Trent Valley Archives has unveiled a new three-session music series called “Fireside Chats” featuring noted Peterborough music scholar and musician Al Kirby and friends. The series, which runs over three Tuesday evenings in September and October, will focus on the folk songs of rural Ontario and related stories.
Kirby, who has over 60 years of experience teaching, composing, and playing music, has a PhD in Canadian studies from Carleton University where his research focus was rural Ontario traditional music.
In addition to performing pedal-steel guitar with country-rock bands Matchbox and Bandanna, and banjo with bluegrass bands McCormick, Solina Road, and SweetGrass, as well as the folk-jazz ensemble Nassau Mills, Kirby co-wrote and produced Fowke Tales, a musical-drama about the scholarly search by Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke for rural Ontario folk songs.
Most recently, Kirby appeared in the documentary Woods Music, which traces the history of Irish songs in Canada by exploring the songs, singers, and tunes of the lumberjacks and how they formed a unique style and repertoire from their Irish heritage and new Canadian identity.
In the documentary’s second episode, entitled “The Lumberjack’s Alphabet,” Kirby speaks with host Daithí Sproule (an Irish traditional singer and song collector) about the immigration story of Peter Robinson, the 19th-century Upper Canada politician who helped the settlement of more than 2,000 Irish Catholics to Upper Canada in 1825, and how Fowke recorded Irish folk songs at P. G. Towns’ General Store in Douro in the 1950s.
Both episodes of Woods Music are available for streaming on CBC Gem.
The first session of “Fireside Chats” on September 24 will focus on academic song-collecting in the Trent Valley, with Kirby relating the stories behind the folk songs collected by Fowke and fellow scholars Maude Kapeles and Niles Puckett. Singers Rob Cory and Rob Niezen will present samples of the 200-year-old historic songs discovered in the local area.
The second session on October 8 will focus on documentary filmmaking capturing the history of rural Ontario. Filmmaker Nick van der Graaf, whose documentary short The Backwoodsman — which follows the history of the folk song of the same name — is scheduled for release in December, will speak about his methodology, with Kirby and Cory providing musical accompaniment.
The final session on October 22 will relate stories and songs about the murder and mayhem found in rural Ontario in the 19th century, with musical accompaniment provided by Cory, Niezen, and Kirby.
Each session begins at 7:15 p.m. at Trent Valley Archives at 567 Carnegie Avenue in Peterborough.
Tickets cost $20 per session and must be purchased in advance.
Tickets will be available on the Trent Valley Archives website at trentvalleyarchives.com or by calling 705-745-4404.
