The much-beloved Haliburton Forest Festival is back in 2023 after a four-year absence — although the event is smaller with a different format and takes place at a different venue.
This year’s Forest Festival, called “Women of The Forest”, presented by Haliburton Forest & Wild Life Reserve with various community partners, will celebrate Canadian women in music with special guest musicians headlining each concert and local performers opening.
The series of four monthly concerts from May to August at the Haliburton Forest’s Logging Museum at 1095 Redkenn Road in the Haliburton Highlands features Boreal with opener Sue Shikaze and Myrna McBrien on May 20, The Salt Cellars with opener Rose Randall on June 24, Jane Bunnett and Maqueque with opener Carling Stephen and Rob Phillips on July 21, and Jenie Thai with opener Sandra Bouza on August 25.
The Forest Festival was originally held at the Bone Lake Amphitheatre at Haliburton Forest and featured such big-name Canadian performers as Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jim Cuddy, Dan Hill, Sarah Harmer, and Lighthouse. Organizers discontinued the festival in 2019 after 13 years, primarily because of the need to reconstruct the Bone Lake Amphitheatre along with the high cost of hosting the festival.
For the Forest Festival’s 2023 Women of The Forest concert series, tickets for each concert are $35, or $120 for the entire series. Tickets are available at haliburtonforest.checkfront.com/reserve/?category_id=75. Select a concert date to purchase individual tickets, or select the May 20th date to purchase a series pass.
The series opens at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 20th when Haliburton Forest and the Haliburton County Folk Society present Boreal with opener Sue Shikaze and Myrna McBrien.
VIDEO: “It’s Spring” by Boreal celebrating their Songs of Renewal spring tour
Boreal is a trio of three successful singer-songwriters — Tannis Slimmon (vocals, guitar, mandolin, bass), Katherine Wheatley (vocals, guitar, bass), and Angie Nussey (vocals, keyboard, percussion) — who have come together to present spell-binding harmonies combined with vocal prowess and tour-de-force song-writing.
With a new album on the way, Boreal’s show “Songs of Renewal” combines deeply uplifting songwriting with humour, storytelling, and heart-melting honesty.
Local duo Sue Shikaze and Myrna McBrien are long-time friends who began singing and harmonizing in cafés and open stages around Kingston after meeting at Queen’s University. Shikaze is a co-artistic director for the Haliburton County Folk Society’s concert series, a member of local band Trio Cappuccino, and a radio host of Northern Aire on Canoe FM. McBrien is an educator, professional artist, actor, and director who is currently working for the Highlands Summer Festival.
On Saturday, June 24th at 7:30 p.m., Haliburton Forest and Minden Pride present The Salt Cellars with opener Rose Randall.
Hailing from the south side of Algonquin Park, The Salt Cellars are duo Virginia deCarle and Rob Bersan, who blend the sounds of folk, Americana, blues, jazz, and pop into a sound that’s uniquely their own. After decades of writing individually, they brought their lyrics and music to each other and began writing collaboratively. They have played in many venues in different parts of Ontario, with audiences enjoying their tight harmonies, skilled musicianship, and energy.
Singing over looped vocal harmonies and beat box, opener Rose Randall’s music is described as electronic music without the electronics. A mix of tribal, rock, rap, folk, and ethereal sounds, Randall’s music explores nature, the human condition, and “unapologetically celebrates God.”
VIDEO: “Inside These Walls” by The Salt Cellars
Jazz is the theme for July when Haliburton Forest and Jazz at the 45th/CANOE FM present Jane Bunnett and Maqueque at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, July 21st, with opener Carling Stephen and Rob Phillips.
A five-time Juno award winner and three-time Grammy award nominee, Jane Bunnett launched Maqueque in 2013 as a project to record and mentor young brilliant Cuban female musicians. It has since become one of the top groups on the North American jazz scene. Since then they have released four albums, including their Juno award-winning 2014 debut Jane Bunnett and Maqueque, 2016’s Juno award-nominated Oddara, 2019’s Juno award-nominated On Firm Ground/Tierra Firme, and 2023’s Playing with Fire.
Along with Bunnett on soprano saxophone and flute, Maqueque features Joanna Tendai Majoko on vocals, Mary Paz on congas and vocals, Dánae Olano on piano, Tailin Marrero on acoustic and electric bass, and Yissy García on drums.
VIDEO: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert with Jane Bunnett and Maqueque:
Vocalist Carling Stephen and pianist Rob Phillips are well known in Peterborough for their weekly jazz and blues show on Thursday nights with the Rob Phillips Trio at the Black Horse.
Stephen is a jazz and blues singer as well as a multi-instrumentalists and songwriter who recently collaborated with Haliburton-based jazz guitarist Nicholas Russell to record four live-off-the-floor music videos of jazz standards and is currently writing songs with Phillips for her first full-length studio album.
Phillips, who began studying classical piano at the age of seven, is a jazz and blues pianist, composer, and educator who has been engrossed in Peterborough’s musical community for decades. The 2015 Peterborough Pathway of Fame inductee enjoyed considerable success with Dan Fewings and Jimmy Bowskill as one third of the musical improv comedy trio The Three Martinis, and his trio — which has been performing at the Black Horse for almost 10 years — recently celebrated their 500th show there.
VIDEO: “Night On Fire” by Jenie Thai
The Women of the Forest series wraps up at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, August 25th when Haliburton Forest and the Highlands Buckslide Blues Society present Jenie Thai with opener Sandra Bouza.
Born in Thailand and raised in Edmonton, R&B singer-songwriter and classically trained pianist Jenie Thai released her debut EP Lady Flower in 2011, with the title track earning her an honourable mention in the International Songwriting Competition from among 16,000 submissions. She released her first full-length album Only the Moon in 2013, with received considerable airplay on radio in Canada and the U.S., followed by Night on Fire in 2018. She has been nominated for two Edmonton Music Awards, three Maple Blues Awards, and was a semi-finalist at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis in 2017.
Toronto R&B and soul singer-songwriter Sandra Bouza spent a large part of her life in Spain as well as travelling around the world, an experience that informs her songwriting. She released her debut EP Three Years in 2018, followed by her first full-length album Falling Away From Me in 2020. Her new album A Sound In the Dark is scheduled to be released this fall. Bouza was the 2019 winner of the Toronto Blues Society’s Talent Search and was a semi-finalist in the 2020 International Blues Challenge in Memphis. She also participated in the Hall Island Artist residency in the Haliburton Highlands and will also be performing at the Haliburton Rotary Music in the Park on August 15.
For more information about the Haliburton Forest and Wild Life Reserve, visit www.haliburtonforest.com.
