving the daytime for families to enjoy the many “On The Street” features of Westfest. As street activities wind down, the party will start on the main stage with an excellent line-up of artists performing each night.
For years, the community greenspace at the corner of Byron and Kirkwood Avenues has been left unused, waiting for an event like Westfest to bring it back to life. This space, which features a grassy hill for naturally elevated seating, was reserved for community use when the nearby Real Canadian Superstore was built. Until now, it has remained virtually unused.
Westfest Founder and Producer Elaina Martin says the new location will provide an audience area four times the size of the previous location, making the festival experience safer and more comfortable for everyone. In addition, she said the entire audience area at this year’s Domicile main stage will be fully licensed. “The new Domicile main stage space will give attendees a truly full festival experience; the comfort of having a drink while still experiencing an intimate show in a safe setting – all while also not having to peek around trees or buildings to do so!”” Elaina said. Last year saw more than 5,000 music fans attend Westfest’s Domicile main stage area; while the audience continued to grow, the space became too small.
After a year of searching for the right candidate, a new Executive Director, Natalie Hanson, has been named to the Westboro Village BIA, leaving past executive director Elaina Martin free to focus on Westfest. This will be the second year that the festival has operated with full autonomy from the Westboro Village BIA. The Westfest team looks forward to a continued relationship with the BIA, and Ms. Hanson.
As always, there will be many ways to get to the new site of the Domicile main stage. For attendees using OC Transpo, the nearby Westboro Transitway Station is a short walk south to the stage. A secure bike park will be available, and on-street parking is available where designated on nearby streets.
Fast-growing Westfest gains ‘giant’ new home
Westfest will expand to a new part of the neighbourhood this year. The organizer of the free music festival that takes place in Westboro has found a new location for the main stage that gives more space for the audience to stretch out.
The stage will be set up in the strip of community green space at Byron and Kirkwood avenues, immediately south of the Real Canadian Superstore parking lot. Westfest director Elaina Martin says the grassy site will accommodate 15,000 people, tripling the capacity of the previous main-stage area, which was a strip of parkland several blocks west.
Describing it as a “new, giant, beautiful, safe, glorious home,” Martin says the festival will now be able to license the entire area, instead of having to separate the beer-drinkers from the rest of the concertgoers. “You won’t have to wave at your friends over the fence anymore,” she said. Popular Vankleek Hill-based microbrewery, Beau’s, is returning as the beer sponsor.
Westfest, which began in 2004, has been growing every year. Billed as a community celebration of music, visual art and literary pursuits, last year’s event attracted more than 100,000 people during one June weekend. Richmond Road was closed to traffic between Golden and McRae avenues, and programming filled the street. The main stage at the western end of the 14-block stretch featured performances by Sloan, Dala and Ottawa blues trio MonkeyJunk. Up to 5,000 people crammed in front of the stage for the headlining shows.
Read more at ottawacitizen.com
Young Ottawa string players set to perform this weekend
Nearly a dozen young Ottawa string players will perform music by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and others at Glebe-St. James United Church Sunday in a concert presented by the Young String Performers Foundation.
That’s the charitable organization founded by Ottawa violinist Joan Milkson to help young Ottawa players up to age 16 by offering them concert opportunities, master classes, instruments on loan and bursaries.
Milkson’s organization presents several concerts each season, featuring students recommended by area teachers. The performers are prizewinners at Ottawa, provincial, national and sometimes international competitions. Among the performers Sunday will be violinist Kerson Leong, 13, who won the junior division of the Menuhin Competition in Norway last year. His 16-year-old brother, cellist Stanley Leong, who has been a top prizewinner at national competitions, will also perform. Other students include cellists Anita Pari and Lilian Mai Potvin, violist Jonah Poplove and violinists Rebecca Gray, Meghan Ruel, Isaac Alexander-Cook, Jonathan Crombie and Jae Won Seo.
On Jan. 8, Milkson’s organization brought former Montreal Symphony concertmaster Jonathan Crow to town for a day-long master class session. Crow, who teaches at McGill University, worked with 16 students. Milkson says his teaching skills were impressive.
Mark these gems on your calendar: Classical stars to shine in Ottawa, with more to come
Some of the star names are enough to make a classical music lover’s mouth water: In 2011, Ottawa-area music buffs will be able to hear performances by conductor Gustavo Dudamel, pianists Angela Hewitt (twice) Janina Fialkowska (twice), violinist James Ehnes and the Orchestre National de France.
And those are just some highlights of performances that we know about. Programming is still to be unveiled for Julian Armour’s Music and Beyond Festival (July 7 to 17) and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival (July 23 to Aug. 6.) We also don’t know yet what the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Ottawa Symphony or Opera Lyra Ottawa will offer in the fall.
In the meantime, here are a few promising performances scheduled for the first part of the year:
Jan. 9: Dudamel comes to the megaplex: The brilliant young Venezuelan maestro, director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since fall 2009, is in huge demand as a guest conductor. He appeared with the NACO in 2007, but with his busy schedule, is unlikely to be back to Ottawa often. So fans of Dudamel will be excited that the L.A. orchestra, in a page from the Metropolitan Opera’s successful satellite transmissions, plans to present three of this season’s concerts live by satellite from Walt Disney Concert Hall to movie theatres across North America. The series will include interviews with the conductor and musicians and footage of rehearsals. The series opens Jan. 9 at 5 p.m. with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 and American composer John Adams’ Slonimsky’s Earbox. Other concerts are March 13 (all-Tchaikovsky) and June 5 (all-Brahms). Ottawa-area cinemas presenting the concerts are SilverCity, Coliseum and Gatineau’s StarCité (www.cineplex.com).
Read more: www.ottawacitizen.com
6 Concert Extravaganza in one night with all-star Canadian musicians!
Ottawa (Thursday, October 14, 2010) – The Ottawa Jazz Festival has programmed the most sublime Canadian jazz artists performing back-to-back in six concerts in one evening on Saturday, November 6, 7:30pm at the National Arts Centre Fourth Stage for only $15.
In concert with the annual CAPACOA (Canadian Arts Presenting Association/l’Association canadienne des organismes artistiques) conference, this is a rare opportunity to see some of the finest young talent on the touring circuit today: Read more
Music and Beyond Presents Two Great Fall Music Events
Music and Beyond Presents
Two Great Fall Music Events
In The Countryside!
Sunday 26 September 2010
A Kid’s Music Adventure
10am – 3pm
Fall Celebration – Fundraising Concert & Reception
4:30pm – 6:30pm
At Saunders Farm, Munster (map)
And don’t miss our Online Auction November 1 – December 15, 2010
For details visit www.musicandbeyond.ca
HST will add to event ticket prices
Posted By BILL HENRY
SUN TIMES STAFF
Brace yourselves for higher ticket prices under the harmonized sales tax starting in July.
Some area arts organizations are scrambling to assess the HST’s full impact, analyzing both the higher ticket prices they’ll have to charge and the additional tax bite on their programming budgets.
The HST merges the 8% provincial sales tax and the 5% federal goods and service taxes into a single 13%. It means the end of current PST exemptions for many items and services, such as tickets to concerts and other public performances.
Arts groups expect both the tax hit and slower ticket sales will affect their bottom line.
Since performing arts groups in Ontario were not required to charge provincial tax on tickets, patrons will pay an additional 8% to see concerts, plays and other performances once the change comes in.
To read the full article, click here.
