André Hamelin and Les Violons du Roy at Dominion-Chalmers United Church Reviewed Saturday night
It’s been a tough year for Quebec City’s Les Violons du Roy. Last spring, the group, which plays period music on modern instruments, announced that founding music director Bernard Labadie was taking time off for health reasons. By the summer, fans had learned that Labadie was seriously ill with lymphoma and would be sitting out the entire 2014-15 season.
The unexpected death in September of beloved English Baroque specialist Christopher Hogwood was another blow — Hogwood had been scheduled to guest conduct two concerts in Quebec City in February 2015.
The orchestra has soldiered on admirably in Labadie’s absence thanks to several trusted guest conductors and, chiefly, its hardworking associate conductor, Mathieu Lussier.
Lussier led Les Violons du Roy in Saturday night’s Chamberfest concert with pianist Marc-André Hamelin.
Lussier is a classical triple threat: In addition to conducting, he is a sought-after composer and a virtuoso player of both the Baroque and the modern bassoon. It’s not clear if Lussier is actually left-handed, but he uses an unorthodox southpaw baton technique that may have contributed to a few false or stuttering starts from the players. Musically, however, he proved a worthy right-hand man to Labadie (who will return to the helm in February 2016, the orchestra recently announced).
Rameau’s Suite from his late opera Les Boréades was stamped with all the hallmarks that have made Les Violons du Roy so dominant in the French Baroque repertoire: vivid articulation, limpid phrasing and easy grace. The lilting, pastoral second movement was lovingly rendered.
Haydn’s Symphony No. 45 is nicknamed the “Farewell”. It was written as a kind of work-to-rule protest against his patron, who had kept Haydn and his musicians at court for too long without a break. The last movement, in which the musicians silently walk off the stage one by one, was poignantly performed — the double bass solo was deeply melancholic and affecting. But it was in the strident first movement that the musicians shone; the smaller size of the orchestra meant Lussier could really lean into the syncopations and grinding dissonances.
Hamelin is known as a titanic interpreter of late Romantic and 20th-century showstoppers, but the beauty of his Mozart and Haydn shows the extraordinary versatility of his talents: supple, sensitive phrasing, dreamy legato and, always, that golden sound. If his runs in the Mozart A Major Rondo were a little thick and heavily pedalled for the hall, his playing in Haydn’s D Major Concerto was magnificent.
Hamelin’s approach to the Haydn was very different from Ingrid Fliter, who performed the work with NACO last week. Less fiery and intense, more playful and tender. Because he is so calm at the keyboard. Hamelin is sometimes accused of being aloof and cerebral, but at heart he is an old-school romantic. Who else could have chosen to play Wanda Landowska’s extraordinary cadenzas for the Haydn, and performed them so naturally?
The Ottawa Jazz Festival announced most of its 2015 headliners Thursday, promising to bring The Roots, Chris Botti, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Pink Martini and Jamie Cullum to Confederation Park.
These and other main stage bookings continue the trend over the last five years of the festival betting most heavily on folk, funk, rock, blues and pop-jazz to draw large outdoor crowds while moving its copious jazz offerings to indoor stages.
The festival, which marks its 35th anniversary this year, runs from June 19 to July 1 and its opening night headliner is U.S. singer Lisa Fischer. She won a Grammy Award for best female R&B performance in 1992, and since has sung backing vocals for the Rolling Stones and Tina Turner.
On June 20, the headliners are the house band for Jimmy Fallon, The Roots. Elsewhere that night on another stage, folk legend and Ottawa native Bruce Cockburn plays.
The gospel singers The Blind Boys of Alabama and New Orleans favourites The Dirty Dozen Brass Band are on a June 23 double bill in Confederation Park. Smooth jazz trumpeter Botti, previously heard in the park in 2012 and 2009, plays June 24, followed by the classic rock of the Steve Miller Band June 25. Other headliners that boost the festival’s wave of nostalgia are the veteran soul/funk bands WAR and Tower of Power.
The Grammy-winning fusion group Snarky Puppy, which played the festival’s OLG Tent in 2012 and last year, moves up to the main stage June 27. Also returning to the Confederation Park are the crossover group Pink Martini (June 29), which the festival booked in 2011 and 2007, and British pop-jazzer Jamie Cullum (June 30), who closed the 2006 festival.
Bruce Cockburn plays June 20.
Compared to the familiar names above, most of the Canadian jazz acts opening for the headliners in the park have been less exposed to Ottawa audiences.
They include the band of Montreal trumpeter Jacques Kuba Seguin (June 19), the vocal trio Duchess (June 20), the quintet of Brooklyn-based trumpeter and singer Bria Skonberg (June 21), veteran Montreal singer Ranee Lee (June 22), hard-swinging Toronto pianist Robi Botos joined by saxophonist Seamus Blake (June 23), Montreal saxophonist Joel Miller with his group Honeycomb (June 24), the strumming guitars of Gypsophilia (June 25), young Vancouver saxophonist Eli Bennett (June 26), Ottawa-raised vocalist Jenna Glatt (June 27), the group Afro-Cuban Jazz and Beyond (June 28) and the group led by Brooklyn-based Canadian expat bassist Michael Bates (June 29).
As in recent years, the festival’s NAC Studio series will appeal heartily to festival-goers seeking big jazz names from both the genre’s more mainstream and avant-garde flanks.
Jazz traditionalists will be happy that pianist Renee Rosnes, a New Yorker and Canadian expat, will bring an impeccable quartet to the NAC Studio for two shows on June 21. Two nights later, saxophonist Branford Marsalis will play two studio shows.
Listeners who like their jazz more expansive, outre or exotic will warm to Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love’s Large Unit and the big band of Israeli Avi Liebovich, who play the festival June 22 and 19 respectively.
Stanley Clarke is back.
Electric bass hero Stanley Clarke, an exuberant showman in the park with Return To Forever and the funky SMV supergroup in recent years, will play the studio’s smaller space with his band June 24.
Trumpeters figure prominently in the Studio series, including New Yorker Dave Douglas (June 26) and the Italians Paolo Fresu and Enrico Rava (June 25). The virtuosic French duo of accordionist Richard Galliano nad guitarist Sylvain Luc play June 29.
The studio series ends with one of the festival’s most prestigious jazz bookings in the form of South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and his trio.
The 80-year-old legend, who lived abroad during his homeland’s apartheid years, is just one of five South African acts on the festival’s bill. The others include free-spirit drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo (NAC Fourth Stage, June 27), the young pianist Kyle Shepherd (NAC Fourth Stage, June 26), the crossover band Freshlyground (OLG Tent, June 24) and the South African-Canadian singer Zaki Ibrahim (Laurier Avenue Canadian Music Stage, July 1), no relation to Abdullah.
This South African contingent is also playing the Vancouver Jazz Festival this summer.
Other notable international bookings, all to be presented in the NAC Fourth Stage, include French vocalist Cyrille Aimee (June 20), the trio of U.S. hornman Joe McPhee, Montreal bassist Nicolas Caloia and Ottawa drummer Jesse Stewart (June 20), German pianist Julia Hulsmann’s trio (June 24), the Norwegian duo of singer Sidsel Endresen and guitarist Stian Westerhus (June 28), Belgian pianist Jef Neve (June 29), as well as the U.S. electric jazz-rock group Kneebody (June 29).
With the exception of the Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra (June 28), the Laurier Avenue Canadian Music series is focused on vocalists such as Ottawa’s Rebecca Noelle (June 22), Kat Edmonson (June 24), Lindi Ortega (June 25) and Polaris Prize-winning vocalist Tanya Tagaq (June 29).
Branford Marsalis plays June 23.
The OLG After Dark series will once again stress rootsy, alternative, indie, world-beat and danceable bookings including the Soul Rebels Brass Band (June 19), Reuben and the Dark (June 20), Timber Timbre (June 21), soulful Sonny Knight and the Lakers (June 22), the groovy Brooklyn group Moon Hooch (June 23) Ikebe Shakedown (June 25), My Brightest Diamond (June 25), bluesy Americana group The Wood Brothers (June 27), vocalist Robin McKelle (June 28) and the trippy Norwegian experimentalists Jaga Jazzist (June 29).
2015 Ottawa Jazz Festival
When: July 19 to July 1
Where: Confederation Park, National Arts Centre and other venues
Canadian rocker Tom Cochrane cast his biggest hits into the warm glow of a softly rocking campfire set and then turned the heat way up during a superb performance at the National Arts Centre on Saturday.
The multi-Juno winner is drawing to the end of a major tour across the country with the latest edition of his band, Red Rider, and everyone on stage was in tip-top shape. The band sizzled, especially the work of original members Kenny Greer (guitar, keyboards) and Jeff Jones (bass).
After a short opening set by Jessica Mitchell, the Canadian Idol finalist who’s also one of the talented members of Cochrane’s band, Cochrane and the gang launched into a comprehensive performance, with enough time to stretch out on a cross-section of material and let the emotional impact sink in.
The show lasted nearly two hours, starting with a terrific banjo- and mandolin-reworking of the ’80s nugget, Boy Inside the Man. A similarly countrified take on The Untouchable One prompted the lively Cochrane to kick up his heels as he belted it out, his voice soaring with passion. “Let me get a good look at you, Ottawa,” said the 61-year-old rock singer-songwriter, surveying the audience he hadn’t seen in years. “It’s been a while.”
The band’s tasty stringwork led to a couple of Americana-style new songs from Cochrane’s latest album, Take it Home. They earned a surprisingly warm response, indicative of a supportive crowd that seemed to have plenty of patience for material beyond the hits.
Of course, there was no shortage of hits. A lush version of Sinking Like a Sunset made an elegant presentation, while the beautifully extended Big League underscored the poignancy of the classic song. In keeping with the less-is-more theme, an acoustic duo approach to Good Times, featuring Cochrane and Greer, drew enthusiastic backup harmonies by the audience of about 1,800 people.
The Canadian Music Hall of Famer fostered an especially powerful moment with the song, Ocean Blue, which paid tribute to Canada’s troops. It was one of several ballads that conjured a strong emotional connection. “This is the depressing part of the set,” Cochrane quipped, perhaps fearing he had played too many slow songs in a row. “I promise you we’re going to rock your faces off the rest of the show.”
And so he did, proving that a sensitive rocker can also pack a punch, particularly when he’s backed by a band with the pedigree of Red Rider. Fans got exactly what they wanted with a string of vintage Cancon gems, including No Regrets, Victory Day and the bouncing anthem of positivity, Life is Highway. Needless to say, it was a great show.
A new intimate theatre and music venue run for artists by artists, Live! on Elgin, plans to open its doors June 5 and provide a new venue for performance and musical groups as well as visual artists.
The founders, father and son Lawrence and Jon Evenchick, say they wanted to create a venue at 220 Elgin St., above Dunn’s, that mirrors the atmosphere of the popular Black Sheep Inn in Wakefield, but in downtown Ottawa, making it easier for musicians to access. Their goal is an affordable place to find good music.
There will be a bar and a small 72-spot seating area for patrons between shows, and there will be a limited Dunn’s menu, sparing the cost of installing a new kitchen. Total capacity will be 90.
They plan to decorate the walls with work from local artists, providing showcase space and possible sales.
The owners also plan to hire staffers from the arts community, allowing as much money as possible to be recirculated through the milieu.
“We want to do whatever we have to to help the arts,” said Jon Evenchick.
Live! on Elgin had planned for a May 1 opening but ran into a snag with parking.
The city requires a minimum of one parking space for every eight seats within the theatre, but all the parking surrounding the venue already belongs to the city.
The business has applied for minor variance, meaning it will need the city to grant an exemption from the parking rules. and has a hearing April 1 at Ben Franklin Place on Centrepointe Drive.
“I suspect they’ll get their variance,” said Catherine McKenney, councillor for Somerset ward. “To have that kind of live theatre and arts venue will be fantastic.”
So far, the club says it has support from people both in the artistic community and the neighbours at large, with 10 letters to the city supporting the minor variance, and no complaints against it.
In fact, the concept gained support from Mayor Jim Watson at its unveiling earlier this year.
“I think it gives artists and performers more option,” Watson said in an interview with Glue Magazine at the time. “It’s one of the reasons we’re constantly ranked high in quality of life when it comes to trying to attract people and talent to live and work in Ottawa. They want to have these kinds of venues, they want that cultural experience. It’s not just about work.”
Evenchick said the concept for the theatre came to him while he was studying business management at Algonquin College. He wanted to create a medium-sized musical venue, something Ottawa lacks, but after some research decided a smaller venue would be more beneficial and encourage growth within the arts community.
They also hope to provide a space where more than one show can be put on in one night. Most theatrical performances end by 10 p.m., so a musical show could be put on later.
The stage will be a set of risers, allowing for a more interactive experience if the show calls for it, as in the case of a comedy act.
The Evenchicks have planned a grand opening party June 5 with a free show.
NOTE: A previous version of this story gave an incorrect date for the opening of Live! on Elgin.
Ottawa has a history of producing great musicians, from Bruce Cockburn, to Alanis Morrisette, to A Tribe Called Red. The city has a strong year-round festival culture, from spring through to the dead of winter. And as the capital, it has no shortage of national arts institutions. But when you think “Ottawa”, music isn’t one of the first things that come to mind.
There’s a lot of excitement today around the positive impact of active music scenes. Cities have been paying close attention ever since evidence emerged about indirect “spillover” effects of music scenes: that they attract and retain young, highly skilled workers; that they make an outsized contribution to quality of life; that they attract tourists and help cities forge a unique identity.
Austin, Texas is the most famous example. Since the birth of the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in the late 1980s, Austin has been transformed – at least in the eyes of outsiders – from a dusty state capital into one of the greatest live music scenes in the world, a high-tech hub where everyone from Google to Facebook to Apple to Intel has opened up offices to tap the local talent pool and lifestyle. And for the 10 days a year of SXSW – happening right now – Austin temporarily becomes the centre of the universe for ambitious creative types across music, film and technology.
Like Austin, Ottawa is a mid-sized government town with a highly educated population and a history of tech. Like Austin, Ottawa has a large population of university and college students. And both cities lack close connections to the music industry’s true global headquarters: New York, Los Angeles and London.
But Ottawa isn’t on most people’s map of musical hotspots.
Recently, we had the opportunity to look at Ottawa’s music industries as part of a research project funded by province’s Ontario Music Fund. Our research found that local musicians are putting in tremendous work to develop their craft, but are frustrated and unsure about what steps to take to reach the next level. And we found that compared to similarly sized Canadian cities, Ottawa underperforms on the business side: the managers, labels and publishers that help turn raw talent and good ideas into international buzz and a viable career.
But our research uncovered hopeful results too. Musicians and music entrepreneurs are becoming more likely to stay in Ottawa. In interviews, they told us one of the main reasons they choose to stay is because Ottawa offers the possibility of being creative on their own terms – of making an impact.
That’s a huge opportunity.
Let’s return to the Austin example. How did they use music as a catalyst for change?
In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Austin was a small government town not known for much. Its liberal and adventurous audiences attracted small-time players in “outlaw” country and blues – people like Willie Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughan. At the time, they weren’t big acts. But they learned from and competed against each other, and eventually Austin became known as a great place for live music. New institutions grew out of the scene: new venues, new festivals, and new media outlets like the long-running Austin City Limits.
When a group of journalists partnered with a booking agent to found SXSW in 1987, hard work and serendipitous timing conspired to grow the festival. It brought the world to Austin and in hindsight, seems like a genius strategy. But in the early days, no one could have predicted that support for outsider scenes would sow the seeds of Austin’s economic future.
It’s a great story. But copying Austin is not the way forward. Austin never tried to follow a model. Instead, it became the first Austin. The local community simply nurtured music that was compelling and excellent. A large part of what made Austin so successful is that it’s consistently looked inward to reflect on its values and ambitions, then used them to blaze its own trail.
If Ottawa’s music scene is to develop into something special, its needs to figure out its own thing. It will happen organically, through trial and error, through competition and nurturing, through musicians and entrepreneurs and government.
How do we achieve that?
First it, means recognizing music as a priority. We need to get the basics right: a music strategy at City Hall, to send the message that this city values music. We are also recommending the creation of a formal coalition of Ottawa music businesses and institutions, to strengthen connections and advocate for common interests.
Second, it means an openness to trying new things. Ottawa’s ideas should be unique and ambitious, like providing free spaces in city parks for spontaneous music performances. And they should consider the scene across existing policies, like improving Ottawa’s late night transit network.
Finally: great things don’t happen without taking risks. Our research found that a couple of missing factors could make an outsized impact on the local scene: a renewed print weekly for the arts (Ottawa Xpress RIP), and a high-quality 400- to 500 person club that books live acts of all genres. Neither business is for an entrepreneur who’s faint of heart, but the payoff to the local scene would be huge.
The next step? For Ottawa’s government, businesses, institutions and musicians to come together and make things happen.
Ian Swain is a Toronto-based economic researcher and Andrew Vincent is an Ottawa consultant and writer. They are the authors of the newly released report Connecting Ottawa Music: A Profile of Ottawa’s Music Industries, an analysis of the present-day state of Ottawa’s music scene and an exploration of what it could become.
It’s been a blue week for the team at RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest.
Less than a day after the lineup to this year’s edition of RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest was inadvertently leaked, the festival’s website was hacked, rendering it useless to music fans looking for more information on Ottawa’s biggest summer music festival.
At around noon on Tuesday, a tweet from the RBC Bluesfest Twitter page stated, “Unfortunately our website is temporarily unavailable due to a cyber attack. Please do not click anything on our website until further notice.”
It took about an hour for the technical experts to figure out how the hackers attacked the site, according to Bluesfest director Mark Monahan.
“Our server was compromised by someone or some people who made a cyber attack on the website,” said Monahan. “It’s taken us about an hour to figure out how they attacked the website, and we’ve got it back up.”
During the time the site was down, the webpage was black with a button in the middle that read “Click me.” The mark of the hacker flashed in the tab at the top of the page: Hacked by Tural Land Off Fire Team.
According to tweets from Ottawans who had clicked the button, the message from the hacker written on the page said, “Sorry admin, but your website security 0%.”
The lineup leak and the hacking are not believed to be connected.
“What I’m being told at the moment is that they were probably unrelated,” Monahan said. “There was a definite cyber attack to compromise our server. We’ve now taken it back.”
This year’s edition of Bluesfest returns to LeBreton Flats Park July 8-19, featuring performances by more than 200 acts, ranging from Iggy Azalea and Skrillex to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Deep Purple.
Singer-songwriter Jon Brooks set out to write a collection of Canadian murder ballads for his fifth and latest album, the Smiling and Beautiful Countryside, figuring he’d give a modern twist to a classic folk-song tradition.
It’s twisted alright, hearing him sing in the voice of a killer, but the songs are brilliant, adding up to one of the most provocative albums of the past year. You’ll be fascinated by characters like Trevor, the homicidal maniac who goes on a workplace shooting rampage in The Only Good Thing is an Old Dog, the murderous siblings in The Twa Sisters, and the helpful fellow in Gun Dealer who’s got what you need “whatever you are, a psychopath or a hunter.”
Then there’s the long-haul trucker who picks up hitchhikers in Highway 16. That song will send a chill down your spine, as it’s clearly inspired by the 800-kilometre Highway of Tears where scores of young women, mostly aboriginal, disappeared or were murdered while hitchhiking along it.
Written from the perspective of a serial killer, Highway 16 may be the most convincing tune Brooks has written on any issue, largely because the character rings true. Brooks not only devoted hours of research to the well-documented theory that serial killers are attracted to the trucking industry but also visited the area to get a sense of it, arranging a series of house concerts to play between Prince George and Prince Rupert, B.C.
“The idea of basing an entire CD on murder, you have to go at it with either understatement or overstatement. I can’t imagine sitting down to write a song about the Highway of Tears in an earnest way,” Brooks said in a phone interview. “I think that would be useless and cloying and sentimental. It would be hard to listen to.
“On the other side of it, Highway 16 was one instance on the CD that I really did want to provoke in a violent manner. I really wanted to make some people go, ‘Did he just sing that?’ I wanted this song to conjure up a violent response, not necessarily a happy one either.”
Ultimately his mission with the song is to raise awareness, and hopefully encourage people to pressure their elected representatives to support an official inquiry into the hundreds of cases of missing or murdered aboriginal women in Canada.
“Personally I’m blown away by the fact that we live in an allegedly first-world country and we’re not looking into this formally,” Brooks says. “(The song) is the most overt attempt at trying to raise awareness but let’s be serious: I’m not Bryan Adams writing a song and doing this. It would be arrogant of me to think that the fourth or fifth song on my CD is going to do anything but that’s my interest as a songwriter anyway.”
A keyboard player by training, Brooks didn’t get serious about writing his own songs until a decade ago. In the late 1990s, dismayed by the proliferation of boy bands, he had given up on music, returned to university and worked at a variety of jobs for several years. But by 2005, the musical landscape had changed, and folk-roots music was making a comeback, at least on a grassroots level.
“It took a long time to realize this but I came to understand that if there’s such a thing as a sin in this world, it’s turning your back on the thing you do the best,” says the 46-year-old. “It took one of my literary heroes to tell me that if you can write a melody and somehow arrest the essence of some life, and do it within four minutes, that’s a kind of artistic magic that you would go to hell if you don’t pursue. If you can do this, you have to do it, in other words.”
So he did, crafting a string of albums that have established him as a masterful singer-songwriter with a strong sense of social justice. Brooks been nominated for three Canadian Folk Music Awards, and was named a winner in the prestigious Kerrville New Folk competition in 2010.
Despite the accolades and his reputation as a riveting live performer, Brooks is having a hard time finding his audience, especially in Canada. He’s had more airplay in the U.S., and frequently performs south of the border, but his upcoming tour schedule is strangely empty at a time when it should be filling up with Canadian festival dates. Although some bookers have told him they already have their quota of solo, male singer-songwriters, one wonders if they’re shying away, nervous about exposing audiences to someone who’s created an album with a body count of 75.
If that’s the case, it would be disappointing but not a complete surprise. “I’ve already done four albums that inspire: it’s now time to offend,” Brooks says.
Jon Brooks
When and where: April 16 at 8 p.m. at The Branch Restaurant, Kemptville
It’s a Saturday morning in the airy atrium of Carleton University’s River Building, and more than a dozen teenagers in black-and-white costumes are dancing in tight formation to a pop song with a frenzied electro beat and heavy bass. Movie set lights are trained on the dance team, and a camera is recording a video.
But listen carefully, and there’s something different: all the song lyrics are in Korean. Anyone who’s seen the music video Gangnam Style by Korean star Psy — and who hasn’t? — will recognize the combination of a sugary-pop sound and tightly choreographed moves.
The dancers belong to Ottawa’s first K-pop cover group.
Some teens in Ottawa use their spare time playing sports, locked up with video games or kicking around the Rideau Centre. But the Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team spends hours learning and mastering elaborate Korean pop choreography, then several painstaking days filming and editing the video to post online for their hundreds of YouTube subscribers.
Today is a filming day, and the strikingly multicultural group — composed of 12 girls and five guys in their late teens and early 20s — will spend nine and a half hours dancing and sweating in a precise music video mimicry of K-pop girl group 4Minute and their hit song, Crazy.
Katalina Emmanuel dances during a take at an Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team K-pop music video filming.
They film and perform cover dances because it’s fun, and because it’s a bonding experience. But they also do it out of a love of all things Korean.
“At first, it was to try something new,” says Leila Siushansian, a 19-year-old dancer in the Hallyu Team. “I was already taking Korean and was interested in the music and culture so it was one step further to involve myself with this.
“None of us thought we’d get where we are today,” she says. “We have our issues like everybody does. But I think it’s the fact that we all love and care for each other so much that it keeps us together. And we love dancing so much.”
The group never intended to be Ottawa’s first K-pop dance cover crew. The earliest few members met in a Korean language class in 2010 and their teacher urged them to put on a dance performance for the talent show portion of Korea Day celebrations that spring.
The same thing happened the next year, and the group expanded. Ottawa Hallyu kept accumulating dancers, who were constantly practising and improving. In 2013 they ended open membership in favour of a more selective audition process as the skill levels shot up.
Members of the Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team review their last sequence.
“K-pop is so radically different from Canadian culture and it’s just so intriguing,” says Siushansian. The group usually spends one month — four Saturdays in a row — preparing a dance. “It’s super esthetic, super make up, very colourful, very bright. I think that’s why a lot of young teenagers are into it.”
It’s no surprise that K-pop has spawned such passion. Psy’s ubiquitous 2012 hit was the tip of a fast-growing global movement of hungry young fans who, fed by easily accessed YouTube videos, spend hours obsessing over the genre’s manicured stars, vivid visuals and sugary, electro-infused dance hits.
The “hallyu” in the Ottawa team’s name translates to “Korean wave,” referring to the popularity blow-up of the country’s cultural exports around the globe. The biggest Korean entertainment companies are cash cows: the country’s largest, SM Entertainment, raked in around $260 million U.S. in 2013.
Ottawa’s K-pop community is small — Siushansian estimates around 500 fans — but it’s slowly swelling with the addition of cover dance groups such as Kapital K-Dance and Salja Dance in the past few years.
Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team has more than 600 YouTube subscribers and 700 likes on Facebook. Their videos — a combination of smiles, hip swerving and energetic dancing — rack up anywhere between several hundred views for live performances to more than 10,000 views for music videos. Last year, the group won the $1,000 prize at their first major K-pop cover dance contest in Toronto, and they have danced in a variety of other performance shows and competitions in Ontario.
What’s most striking about Ottawa Hallyu is its diversity and inclusiveness. Of 17 active members, only one is Korean. If K-pop is an assembly-line jungle with its manufactured, uniform esthetic, Ottawa Hallyu is a homespun hodgepodge of ages, ethnicities, backgrounds and body types.
“One of my friends loves how diverse we are,” Siushansian says. “A lot of the time, you see these tiny, gorgeous Asian girls and she’s like, ‘I have so many body issues. Watching them dance, I feel completely inadequate, but when I watch your team, you guys have so many colours, shapes, sizes and heights.’ It’s what you want the community to be.”
That isn’t to say the team lacks sex appeal. The girls wear a range of crop tops, tight pants, skirts and heavy makeup for recording days, while the guys don muscle shirts — or, in one case, sometimes no shirt at all.
Dancers ensure their socks are the same height.
“Brandon is usually the main male dancer for almost everything, just because he’s got the esthetic, he’s got the skill level,” says Siushansian, referring to Brandon Vo, a lithe, toned 19-year-old who looks the part of a pretty-boy Korean drama lead.
“We like to exploit the abs a lot,” she says jokingly, referring to a dance performance in Montreal last year where Vo tore off his shirt to a crowd of screaming females. Vo recalls the show with a small smile: “It was fun, but it wasn’t that enjoyable for me because I had to ruin a dress shirt.”
The acceptance and comfort level among team members is evident throughout the filming day at Carleton. The bubbly dancers giggle and groom one another during their pre-filming prep. The girls and guys have no problem stripping down to their underwear in front of each other as they change costumes.
“The group is family, really,” says Gaëlle Garnier, a 22-year-old University of Ottawa student and one of Ottawa Hallyu’s original members. “There was a time, maybe around last year because I’m almost done university, that I was kind of wondering whether I would keep going with this or whether I wanted to go abroad.
“For sure I’d like to (travel), but it’s cool knowing there’s always something to come back to. That’s my home, this dance team.”
Geneviève Bouchard smiles between takes during an Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team K-pop music video filming in the River Building at Carleton University.
What is K-pop?
The Korean pop industry didn’t really take off until the late 2000s, when several big-name groups released career-defining viral songs — namely Girls’ Generation’s Gee and Super Junior’s Sorry, Sorry — whose exposure was bolstered by the global reach of YouTube. By that point, the K-pop industry had found its winning formula, a mixture of sugary, electro-fused dance hits with irresistibly repetitive choruses. In 2010, The New York Times and CNN were dubbing Korea the “Hollywood of the East,” and the industry pulled in nearly $3 billion in entertainment, more than double that of 2002.
Part of the industry’s broad appeal is its polished esthetic. K-pop is packed with manicured, eye-lined pretty boys and girls; Exo, for example, is a 10-member male outfit that sports enough gel and make-up to put the backstage of a New York Fashion week show to shame. But if you want to get the most accurate idea of what K-pop is all about, look no further than K-pop’s unofficial home: YouTube. The music videos — bright, colourful punches of imagery with precise choreography and addictive, eclectic music — amass millions of views across the globe.
The industry has also been controversial. It’s been slammed for adverse working conditions and multi-year “slave contracts” that lock down group members of some entertainment companies for as long as 13 years. Critics have also pointed to K-pop’s heavily manufactured and artificial emphasis, where young, recruited talent undergo several years of rigorous training before “debuting” in groups with carefully planned images.
The Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team performs during a K-pop music video filming.
Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team performs May 2 at Toronto’s Kpop Con 2015. Also, be on the lookout for a cover dance competition hosted by the Korean embassy in Ottawa this July.
To audition for the group, email ohdtofficial@gmail.com with a one-and-a-half minute dance video to an upbeat K-pop song.
It’s lunchtime at the Churchill Alternative School. In Andrew Robertson’s music room, about 30 kids from Grades 4, 5 and 6 are belting out Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing with smiles plastered on their faces.At the front of the room, five teachers lead the song. They coach choreography and accompany the students on guitar, ukulele and violin.
The kids are surprisingly on key and they can inject some emotion when the lyrics call for it.
This is a scene that has been occurring for a decade at Churchill. The students are gearing up to perform the 10th annual Churchill School of Rock Concert on May 8.
The kids finish Don’t Stop Believing and Grade 6 teacher Ray Kalynuk tells them they to get their ukuleles for the next song. A collective gasp is heard and then the kids race to the wall where the ukuleles are hung at child height.
Churchill’s School of Rock was not always the comprehensive music program it is now. The impetus was simply to get the students interested in music. An existing choral program was not a terribly popular choice as an extracurricular activity.
The idea to reboot the choir to incorporate rock music was, at first, a casual suggestion, almost made as a joke. But the merits of the idea soon became clear.
“I think this format works for the school because it acknowledges that the interests of the students should drive the kind of music we sing,” says Kalynuk.
The value of focusing on the interests of the students was clear when, in its second year, nearly six times the amount of students signed up, from 13 to 75.
Part of the draw for the students was not only the song choices but also the live band, formed by parents. An important part of the original concept for Churchill’s school of rock was to do away with singing along to recordings and bring in real musicians.
“We were able to cast a net and bring in quite a few people who were keen to play music and do something for their kids,” explains Kalynuk.
As Kalynuk explains, parental involvement is literally the foundation of the school. “The alternative stream started with parents who approached the board and said, ‘We want a school with these philosophies.’ ” As such, the parents who send their children to Churchill are making a choice based on researching the options.
In addition, part of Churchill’s classification as “alternative” is through its student-centred approach to learning and teaching. The reformatting of the choral group to fit the students’ interests was a natural byproduct of the alternative stream.
However, for Kalynuk, the success of the school of rock, in particular, is bigger than the alternative program. It’s the group of like-minded staff and parents who have come together through it.
“I have worked as a teacher for 17 years,” says Kalynuk, “and I have never seen such a collection of creative, innovative and engaging teachers in all that time.”
Over time, through staying true to the core principle of allowing the students’ interests to shape the program, it became clear that the students should be in the band as well.
The ukulele section came to fruition through the efforts of Grade 5/6 teacher Owen Glossop. Students also started playing guitar, bass and drums alongside their mentors in the parent band.
Ten years on, the teachers at Churchill are starting to see the results of having that kind of mentorship at such a young age. One graduate, Keagan Eskritt, has gone on to study jazz performance for drums at the University of Toronto. He was awarded the Noreen and Phil Nimmons Entrance Scholarship and is coming up on the end of his first year there.
“I had been playing drums since Grade 3, but school of rock was my first experience playing with other people and playing in a performance environment,” says Eskritt. “It got me hooked on that cycle of improvement and wanting to work for it.”
Centrepointe Theatres on Tuesday announced its 2015-2016 season, consisting of 15 comedy, musical and family-oriented shows ranging from Howie Mandel, Steven Wright and Ron James to the Irish Rovers.
“We’re absolutely thrilled,” said David Macdonell, artistic producer and manager of Centrepointe Theatres. “We have a lineup hand-picked to give our patrons the entertainment they have been craving.”
Centrepointe’s first comedy show in the fall will be the Oct. 2 concert of the Toronto-born Mandel, who sells out about 200 North American concerts each year. Other funnymen performing include Nova Scotia-raised stand-up comedian James on Nov. 12 and the surreal U.S. comic Wright on Feb. 21, 2016. Also next year, CBC Radio One’s the Debaters (Feb. 9-10) and Just For Laughs (April 10) will be featured at Centrepointe.
The Irish Rovers will play Centrepointe on Nov. 13 as part of their 50th anniversary tour. The Men of the Deeps, a male choral ensemble composed of coal miners and former miners from Cape Breton, N.S., perform April 5. The Pink Floyd tribute Classic Albums Live — The Wall will be staged March 24.
Family-oriented shows include the Imagination Movers, who star in a Disney Channel TV series (Oct. 24)and the Grammy Award-winning Okee Dokee Brothers (Dec. 19). On March 20, the Room on the Broom, brings to life the story of a witch on a journey with her beloved cat. On May 1 next year, the Nova Scotia-based Mermaid Theatre production of Eric Carle’s TheVery Hungry Caterpillar comes to Centrepointe.
ArcAttack, part rock concert, part science experiment will light up the stage Nov.6. Winnipeg illusionist Darcy Oake, who appeared last year on Britain’s Got Talent, will work his magic on Nov. 10. Ballroom with a Twist features celebrities from Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol teaming up at Centrepointe on March 19.
Tickets for these shows go on sale May 19 at the Centrepointe box office or centrepointetheatre.com.
In the weeks since we last reported on them, Ottawa’s Meetup groups have grown by 25 secular humanists, 10 flash mob volunteers, 27 ping-pong players, 26 science fiction and fantasy readers, 36 ecstatic dancers, 19 mystics, 14 karaoke singers, 14 skeptics, 21 practitioners of nude yoga and 33 people who like to watch movies in a Vanier apartment. The number of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses, meanwhile, has held steady at 34, while the ranks of mosaic makers has dropped by one, to 29.
These groups are part of meetup.com, a worldwide social networking website that allows people with similar interests to connect with one another. Within a 50-mile radius of Ottawa, there are nearly 500 groups.
We decided to take a closer look at some of these groups, to attend their meetups and find out what makes them tick. Today, we hang out with some melomaniacs.
Name: Melomania Description: Through mixed CDs and discussion, members share their obsession with music. Date formed: Sept. 21, 2009 Number of members: 78 Number of meetups: 72
What music will herald the end of the world? Will there be a raucous dance party, or a melancholy piano atop a bed of static? Or will electric bluesman Freddie King escort us out with his perhaps aptly titled version of Going Down?
In a cozy room above The Daily Grind café on Somerset Street W. on a recent Monday evening, a handful of people who call themselves melomaniacs were enjoying a beverage and discussing their choices of music for the CD mixes each had made. They meet roughly every six weeks, and each meetup comes with a theme that members are free to follow or ignore. This one’s was the apocalypse, and each made copies of their mixes for the others to take home.
Katie Compton, whose mix begins with Talking Heads’ Road to Nowhere, explained that she envisions the apocalypse as one big dance party. “We know it’s coming and we have time, and so you just go out and be with people. “I thought of doing the seven stages of grief,” she added, “but I could only come up with acceptance songs.”
Road to Nowhere – Talking Heads
Across the table, Ruth Znotins, noting that one member once described her taste in music as “Starbucks/singer/songwriter /coffee shop style,” confessed she had difficulty with the theme. Her mix, opening with Australian indie band Twerp’s I Don’t Mind, “could be torture for you,” she said by way of a pre-apology. “This could feel like the end of the world, listening to this mix.”
I Don’t Mind – Twerps
Chrissy Steinbock’s mix, meanwhile, weaved through the likes of Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash, Sigur Ros and composer Arvo Part. “It’s fun to approach this like a puzzle,” she said. “And I like how these mixes are like a story in your mind.” Hers was the mix that started with King’s Going Down. “How could the end of the world sound like so much fun?” she asked.
Going Down – Freddie King
And Ronen Shayovitz, who put forth the theme in the first place, says he approached his mix with the same sense of desolation and timelessness he finds in the post-apocalyptic literature of such authors as Cormac McCarthy and Margaret Atwood. “I wanted to use music in fragments, and found music,” he explained.
Terese – Library Tapes
Melomania is the name of a meetup.com group where members meet to discuss music and exchange CD mixes.
The word melomania stems from the Latin melos, or music, and mania, or frenzy, and is defined as “an inordinate liking for music or melody: excessive or abnormal attraction to music.”
The group was formed in September 2009 by Al Dumas, and while it tends to lean towards trendy indie music, there’s no telling what members will find.
“There’s a lot of indie, folk and hip hop music,” says Dumas, “and there are some metalheads and jazz fans. You won’t find a lot of pop, though; I don’t think those people are much into mixed CDs.”
The fact that the Venn diagram of members’ musical preferences doesn’t perfectly overlap is what makes the group work. Each listens to the music acquired at meetups and does with it what they will: some is discarded, some kept, while some may lead to other discoveries.
“Most of the people who join this group do want to learn or discover new music,” says Dumas. “So you are forced to push your limits a little bit.”
As an example, he cites one Melomania member whose mixes include a lot of metal and jazz. “I listen to metal, but his metal is stuff I just can’t do,” says Dumas. “But it’s interesting, anyway, and he’ll sometimes play a song that’ll be a gateway, and I’ll get it. So yeah, most people there want to share their love of music and they want to explore. It’s an interesting way to do it, instead of turning on the radio or having to read about it. Here, you have people talking about it, about the music they like.”
Member Joel Karwatsky agrees. He joined Melomania within a week of its founding, after attending a sale of vinyl records in Sandy Hill, where Dumas handed him a card with the group’s web address on it.
“I’m into chatting with the music nerds, even though there is not often much overlap in the genres we listen to,” he says. “It’s cool talking to someone who has a lot of passion about a music, whatever genre it is. For me, that’s the attraction – just to meet the people and see what they’re passionate about.”
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
at Southam Hall Reviewed Friday night
Ontario Scene continued at the NAC Friday evening with a rather solemn musical offering by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Peter Oundjian. Bruckner’s titanic, hour-long Symphony No. 7 is risky programming on a tour, demanding for the audience and likely to fall apart without vision and discipline.
Treeship, by the TSO’s young affiliate composer, Kevin Lau, opened the concert. Lau writes a lot of film music, and Treeship comes across as a score desperately in search of a sci-fi movie to amplify. Lau’s piece had style and form, but precious little substance, stuffed as it is with every platitude imaginable: earworm themes, swelling strings, rolling tympani, and quivering Ligeti-like dissonances. Lau has clearly spent a lot of time worshipping at the altar of Howard Shore and Erich Korngold, but lacks the storytelling originality of either.
The guest soloist on this tour is Augustin Hadelich, an impressive young German violinist who is winning high praise for his effortless, effervescent virtuosity. His playing in Haydn’s Violin Concerto No. 1 was shiny and limpid, imbued with playful grace and celebratory spirit. The lovely second movement had the feel of one of Haydn’s tender opera arias, delicately accompanied by the TSO strings. His musicality is easy but not facile, and his tone is uniform and attractively produced right up into the highest register. Hadelich tossed off a Paganini Caprice as a fast and furious encore.
Bruckner gets a bad rap for writing long, heavy, tedious music. In the wrong hands, his formality, weight and vast scope can become a plodding pastiche of itself. Unfortunately, Oundjian and the TSO did not help the composer’s reputation. The conductor did not seem to have a game plan for this massive fortress of a symphony, moving instead superficially and simplistically from one brass forte to the next. Bruckner’s mastery of counterpoint and his surprising thematic twists were drowned in a dense, flabby mush of strings.
It wasn’t until the swirling, Valkyrie gallop of a third movement that the orchestra at last coalesced into something with clearer form and function. Too bad the spark of excitement and purpose was ignited about 40 minutes too late.
Bank Street may never be the same again after three-time Juno winner Kiesza takes the stage June 20 as the headliner for Glowfair Festival 2015.
The Canadian electro-pop singer, who has just finished an appearance at the Coachella festival, is riding a wave of success following the hit Hideaway, which was out last summer. Just this past spring she picked up three Junos and she’s penned more hits for herself (Giant In My Heart, No Enemiesz) and others (Take U There for Jack U and Go All Night for Gorgon City.)
Her latest single is called Stronger and will be featured as the lead single for Finding Neverland: The Album, which is a companion to the Broadway musical inspired by the film of the same name. It will be out June 9 on Republic Records. Also on the album: Jon Bon Jovi and Christina Aguilera.
Kiesza is Calgary born and raised. Her last name is Ellestad. She joined the Canadian naval reserves where she learned how to pay the guitar. She’s also taken ballet training and even entered a Miss Universe Canada contest.
Glowfair runs June 19 and June 20 along 10 city blocks from Slater to James Streets. Each block will have a unique look and theme including a phosphorescent enchanted forest, circus, Kids’ Zone, Pinball Wizard skateboarding park and a Glow Zone.
But the big noise will come from the performers.
In addition to Kiesza will be Friday night’s headliners, theNEWDEAL from Toronto.
New York alt rockers Blonde Redhead, electro-pop artist Lowell and The Peptides will also be performing. on the DJ stage will be Montreal’s Vilify and duos Torro Torro and Jokers of the Scene. And in a reprise from last year, Glowfair organizers are promising a ‘silent’ disco.
The festival is the idea of the Bank Street BIA and is intended as a way of giving back to the community it serves, including boosting tourist interest by providing free bus rides to people from Kingston and Montreal to Glowfair, says BIA executive director Christine Leadman in a media release.
In the four years since Lindsay Ferguson released her previous album, the Bermuda-born, Ontario-raised singer-songwriter has settled into what sounds like an idyllic transatlantic lifestyle with her Swiss husband. The couple divide their time between the wilds of west Quebec and the mountains of Switzerland.
But Ferguson’s new album, Chameleon, is no sunny tale about falling in love and living happily ever after. Instead, it chronicles the spectrum of human relationships, including the messy bits, honing it with the rhythmic edge of tracks created by musical collaborator and producer, Brock Zeman, in his Lanark County studio.
“The way I see it, everybody’s been through both sides of it all,” explains Ferguson, who’s back in Canada after spending the winter in Switzerland. “I write the music and I take it from my own experiences, but these particular experiences were happening in my friends’ lives. Of course, I’ve been through it so I understand the crazy break-up, gotta-start-over songs.”
Also included on the new album are love songs such as Ships, co-written with Zeman for a friend’s wedding, a spine-tingling version of the Irish traditional, Donegal, and a track with a hiphop flavour, of all things. The song, Two Minds, which features Halifax rapper Jofo, represents a bold step for Ferguson, who’s known for her powerful, opera-trained voice and rootsy folk-pop melodies.
Turns out she’s had a soft spot spot for collaborations between singer-songwriters and hiphop artists ever since Dido teamed up with Eminem. “I always thought it sounded cool,” she says. “They’re two totally different genres but they really meld well together.”
Ferguson counted on Zeman, a prolific recording artist and talented producer, to stitch the pieces together. She’s been a fan of his songwriting and musical abilities for years, and when it came time to record, felt she could trust him with her songs. In an unusual move, she gave Zeman carte blanche in fleshing out the instrumentation and arrangements.
Play Lindsay Ferguson’s song Two Minds:
“I knew I wanted to work with Brock and I knew I wanted him to take on the project in a different kind of way, if he could add the orchestration around the bare bones of the songs. I gave him complete trust and faith that he would put together amazing stuff,” Ferguson says.
“I wasn’t in the studio when he made the tracks. He put them together with his musicians. I went in with the bare bones and just waited for the tracks to come. And I really liked what he was sending me. So it was a lot of music and soul from Brock that came into this record; that’s why it has a different sound: it’s partly him.”
Zeman, along with Blair Hogan, Steve Foley and bassist Chris Hopkins, will make up Ferguson’s band at the CD-release party on Saturday, May 23 at the Black Sheep Inn. Then she begins a tour that will take her to British Columbia. A European tour is in the works for fall.
In addition to the expanded touring opportunities, Ferguson has found that living in Europe is great for working on music. Without her usual crew of Canadian merrymakers, there seems to be more time and fewer distractions.
“Living two different lives gives double the amount of song inspiration,” she says. “I’ve got stories from that many more people to draw from, I’ve got nature, and different food. And I have a bit more discipline in Switzerland. I spend more time practicing, and working on songs and playing my guitar. I’m a bit more loosey-goosey in Canada.”
“First, I studied classical music since I was five years old. I studied piano. I was listening to classical at home, but in school I joined the school band and started playing sax at 13. That led me to play in a band, which was an incredible discovery for me. I was used to having sax alone and then I was having group sax. That was much more fun.” Get the picture?
The drummer in that band was a jazz fan and he introduced Boudreau to jazz.
By his 19th birthday Boudreau had “cut his first record and was playing with guys who were 45. I was that young prodigy.”
But he had other ambitions. By 1969, he was in the McGill faculty of music and launched on his real passion as a composer of contemporary music.
“As I was studying 12-tone music, music analysis and composition, I earned a living playing sax accompanying nude dancers and in bands. I made up my own band then,” which was called L’infonie, which he says was a response to Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.
“My odyssey as a jazz man was short and intense. It was a transition for me in what I was doing but it’s like an old friend.”
But what he really wanted to do was write string quartets and symphonies “and I want to live in the daytime. Playing jazz until three in the morning, go and eat a smoked meat and then go listen to records until 7 a.m., sleep all day and start over —I could not live like this. I felt like a vampire or a zombie.”
So he turned to a day job and has made quite a go of it.
Sixty compositions and hundreds of concerts later, Walter Boudreau’s massive contribution to new music in Canada has been recognized with a lifetime achievement award in the performing arts from the Governor General.
As far as Boudreau is concerned, this is a great pat on the back while he runs the marathon of his musical life.
“For me this is the mark of confidence in what I have been doing.”
Meanwhile he is engaged in, as he says, an eternal search for the ultimate musical expression.
“I’ll never find it. If I find it, I will throw myself off the Jacques Cartier Bridge.
“It’s like breathing air for me. I don’t know why this is what makes me tick. But it is reason that keeps me alive. There is always the next piece, the next composition, that I will experience. I’m like someone on an eternal quest, on an ocean always chasing the next horizon.
“The urge to express myself in music has always been there. I can speak French and English, a little bit of German and Italian. I speak Quebecois, but that’s not enough. In order to really express myself, I have to compose music. It is the most powerful language. You know why? Because we don’t know what the hell it is all about. It is mysterious, instinctual and elemental.”
Neither can he define what contemporary music is.
“It is such a complex concept. It is the manifestation of the classical tradition. I write symphonies as Mahler did, as Wagner did, as Brahms did.
“There is that tradition, but we have to be careful because the Classical period was very short in the history of western music and the pinnacle of that period was Haydn and Mozart. Before that was the Baroque, and after was the Romantic period, which turned into modern and post-modern and now post-post-modern.
“Contemporary music is related to this, but starting in 1970s, with the expansion of communication, we have become aware of so many musical traditions from all over the planet. Contemporary music has benefited from all this exposure.”
Boudreau has even written a piece called The Morning of the Magicians for the Evergreen Gamelan Ensemble of Toronto. The gamelan is an Indonesian instrument.
“Nobody has sat down in any legislature on the planet and passed down this is how contemporary music will be. The important thing is that the main roots are in western tradition.”
Whatever New Music is, Boudreau is succeeding with it.
“I write music for people to listen to, because otherwise I’d just go and sit in the nude on some mountain like a Buddhist monk and listen to the music in my head. (At) our last edition of the Montreal New Music festival (founded in 2003) we had 26,000 people out for contemporary music.”
Why does it work in Montreal?
It’s a question of the environment, Boudreau says. “One has to be alert to the sociological environment in which you will perform. Cities like Ottawa and Quebec are conservative because they are seats of government.” Toronto too suffers from that too, he says.
It helps too that there is something like the 48-year-oldSociété de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ), which fosters awareness in the community, in the schools and in the streets.
“It’s like a university of contemporary music. We are constantly organizing concerts, having lectures, performing new works. SMCQ has a relationship with the Montreal school board, which will see musicians and composers working with young people in the schools and exposing them to the music.
“It’s a project of civilization and this does not happen overnight. Twenty-five years ago, it was very difficult to get a cappuccino in Montreal outside of Little Italy, now you can get one anywhere,” he says by example.
Right now Boudreau is tweaking his piano concerto and discussing the possibility of having it performed at the National Arts Centre. Quebec-based Analekta, now Canada’s largest independent classical music recording label, wants to record it with a Canadian orchestra performing it. Analekta, he says, is also considering a five- year recording deal with the NACO and part of the deal is Boudreau’s concerto, which he describes as a bridge between romantic and new music.
He’s also working on something “pretty heavy” to be performed in the Old Port to mark Montreal’s 375th birthday.
“I have two kinds of works. I can empty the hall in 30 seconds. People will run out screaming. Or we can have a huge ovation.”
Boudreau is also a member of the Order of Canada (2013) and a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.
Four Ottawa women with a global perspective have teamed up to organize a weekend music conference that ultimately aims to put Canada’s capital on the worldwide party destination map.
“Ottawa is a really unique city, with embassies and an international presence but it has a reputation for not being a very exciting city, which isn’t true,” said Olexandra Pruchnicky, the Ottawa-born multi-media artist and Peptides singer who’s part of the conference organizing team. The other key players are Mercury Lounge programmer Claudia Balladelli, former French Embassy staffer Caroline Guespin and artist manager Marilena Gaudio.
“It’s not just about gathering professionals in Ottawa in the same place, but it’s also the long-term vision of bringing Ottawa up to an international level,” added Guespin, who moved from Paris to Ottawa about two years ago. “We want to help Ottawa not to be just considered a city between Montreal and Toronto where bands don’t even stop. We want to define our brand and our aesthetic. It’s about being inclusive and how we can help all the players in the music scene.”
The inaugural Ottawa International Music Conference starts Friday and ends Sunday, with programming that includes educational panels and shows that feature artists never before seen in Ottawa. Among the acts making their Ottawa debut are French electronic music producer/artist Rone, Brooklyn dance band Tortured Soul, American DJ Kenny Dope and the Japan-France free-jazz adventurers Kaze. Most of the activity takes place at Maker Space North, the warehouse venue at City Centre. While several venues are also part of the festivities, including Mercury Lounge, Babylon, Ritual and Gatineau’s Le Petit Chicago, Pruchnicky says part of the goal was to throw an amazing warehouse party.
Beyond the party, it’s also a chance to get educated on aspects of the music industry not taught at post-secondary institutions. Panels take place at Maker Space North, starting around 9 a.m. on May 30 and 31, with sessions on applying for grants, growing a festival, developing a legendary club and navigating the world of digital distribution, to name a few. There’s also an opportunity to try your hand at mixing your own beats with experts from the Capital DJ Academy.
The idea for the conference first came up last year, initiated by Balladelli, who’s originally from Brazil. All four women have experience in attending parties and conferences all over the world, and were keen to see a similar level of activity at home. The recently released report on the state of the Ottawa music scene that was commissioned by the Megaphono festival made them realize the time was right.
“Basically that business report solidified exactly why we need to do things like this in Ottawa,” said Pruchnicky. “There’s starting to be a new generation of people hosting things, there’s a real feeling in the air to promote music and make things happen. We put our heads together and saw a need for this kind of conference to get the ball rolling.”
List of events
Friday, May 29, Maker Space North
5-7 p.m.: Registration
5:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.: Opening Reception, with Ian Keteku, Olexandra Pruchnicky, Anne-Claire Cauhape
Club Shows
10 p.m. Overkill, 56 Byward Market: the Posterz
10 p.m. Mercury Lounge, 56 Byward Market: DJ Magnificent, Shindig DJs, DJ General Eclectic
Saturday, May 30, Maker Space North
9 a.m.-5 p.m.: Registration
9:15-10:15 a.m.: Panel: The Evolution of Parties, with Jay Cleary, Zattar, Luke McKeehan
10:30-11:30 a.m.: Workshop: The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: Panel: Grants for Professional Artists with Philippe Lafreniere, Michael Murray
1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m.: Panel: Growing a Festival and Building Programming with Evelyne Cote, Derek Andrews, Sabra Ripley
2:30-3:30 p.m.: Dance performance
3:40-4:30 p.m.: Panel: Legendary Clubs – How to strive in a business that is ever-changing, with Vas Cranis, Natalie Sole
4:45 p.m.-5:45 p.m.: Panel: Music Culture Publications & Bloggers, with Brian DiGenti, Fateema Sayani, Matias Munoz, Francois Levesque
10 p.m.: Overkill: DJ set with Tupi Collective and special guests
10 p.m.: Babylon Nightclub: Souljazz Orchestra
10 p.m.: Le Petit Chicago: Pif Paf Hangover and Inimai
10 p.m.: Ritual: 300 Carat Diamond Release Party
11 p.m.: Mercury Lounge: DJ set with Trevor Walker, Fred EverythingMay 31, 2015
Sunday May 31, Maker Space North
9 a.m.-5 p.m.: Registration
9:30 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Digital Panel, The Future of Music – Getting the most from digital distribution with Tommy Borscheid
10:45-11:45 p.m.: Keynote with Stephen “Buddha” Leafloor
12-1 p.m.: Panel: Hip Hop as a Tool for Social Change, with Lou Piensa, Butta Beats, Nomadic Massive
1:30-2:30 p.m.: Panel: The Administrator and the Artist: How to run your own business, with Pierre Chretien, Claude Marquis
2:45 p.m.-3:30 p.m.: Q&A: Tortured Soul , DJ Memetic
3:30 pm-8:30 p.m.: Sunset Delight, outdoor parking-lot DJ show with DJ Magnificent, DJ Ray Ray, Chris Endo, Joe Juarez, DJ Memetic, Lance Baptiste, Ryan Labelle
8 p.m.: Official Warehouse Closing Party with Tortured Soul, Nomadic Massive, Rone, Kenny Dope, Trevor Walker, Luke McKeehan
For more information, tickets and passes: oimconf.com
Don’t be misled by Ed Sheeran’s poignant love songs, sweet voice and strummy acoustic guitar. The British singer-songwriter was a tiger who tore up the stage during a solo show at Canadian Tire Centre on Wednesday, to the delight of a sold-out crowd estimated at more than 12,000 fans.
Yes, it was a solo arena show, a rare event more commonly associated with legends like Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen. How would the 24-year-old genre-blending phenomenon handle himself without a band or backing singers or even props on such a big stage?
Well, he’s been doing it every night for almost a year as he tours the world to promote his best-selling album, X. With that many shows under his belt, it’s no wonder he made it look easy.
For starters, there was ample volume coming from the big stage, which was adorned with a multi-screen video backdrop and illuminated by a nice, clean lighting design. Sheeran also made use of on-the-spot looping to add extra rhythms, riffs and vocals, pumping the sound way beyond what you’d expect from a solitary figure with an acoustic guitar.
Plus, he came out rocking on the show-opening I’m a Mess, creating a propulsive energy that ebbed and flowed but never waned, even on the slow songs. Of course, he also had an enthusiastic audience to help him out with the vocals, turning most songs into a mass singalong.
“The name of the game is to care as little as possible,” he said, referring to the judgment of others. “If you want to dance like an idiot, dance like an idiot. Sing out of tune if you want. Don’t worry about what people think.”
Nimble playing and a surprisingly powerful voice characterized Sheeran’s performance as he moved through a setlist that featured a string of hits, including the tender Lego House, the rhythmic Don’t, the carefree Drunk, the sentimental Photograph and a clever mashup of his tune Take It Back, with Stevie Wonder’s Superstition and Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine. Despite the size of the crowd, Sheeran was able to single-handedly create a sense of intimacy and togetherness.
Sheeran has been performing solo throughout his career, and has no plans to change, he told a clutch of media types during a question-and-answer session before the concert.
“There’s no point now,” said the boyish star. “I think the band will come when I’m not able to be as energetic on stage. When I bust my hip or something, I don’t know.”
The idea of forming a band has come up before, he explained, partly because stepping up to bigger venues always terrifies him. The next challenge will be this summer’s three-night run at Wembley Stadium that has him performing in front of 80,000 people.
“There was a conversation to get a band about four years ago and then we never got around to it,” he said. “Every time the venue steps up, there’s a conversation about getting a band and then we don’t.
“When we do Wembley, there’s not another venue that would scare me more than that playing solo. So once we do that, I’ll probably just stay solo for a while. “
During the interview, Sheeran answered questions about his favourite song (Eric Clapton’s Layla), a musical hero who caused him to be starstruck (Van Morrison) and what he did on his day off. Although Sheeran was in Ottawa for a couple of days, he didn’t see much of the city because he was working on new music in a mobile studio.
“When you’re not touring, you’re itching to get touring again and when you’re touring, you’re itching to make music again,” he said. “We were meant to go out (on the town) tonight but I’m on a roll. I haven’t been in the studio for a while so I just want to get songs out.”
As his second album, X, becomes one of the biggest-selling albums of the decade, it seems the cherub-faced musician has turned up everywhere this year: performing sold-out shows, making appearances on network television and rubbing shoulders with celebrities. But in the backstage room at Canadian Tire Centre, he was relaxed and down-to-earth, with a twinkle in his eye as he took questions, some silly, some serious.
How does he stay so grounded? Not letting it go to his head boils down to good parenting, he said, relating a story about his pal, Beyonce, who gave her mom some attitude the first time she heard one of her songs on the radio. Mom was quick to shut it down.
“I’ve had moments where I’ve kinda thought it was bigger than it was and you have someone like my dad, or someone in my touring crew, slap you back into reality. That hasn’t really happened in about four years,” he added.
Sheeran swaps charity donations with intrepid youngster
An Ottawa eleven-year-old, Piper Mauler, was one of the handful of media types who took part in a question-and-answer session with Ed Sheeran before his concert at Canadian Tire Centre on Wednesday.
Thanks to her dad, an Ottawa radio personality, the intrepid youngster was well prepared for the opportunity, but she didn’t expect Sheeran’s reaction.
“What’s your favourite charity?” Piper asked the singer, extending the microphone in his direction.
When he told her about the East Anglia Children’s Hospice, where he said his mom works, Piper pulled out her surprise: a fistful of money. “Here’s 25 pounds from my birthday money to donate to that charity,” she said earnestly.
“That’s so nice,” he responded, clearly moved by the gesture. After a few more minutes of questions, Sheeran asked Piper about her favourite charity. “Um, the Salvation Army,” she said.
Sheeran reached into his pocket, and slipped her two $100 bills in Canadian currency. “You give that to the Salvation Army and I’ll give yours to the hospice,” he said.
Piper was thrilled, and everyone in the room left with a smile.
After her runaway dance-pop hit Hideaway and the glow of three Juno Awards, you’d think Kiesza would coast. But there’s no sign of that.
“I like to throw it all into my creativity. I have so many projects and ideas. And a lot of doors opened last year.”
One avenue that the Canadian singer-songwriter, who headlines Ottawa’s Glowfair later this month, is digging into is writing for artists like Duran Duran, Jack U (the electronic duo of Skrillex and Diplo) and the British garage duo Gorgon City.
“I love to sit down with the artist and get a feel for who they are. If you connect with a song, you sing it a lot better. It’s also something you have to live with, so I try to involve them as much as I can in the writing process.”
These days, artists are connecting with Kiesza through her management team and sometimes directly.
“The beauty of social media is you can access anybody. In one case there was a young kid from the U.K. who sent me a message on Facebook saying ‘I’d love to remix your song, here’s my work.’ I ended up loving his work and he ended up doing one of the Hideaway remixes. That wouldn’t have happened without social media.”
For Kiesa Rae Ellestad, the 26-year-old from Strathcona in Calgary’s southwest, the ride is moving at light speed.
“I am definitely a gypsy right now. When people ask me where I live, I can’t give them an answer. I have a suitcase, I have my stuff in storage and I don’t spend more than a week at a time anywhere.
“I’m technically still from Calgary. And I’m going to be around for Stampede. I’m performing then but I haven’t been back for awhile.”
Her musical journey begins in her hometown but it took hold in an unusual place. As a teenager she joined the naval reserve.
“My brother signed up. I saw a lot of movies about bootcamp and I always wondered what it would be like to go through a bootcamp so I signed up specifically for that.”
She says she really enjoyed her time in the navy except that “my personality doesn’t fit into a hierarchal system.” But the navy introduced her to sailing on tall ships and there she learned how to play the guitar and took her first musical steps in more a folkie vein.
“A lot of people played guitar on board and I ended up picking it up and writing songs. I wrote one, came home and played it for a neighbour and the next thing I knew it made it on to the radio.
“When I wrote my first song, people responded very positively, so I wrote another. I tend to get obsessed with my artistic endeavours. I’d write a song every day for a whole summer. When I get really excited about something creative, I get really obsessed with it. That’s my personality.
“I love that I was free from the rules then, that I wrote so instinctively and I try to tap into that now.”
Before taking up the guitar Kiesza had studied piano but she struggled.
“I have a very mild form of dyslexia and I struggled with sight reading. My teachers thought I wasn’t rehearsing but my eyes couldn’t track a page very well. I’d pretend I was sight reading but I’d learn all my songs by ear. That’s how I developed more of an ear for writing.”
Her ear and her musical passion helped her attend, on scholarship, the very respected Berklee College of Music in Boston. She moved to New York after her time at Berklee, and her style moved to from folk to dance music.
Although she’s an educated musician, she describes her composing process as more spontaneous than academic.
“If I sit at the piano I just let my hands play whatever comes to them. When I go to the microphone to write a song I let my voice go and whatever comes out first is usually the strongest.
“I compose a lot of music: musical theatre, ideas for film scores, country music and indie music,” she adds. “My theory is if I approach songwriting the same way I’m going to write the same sounding music. So every time I sit down to write maybe I’ll start with the lyrics, or I’ll start with the chords, or maybe I’ll start with the melody.
“Ultimately you are trying to organize sound in a way that creates an emotional response. Whether you want people to dance or laugh or cry, you want people to exist in the world of the song.”
Behind her talent is a very curious and restless mind that is always consuming something new.
“I read a lot, from really nerdy science books to fiction,” she says. Last year, while on tour, she read The Genie In Your Genes, Dawson Church’s groundbreaking book that links emotion and genetics. Now, she’s reading The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose.
She loves fiction too. “I’m a die-hard Harry Potter fan. I love my Lord of the Rings too. I just love beautifully structured words.”
Amnesia Rockfest: including War on Women (8:10 p.m.), RVIVR (8:45 p.m.), Reset (9:10), Guérilla (9:55 p.m.) Propagandhi (11:15 p.m.), Hommage Rage Against the Machine (midnight), 111 Laurier St., Montebello. Tickets: $177.62 Regular and VIP weekend passes are still available. Buses and shuttles are running from Ottawa and Gatineau for a fee. www.amnesiarockfest.com
Reggae Night with Roots Movement (10 p.m., $7), Aidan, (bluesrock, 7:30 p.m., $7), Linda Marie (3 p.m., free), The Rainbow, 76 Murray St. therainbow.ca
DJ Premier, all vinyl set, also with DJs Pump, Illo, VInyl Ritchie, 10 p.m., Babylon, 317 Bank St. Tickets: $15 in advance. babylonclub.ca
Danielle Allard, 9 p.m., Live on Elgin, 220 Elgin St. Tickets: Free. www.liveonelgin.com
Unable to make Amnesia Rockfest in Montebello? See the Honest Heart Collective rock out at Zaphod’s on June 18 instead.
NOTFEST: The Honest Heart Collective, Aukland, Arms of the Girl, rock, 8 p.m., Zaphod Beeblebrox, 27 York St. Tickets: $5. zaphods.ca
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Coliseum, Black Tower, Chastity Belt,Boyhood, 6 p.m., outside Club Saw, 67 Nicholas St.Tickets: $15. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend:Obliterations, Meat Wave, Street Waters, 10:45 p.m. inside Club Saw, 67 Nicholas St. Tickets: $15. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Weird Canada, Century Palm, Nightshades, Weed Mom, 7 p.m., Mugshots, 75 Nicholas St.Tickets: $5. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Mother’s Children, The Jeanies, First Base, Pale Lips, Average Times, 10:45 p.m., Avant-Garde, 135 1/2 Besserer St. Tickets: $10. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Goat Horn, Zex, Cross Dog, Flying Fortress, 10 p.m. Tickets: $5 before 10 p.m., $8 after. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Irene’s All Stars Blues with Elyssa Mahoney and Lucas Haneman, 9 p.m., Irene’s Pub, 885 Bank St. Tickets: No cover. irenespub.ca
Yup it’s true – June 17 @NeatCoffeeShop and June 18 @NorthOn29 with string quartet ! Tra la laaaaaa come out and play
Amnesia Rockfest: including Sublime with Rome, The Offspring, Ministry, Linkin Park, Deftones, Bad Religion, Tenacious D, and many more, noon to late, 111 Laurier St., Montebello. Tickets: $177.62 Regular and VIP weekend passes are still available. Buses and shuttles are running from Ottawa and Gatineau for a fee. www.amnesiarockfest.com
The Bruitals, No Fly List, alt-rock/album release, 8 p.m., Zaphod Beeblebrox, 27 York St. Tickets: $7. zaphods.ca
Frank James Band, classic rock, 3 p.m., The Rainbow, 76 Murray St. therainbow.ca
GlowFair: DJ Lowpass (7 p.m.), Danya D (8:30 p.m.), Vilify (10 p.m.), Jokers of the Scene (11:30 p.m.), DJ Stage, Bank Street. glowfairfestival.ca
Blonde Redhead is on the main stage at Glow Fair.
GlowFair: The Strain (alt-rock, 7 p.m.), Tops (pop, 7:50 p.m.), Blonde Redhead (alt-rock, 8:45 p.m.), The New Deal (electronica, 10 p.m.), Main Stage, Bank Street. glowfairfestival.ca
Leeroy Stagger and Dennis Ellsworth, roots/alt-country, 8:30 p.m., The Black Sheep Inn, 753 Riverside Dr., Wakefield. Tickets: $10 in advance. theblacksheepinn.com
Moonfruits, Barren Acres, folk-pop, 9 p.m., Live on Elgin, 220 Elgin St. Tickets: $8 in advance, $10 at the door. www.liveonelgin.com
Mike Tremblay Trio, jazz guitar/ live CD recording, 7:30 p.m., GigSpace, 953 Gladstone Ave. Tickets: $20. gigspaceottawa.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Tough Age, Century Palm, Terrible Liars, TheJeanies, 3 p.m., Mugshots, 75 Nicholas St.Tickets: $5. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Boilerman, Finderskeepers, Dead Weights and After Party with DJs., 7:30 p.m., Mugshots, 75 Nicholas St.Tickets: $8. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: The White Wires, Transmitors, Sheer Mag, Benny The Jet Rodriguez, 6:30 p.m., outside Club Saw, 67 Nicholas St. Tickets: $15. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Toys That Kill, The Creeps, Hysterese, Sonic Avenues, 10:45 p.m., inside Club Saw, 67 Nicholas St. Tickets: $15. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Bondar, Petra Glynt, Whoop-Zo, Pipahauntus, 10 p.m., Avant-Garde, 135 1/2 Besserer St. Tickets: $8. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: ASILE, TV Freaks, Strange Attractor, DursCoeurs, 9:30 p.m., Dominion Tavern, 33 York St.Tickets: $8. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend Mega Rock Show: In Heat, Pow Wows, Les DeuxLuxes, 10 p.m., House of Targ, 1077 Bank St.Tickets: $5 before 10 p.m.; $8 after. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Jazz Festival:Fourth Landscape (6 p.m., NAC Fourth Stage), Jacques Kuba Séguin: Odd Lot (6:30 pm., main stage), Avi Lebovich Orchestra (7 p.m., NAC Studio), Lucky Chops (7:30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza), Ms. Isla Fischer and Grand Baton (8:30 p.m., main stage), The Soul Rebels (10:30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza). Tickets, passes, locations and schedule atottawajazzfestival.com
Rush Underworld: Vampires vs Werewolves DJ battle, with No Left Turn, Type-ZERO, VH3, White Cheddar, Rewind, Dain-Ja and Saxon, hardcore/16 and over admitted with I.D., 8 p.m., Mavericks, 221 Rideau St.
Summer Solstice Aboriginal Festival open mic night, 7 p..m., Vincent Massey Park. www.ottawasummersolstice.ca
The YaYa’s, Rolling Stones tribute, 9 p.m., Irene’s Pub, 885 Bank St. Tickets: $10. irenespub.ca
Saturday, June 20
Snoop Dogg plays Amnesia Rockfest in Montebello.
Amnesia Rockfest: including Snoop Dog, Pixies, Slayer, System of a Down, Buzzcocks, Gogol Bordello, Tom Green, Rancid, Less Than Jake, The Planet Smashers, Flogging Molly and many more, noon to late, 111 Laurier St., Montebello. Buses and shuttles are running from Ottawa and Gatineau for a fee. Tickets: $177.62 Regular and VIP weekend passes are still available. www.amnesiarockfest.com
The Back Street, 4 p.m., Atomic Rooster, 303 Bank St. Tickets: Free. atomicrooster.ca
Djs Torro Torro play Glow Fair.
GlowFair: Jas Nasty (7 p.m.), Lance Baptiste (8:30 p.m.), Torro Torro (10 p.m.), So Durand vs. Foster (11:30 p.m.), DJ Stage, Bank Street. glowfairfestival.ca
GlowFair: Mozart’s Sister (electro, 7 p.m.), The Peptides (8 p.m.), Lowell (electro-pop, 9:10 p.m.), Kiesza (three-time Juno winner, 10:15 p.m.), Main Stage, Bank Street. glowfairfestival.ca
Hallelujah Gospel Choir, celebration of gospel music, 7 p.m., Parkdale United Church, 420 Parkdale Ave. Tickets: Freewill offerings welcome to aid local charities.
Hidden Roots Collective, all-ages, 4:20 p.m., The Black Sheep Inn, 753 Riverside Dr., Wakefield. Tickets: $10 in advance. theblacksheepinn.com
Insufficient Funds, Reliving the Prophecy, Desolate Image, metal, 9 p.m., Cafe Dekcuf, 221 Rideau St. Tickets: $8 at the door.
Jon Knight & Soulstack, roots/album release, 10 p.m., The Rainbow Bistro, 76 Murray St. Tickets: $15. therainbow.ca
The Lonesome Devils, rockabilly/alt-country, 8 p.m., McCloskey’s, 22 Victoria St., Chesterville. Tickets: $10 at the door.
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: New Swears, Underground Railroad to Candyland, Nato Coles and the Blue Diamond, Earth Girls, Wet Brain, Pretty Pretty, Voicemail, Shapes bySociety, noon, Club Saw, 67 Nicholas St.Tickets: $15. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Nervous Talk, Poor Form and a surpriseguest, 5 p.m., Vertigo, 193 Rideau St.Tickets: Free, all ages. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Steve Adamyk Band, Vacation, Big Dick, and a mystery band, 6:30 p.m., outside Club Saw, 67 Nicholas St.Tickets: $15. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Moon, Street Kyle and The Abandos, Plasmalab, After Party DJs, 7 p.m., Mugshots, 75 Nicholas St.Tickets: $8. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend Dance party: Mackenzie Rhythm Section, The Ballantynes, funk/soul/garage, 9 p.m., House of Targ, 1077 Bank St.Tickets: $5 before 10 p.m.; $8 after. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Red Dons, Crusades, Needles/Pins, Feral Trash, 10:45 p.m., inside Club Saw, 67 Nicholas St.Tickets: $15. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
The Roots
Ottawa Jazz Festival: Cyrille Aimée (6 p.m., NAC), Duchess (6:30 p.m., main stage), Kenny Werner Trio (7 p.m., NAC Studio), Bruce Cockburn (7:30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza), Joe McPhee, Nicholas Caloia, Jesse Stewart (8 p.m., NAC), The Roots (9 p.m., main stage), Reuben and The Dark (10:30 p.m.).Tickets,passes and schedule atottawajazzfestival.com
The Stringers, The Wilderness, Toast of the Town, alt-rock, 8:30 p.m., Live on Elgin, 220 Elgin St. Tickets: $5. www.liveonelgin.com
Relic, Philly Moves, Ghettosocks, MV, DJ 2CreamZ, hip hop, 8 p.m., Zaphod Beeblebrox, 27 York St. Tickets: $10 in advance. zaphods.ca
The Reverb Syndicate, The Huaraches, surf rock and celebration of 100 shows, 9 p.m., Irene’s Pub, 885 Bank St. irenespub.ca
Summer Solstice Aboriginal Festival : Throat singing and fire jiggers (3 p.m.), Nelson Tagoona (Inuit Throat Boxer, 7 p.m.), Eagle & Hawk (Juno Award winners, 7:30 p.m.), Indigenous fusion spectacle (8:30 p.m.), DJ Shrub (formerly of A Tribe Called Red, 9 p.m.) Vincent Massey Park. Tickets: Free. www.ottawasummersolstice.ca
Sweet Alibi, 9 p.m., The Branch, 15 Clothier St. E., Kemptville. Tickets: $15. thebranchrestaurant.ca
Sunday, June 21
DJ Zattar, jazz/rare groove/fun, 9 p.m., The Manx, 370 Elgin St. Tickets: free. manxpub.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: Catholic Girls, The Famines, Bonnie Doon, Blue Angel, Chloroform, Gaycation, Baberaham Lincoln, noon, Club Saw, 67 Nicholas St. Tickets: $8. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Ottawa Explosion Weekend: OXW After Party with DJ KJ Maxx and free pinball play, 9 p.m., House of Targ, 1077 Bank St.Tickets: $5. Full festival pass $72. ottawaexplosion.com
Chris Botti plays the Ottawa Jazz Festival on June 21.
Ottawa Jazz Festival: Saxofour (6 p.m., NAC), Bria Skonberg Quintet (6:30 p.m.), Renée Rosnes Quartet (7 and 9 p.m., NAC), Chris Botti (8 p.m., main stage), Eric Boeren 4Tet (8 p.m., NAC), Timber Three (10:30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza).Tickets, passes and schedule atottawajazzfestival.com
Songs for Solstice Penny Palooza, with Disco Inferno, The Ramblin’ Valley Band, Rothwell and MOffatt from the Top Quartet, fundraiser for the Ottawa Hospital Breast Cancer Centre, 5 to 9 p.m., Manor Park Community Centre, 100 Thornwood Rd. Admisson: $10, $20/family, donations accepted for the Rideau-Rockcliffe Emergency Food Bank.
Red Jazz, noon to 5 p.m., Rideau Woodland Ramble Celebration, 7210 Burritt’s Rapids Rd., Merrickville. www.rideauwoodlandramble.com
Rod Williams Band (6 p.m.), Jonny Mac (10 p.m.), Atomic Rooster, 303 Bank St. Tickets: Free. atomicrooster.ca
The Story of Babar, the little Elephant, musical theatre for children, 9:30, 11 a.m., and 1:30 p.m. in English, 3 p.m. in French, National Arts Centre, 53 Elgin St. Tickets: $18. nac-cna.ca
Super Soul Sundays, funk/soul/jazz, 9:30 p.m., Irene’s Pub, 885 Bank St. Tickets: No cover. irenespub.ca
Wicked Grin, 4 p.m., The Rainbow, 76 Murray St. Tickets: $3. therainbow.ca
Monday, June 22
Antigen Shift, Ghost Twin, Réservoir, industrial/synth, 10 p.m., The Daily Grind, 601 Somerset St. W. Tickets: $10.
Mike Essoudry and Michel DeLage, jazz, 9 p.m., The Manx, 370 Elgin St. Tickets: free. manxpub.com
Open Mic Monday with Kevin Martman, full band, all welcome, 8 p.m., The Rainbow, 76 Murray St. therainbow.ca
Ottawa Explosion Weekend extra: Tenement, Big Zit, Cheap Wave, all-ages/punk, 7 p.m., Black Squirrel Books, 1072 Bank St. Tickets: $8, $5 with OXW pass. facebook.com
Maria Joao and Mario Laginha play the Ottawa Jazz Festival on June 22.
Ottawa Jazz Festival: Harea Band (noon, Marion Dewar Plaza), Doug Martin Quartet (noon, Rideua Centre), Maria João and Mário Laginha (5 p.m., NAC), Ranee Lee Quintet (6 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza), WAR (7 p.m., main stage), Swedish Azz (7 p.m., NAC), Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit (9 p.m., NAC), Tower of Power (9 p.m.), Sonny Knight & The Lakers (10:30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza).Tickets, passes and schedule atottawajazzfestival.com
Showcase Mondays: Idle Lie, Bitter North, The Contra, Ali McCormick, 8 p.m., Zaphod Beeblebrox, 27 York St. Tickets: Free. zaphods.ca
Young Artists Program: Chamber concert series, 7 p.m., University of Ottawa Perez Building, Freiman Hall. Tickets: $10. nac-cna.ca
Tuesday, June 23
Capital Community Choir, 7:30 p.m., The Rainbow, 76 Murray St. Tickets: $5. therainbow.ca
Folkin’ Tuesday with Justin Duhaime, 8 to 11 p.m., Atomic Rooster, 303 Bank St. Tickets: Free. atomicrooster.ca
Moon Hooch play the late night show at the Ottawa Jazz Festival on June 23.
Ottawa Jazz Festival: The Beeched Wailers (noon, Rideau Centre), The Kingmakers (noon, Marion Dewar Plaza), Pascal Schumacher (6 p.m., NAC), Robi Botos with Seamus Blake (6:30 p.m., main stage), An Evening with Branford Marsalis (7 and 9 p.m., NAC), Emil Viklicki ‘Grand Moravia’ Trio (8 p.m., NAC), Down by the Riverside with the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (8;30 p.m., main stage), Moon Hooch (10:30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza). Tickets, passes and schedule atottawajazzfestival.com
Young Artists Program: Chamber concert series, 7 p.m., University of Ottawa Perez Building, Freiman Hall. Tickets: $10. nac-cna.ca
Wednesday, June 24
Adam Saikaley Trio, chill groove, 8 p.m., Live on Elgin, 220 Elgin St. Tickets: Free. www.liveonelgin.com
Metal band Crowbar play Mavericks on June 24.
Crowbar, Battlecross, Lord Dying, A Darker Day, metal, 7 p.m., Mavericks, 221 Rideau St. Tickets: $25. blackwidowpromotions.com
Huey Lewis and The News
Ottawa Jazz Festival: The Karen Oxorn Quartet (noon, Rideau Centre), The Sun Crescent BBQ Stompers (noon, Marion Dewar Plaza), Cloudmakers Trio (6 p.m., NAC), Joel Miller & Honeycomb (6:30 p.m., main stage), The Stanley Clarke Band (7 p.m., NAC), Kat Edmonson (7;30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza), Julia Hülsmann Trio (8 p.m., NAC), Huey Lewis and the News (8;30 p.m., main stage), Freshlyground (10:30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza).Tickets, passes and schedule atottawajazzfestival.com
Ottawa Street Lounge, urban speakeasy/cocktail/craft-brew night featuring electronic and urban beats, 10 p.m., Zaphod Beeblebrox, 27 York St. Tickets: Free. zaphods.ca
P’Tite St-Jean festival: with Dylan Perron, Élixir Gumbo, Irish Bastards, Slam Outaouais, and more, 8 p.m., in the pedestrian area on Laval Street, Gatineau. Tickets: Free. facebook.com
Soundcheck, open mic hosted by Mike McCormick, 8 p.m., Neat Café, 1715 Calabogie Rd., Burnstown. Tickets: Free. neatfood.com
Tara Holloway, 8 to 11 p.m., Atomic Rooster, 303 Bank St. Tickets: Free. atomicrooster.ca
Thursday, June 25
Broadway Standing Ovations with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and vocalists Christina Bianco, Ted Keegan and Richard Todd Adams, 8 p.m., National Arts Centre, 53 Elgin St. Tickets: from $25. nac-cna.ca
Danielle Allard, 9 p.m., Live on Elgin, 220 Elgin St. Tickets: Free. www.liveonelgin.com
Dragon Boat Festival free concerts: Jim Bryson (6:30 p.m.), Mounties ( 8 p.m.), Yukon Blonde (indie rock, 9:30 p.m.), Mooney’s Bay Park on Riverside Drive. www.dragonboat.net
Irene’s All Stars Blues with John Yemensky, 9 p.m., Irene’s Pub, 885 Bank St. Tickets: No cover. irenespub.ca
Gypsophilia plays the Jazz Festival on June 25.
Ottawa Jazz Festival: Old Stereo (noon, Marion Dewar Plaza), Alarmist (6 p.m., NAC), Gypsophililia (6:30 p.m., main stage), A Filetta — Paolo Fresu & Daniele Di Bonaventura (7 p.m., NAC), Lindi Ortega (7;30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza), Guilia Valle Trio (8 p.m., NAC), Steve Miller Band (8:30 p.m., main stage), Enrico Rava Tribe feat. Gianluca Petrella (9 p.m., NAC), Ikebe Shakedown (10:30 p.m., Marion Dewar Plaza). Tickets, passes and schedule atottawajazzfestival.com
Ska Nite with Suits ‘N Toques, Freshly Cut, DJs, 10 p.m., House of Targ, 1077 Bank St. Tickets: $5. houseoftarg,com
Tanya Morgan, Moka Only, Fresh Kils, hip hop, 9 p.m., Ritual, 137 Besserer St. Tickets: $10 in advance. ticketfly.com
Are you a promoter, musician or venue? Send in your event information to kendemann@ottawacitizen.com, by 8 a.m. Monday, two weeks before the event. Photos and audio files are welcome.
As an opener, it may have been a purely fortuitous choice. Beirut, the U.S. outfit that segues happily from Balkan folk music to indie rock to French chanson, launched its main stage show on a soggy Jazz Fest evening with Scenic World, a song that ends with a dream of breathtaking sunsets. Frontman Zach Condon sang it without irony, but then just what is going in a Beirut performance is sometimes hard to determine with certainty.
On the other hand, keeping listeners guessing is a key part of the band’s appeal and presumably what brought a small but enthusiastic festival crowd out despite the unappealing weather.
Elephant Gun followed Scenic World. It opened with Condon plinking his ukulele and ended with a flourish of horns (Condon on one of them), managing to be simultaneously irresistible and confounding.
And so it went, with the band and its swelling, brassy melodies zig-zagging around the world with songs like Nantes, Santa Fe and East Harlem and tossing in bits of Mexican mariachi and electronic pop at opportune moments.
Condon, who suffered a physical and mental breakdown in 2013 but seemed in fine fettle Sunday night, is no chatterbox. “I love you too,” spoken in response to an audience member’s shouted pledge, was almost the extent of his stage patter.
Heck, he didn’t even introduce No, No, No, from the upcoming album of the same name, a marketing opportunity most other bands would have been all over. He’s not uncommunicative in the manner of a Van Morrison, but Condon and his fine outfit seem to believe that they are on stage to perform.
No talker (and not a great enunciator when singing, either), Condon does communicate a persistent mood of melancholy even when singing a tune with a title like Sunday Smile. That’s not bad thing, just another indication of how “comfort zone” and Beirut don’t exist in the same musical universe.
Earlier the Afro-Cuban Jazz & Beyond mixed it up with rhythms from Africa, the Caribbean and the U.S., rendering a kind of history of the development of Afro-Cuban music. The band specializes in dispatching complex arrangements with incision and concision. Fleet alto saxophonist Chris Mitchell and pianist/conductor Hilario Duran were particular treats, ranging from ferocious to lyrical with the ease of two guys out for a Sunday stroll. The set list included Nights in Tunisia by Dizzy Gillespie for whom founding percussionist Ignacio Berroa worked for a decade.
