Juno award-winning musician and Millbrook native Serena Ryder will be performing at Showplace Performance Centre (290 George St. N., Peterborough) on Friday, December 15, 2017.
Showplace made the announcement today (September 25), after also announcing that Alan Doyle — best known as the lead singer for Great Big Sea — will performing at Showplace on Tuesday, February 20, 2018.
Tickets for Serena Ryder will cost $60 (plus service fees). Tickets for Alan Doyle will cost $50 (plus service fees) for floor seats or $40 (plus service fees) for balcony seats.
Tickets for both concerts go on sale on Friday, September 29th at 10 a.m. at the Showplace box office, by phone at 705-742-7469, or or online at www.showplace.org.
The 34-year-old Ryder last performed at Showplace in March 2013, as a fundraiser for Peterborough Musicfest, the annual summer concert series in Del Crary Park. She last performed in Peterborough when opening the 30th season season of Musicfest on June 25, 2016.
The Toronto-born musician was raised in Millbrook, just southwest of Peterborough, where her family still lives.
By the age of eight, she was singing covers at local legion halls and motels. She started writing her own songs at the age of 11 and, at 13, began playing guitar. At 15, she was performing folk tunes publicly with her piano teacher.
VIDEO: “Electric Love” – Serena Ryder
She moved to Peterborough at the age of 17, where she attended Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School (PCVS). She started performing as a singer-songerwiter, both solo as well as with local bands such as Thousand Foot Krutch and Three Days Grace.
In 1999, she released her first full-length CD Falling Out, followed by Unlikely Emergency in 2005 (producing the song “Just Another Day” which received considerable play on Canadian radio) and If Your Memory Serves You Well (a collection of 12 covers of notable Canadian songs and three originals) in 2006.
She won the Juno Award for Best New Artist of the Year in 2008, the same year she released her next record Is It O.K.. That record won Ryder the Juno Award for Adult Alternative Album of the Year in 2009 and included the single “Little Bit of Red”, which won Ryder another Juno in 2010 for Best Video of the Year.
VIDEO: “Got Your Number” – Serena Ryder
Ryder achieved international superstardom following the release of her fifth album Harmony in 2012. That record produced the breakout hits “Stompa” and “What I Wouldn’t Do”.
“Stompa” was featured in an episode of ABC television’s hit series Grey’s Anatomy, which helped bring her music to the attention of an American audience.
The song, which Ryder subsequently performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in July 2013, reached the top of the charts in both Canada and the U.S. and is certified four times platinum.
VIDEO: “Stompa” – Serena Ryder
In March 2014, Ryder co-hosted the Juno Awards, where she also won Songwriter of the Year and Artist of the Year (beating out Celine Dion, Drake, Michael Bublé, and Robin Thicke).
In June 2016, Ryder released the single “Got Your Number” from her latest record, the 17-song album Utopia, which dropped in May 2017 along with the EP Electric Love.
Also in 2016, Ryder was inducted into the Peterborough Pathway of Fame.
VIDEO: “What I Wouldn’t Do” – Serena Ryder
