encoreNOW is a bi-weekly column by Paul Rellinger where he features upcoming music, theatre, film, and performing arts events and news from across the Kawarthas.
This week, Paul highlights Public Energy Performing Arts’ presentation of Nomada, the return to Peterborough of pop music nostalgia collective Dwayne Gretzky, a musical welcome of spring courtesy of the Northumberland Orchestra and Choir, a tribute to Johnny Cash at Lindsay’s Academy Theatre, The Stampeders at Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre, the opening of Peterborough’s SPARK Photo Festival, the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra’s homage to Italy, and more.
Nomada speaks very well to Public Energy’s 30-year mission
When it was founded in 1994, Public Energy Performing Arts pledged to create ‘inclusive spaces where risk-taking artists and diverse audiences meet.’ Thirty years on, that mission statement remains well in focus, the Friday, April 5th presentation of Nomada at Market Hall providing full evidence of that.
The solo show, featuring internationally renowned Mexican-Canadian aerial and performance artist Diana Lopez Soto, has been nine years in the making. Inspired by connections to the land, rituals of water, cycles of sustainability and stories that Lopez Soto collected in her homeland, the work combines the elements of aerial dance, installation art, projection design and contemporary Mexican Indigenous dance.
In securing this performance for a Peterborough audience, Public Energy executive director Bill Kimball et al have scored quite a coup, with this staging being one of just five presented in Canada. But then no one should be surprised by that. Public Energy has consistently sought out, and staged, thrilling feasts for the senses since day one. Mission (statement) accomplished and then some.
Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. staging of Nomada are being sold on a sliding pay-what-you-can scale ranging from $10 to $50. Visit the Market Hall box office, phone 705-775-1503, or purchase online at www.markethall.org.
Music nostalgia tour de force that is Dwayne Gretzky returns
There’s a very good reason that Peterborough Musicfest has brought Dwayne Gretzky to its Del Crary Park stage four times since 2018.
Besides performing wholly unique renditions of classic rock, pop, and blues songs that dominated the charts over the last 60-plus years, the band members’ unabashed love for the music, and each other, is clear from the first note struck. Dwayne Gretzky has a lot of fun on stage and that’s infectious.
The collective, whose core members have refreshingly remained in place since first coming together in Toronto in 2011, returns to Peterborough on Friday, April 5th for a 7 p.m. concert at The Venue on George Street North. General admission tickets cost $29.50 (plus fees) are available online at www.venueptbo.ca.
Billed as “Big Shiny Dwayne: Dwayne Gretzky Does The 90s,” the set list will feature iconic songs from that decade, offering full proof that the band’s tag as ‘Canada’s reigning champs of nostalgia’ remains well assigned. And there’s local flavour — both Tyler Kyte and Brad Rose hail from the Lindsay area.
If you haven’t been to The Venue in a while, Dwayne Gretzky provides great reason to head through its door again. It’s a pretty much a given you’ll leave through that same door feeling you’ve been fully entertained.
Symphonic, choral spring welcoming at Cobourg’s Trinity Church
Spring has finally sprung and, to our good fortune, the Northumberland Orchestra and Choir (NOC) is in a celebratory mood.
For its final concert of the 2023-24 season — billed simply as the Spring Concert — the ensemble returns Saturday, April 6th to Trinity United Church in Cobourg. Tickets to the 3 p.m. concert cost $25 for adults and $20 for seniors/students while kids under 12 are admitted free. Better still, there’s a discounted price of $40 for a family of four. You can order online at nocmusic.ca.
Saman Shahi, a Toronto based Juno Award-nominated composer, pianist and conductor, leads a program featuring works by Dvorak, Weber, and Bizet. Peterborough’s Victoria Yeh is also very much in the mix as NOC’s concertmaster.
Under the guiding vision of Dr. Phillip Schaus, NOC was founded in 1978 as a symphony orchestra comprised of local musicians. It was augmented a year later when members of the local choral society formed the Northumberland Philharmonic Choir. All these years later, NOC’s promise of ‘great music in a beautiful place’ is still being kept.
It’s not Folsom Prison but the Academy Theatre will do just fine
It’s a testament to the music and persona of the late Johnny Cash that so very many musicians have taken to the stage as legendary The Man In Black.
The gritty country/blues/gospel sound of Arkansas-born Cash, who died in 2003, continues to hold a spell over fans worldwide, both of the longtime variety and those new to the party.
One of the best-selling artists of all time with more than 90 million albums sold, Cash (on his own and with his wife June Carter) had few peers, if any, in his heyday. You know the songs word for word, or at least know of them: “Ring Of Fire,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “A Boy Named Sue,” “I Walk The Line” — the list goes on and on.
On Saturday, April 6th at Lindsay’s FLATO Academy Theatre, Ward Cornforth, as a 1960s era Cash, headlines “We Walk The Line,” joined by ‘June’ and a band that recreates the toe-tapping rhythm of The Tennessee Three, Cash’s backing band over much of his career.
Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. concert spanning Cash’s career, from famed Memphis-based Sun Records in the 1950s to his final recording, cost $56 at www.flatoacademytheatre.com. That’s chump change for the chance to experience the life and times of one of most influential musicians of the 20th century.
The Stampeders carrying on with Ronnie King in their hearts
We’ve read and heard the phrase “The show must go on” countless times in arts and entertainment circles, but there’s no better example of that than the spirit now being exhibited by The Stampeders.
Devastated by the early March death of original member and bassist Ronnie King, the Calgary-formed band has opted to continue with their planned tour — one of the stops being Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre on Sunday, April 7th at 7:30 p.m.
It would have been easy for band co-founders Rich Dodson and Kim Berly to take a step back. People would have understood. But no, the show must go on, they deemed, and fans of the one of Canada’s defining rock bands are no doubt thrilled.
The Stampeders broke in a very big way in 1971 with “Sweet City Woman,” which garnered a Juno Award and took up residence in the vaunted Billboard charts for 16 weeks. Proving to be no-one trick pony, The Stampeders subsequently gave us “Devil You,” “Wild Eyes,” “Minstrel Gypsy,” and a catchy pop version of “Hit The Road Jack.”
The band’s longtime friend Dave Chabot, who filled in for King at previous concerts when he was too ill to perform, will replace King for the entire tour, which will now be held as a celebration of King’s life.
Tickets to the “One More Time!” show cost $89.79 at capitoltheatre.com. If you miss out, don’t sweat it: you can catch the tour April 27 at Lindsay’s FLATO Academy Theatre or April 30 at Showplace in Peterborough.
Peterborough’s SPARK Photo Festival a ‘focus’ through April
Who doesn’t love, and respect, a longstanding tradition? Better still, who doesn’t love, and respect, a longstanding Peterborough tradition?
The SPARK Photo Festival — an annual ‘a celebration of photography, and the artists, dreamers, innovators, storytellers, professionals and enthusiasts behind the camera lens’ — hosts its opening reception Monday, April 7th from 2 to 4 p.m. at the YMCA Balsillie Family Branch on Aylmer Street.
Proof of the festival’s enduring 11-year popularity is evident in the fact that the opening reception quickly sold out, but fret not — a slew of festival-related events will follow throughout April.
Visit www.sparkphotofestival.org for the full schedule and related details, along with a list of 26 signature, community, group, and individual exhibits that will be part of this year’s festival at venues throughout Peterborough, Northumberland, and the City of Kawartha Lakes.
Of note, at the opening reception, the previously announced Emerging Artists — Alexis Belliveau, Will Pearson, Kathy Romard, Sarah Van Ryn and Margaret Wood — will be feted. Each is publicly displaying their work for the first time, and their Emerging Artists Exhibit will be on display at the YMCA Balsillie Family Branch seven days a week until the end of April.
Peterborough Symphony Orchestra serves up a slice of Italy
Speaking of Peterborough traditions, there are few that can rival the endurance and consistent quality of music that has been served up since 1967 by the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra.
Music director and conductor Michael Newnham’s leadership and vision has played a huge role in the orchestra’s year-after-year success. Now he’s again taking up his baton at Showplace Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough on Saturday, April 13th for “This Is Italy!,” a program of music largely dedicated to Italian composers inspired by the colours and atmosphere of their homeland.
Featuring accomplished vibraphonist and Canadian Music Centre Ambassador Beverley Johnston as the guest performer, “This Is Italy!” will see her lend to her talent to Mirage?, a concerto for solo percussion and strings composed by her husband, Greek-Canadian composer Christos Hatzis.
As always, Newnham, aiming to educate as well, will give a pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m., with the concert to follow at 7:30 p.m. Tickets, ranging $33 to $55, are available at showplace.org. There’s a discounted ticket price of $12 for students.
Encore
VIDEO: “Never Have I Ever” – Elyse Saunders
- Peterborough rock-a-billy singer and guitarist Nicholas Campbell fronts The Two Metre Cheaters for the closing gig of his new album release tour on Saturday, April 13th at Peterborough’s Market Hall. The album is titled Gonna Have A Ball Tonight. It’s pretty much a certainty that will ring true.
- The search is on for the City of Peterborough’s new Poet Laureate, a city-designated two-year position administered by the independent not-for-profit arts organization Electric City Culture Council (EC3). More details and the nomination form can be found at www.ecthree.org, with EC3 hosting an in-person nomination workshop at Artspace at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 12th followed by an online version on Zoom at the same time the following evening. The chosen one will be the city’s third Poet Laureate, preceded by Sarah Lewis and Ziysah von Bieberstein.
- Peterborough native Elyse Saunders’ star continues to rise dramatically. Enjoying extensive radio play success for her newest single “Never Have I Ever,” the country music singer has been shortlisted for Female Artist of the Year honours by the Country Music Association of Ontario. The awards presentation and associated festival will be held May 31 to June 2 in Mississauga.
