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 the 2024-25 season opener for the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra, Sarah McLachlan’s concert at the Peterborough Memorial Centre, Canadian folk-pop icon Murray McLauchlan’s tour stop at Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre, Shipyard Kitchen Party’s musical theatre recount of the Great War years, “Songs We Remember” featuring the Peterborough Pop Ensemble, and yet another murder mystery waiting to be solved at Bobcaygeon’s Lakeview Barn.

Peterborough Symphony Orchestra opens its new season

VIDEO: David Jalbert performs Piano Sonata No. 3 by Sergei Prokofiev

When you have a decades long hard-earned reputation as being one of the finest community-based orchestras in the country, the pressure to maintain that status is ever present.
That said, the Michael Newnham-led Peterborough Symphony Orchestra (PSO) has never rested on its laurels, much to the benefit of its healthy subscriber base.

Rather, the focus has been, and remains, to consistently raise the bar via a combination of taking making ambitious musical choices, the recruitment and retention of superb classically-trained musicians, and the inviting of acclaimed guest performers.

This Saturday (November 2) at Showplace Performance Centre, the PSO will open its 2024-25 season with “Romantic Flames,” the highlight of which will be Canadian virtuoso pianist David Jalbert’s performance of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3. In performing what’s regarded as one the most technically challenging piano concertos in the standard classical piano mode, Jalbert will play pretty much non-stop for the entire piece — a formidable exercise for both him and the PSO ensemble.

Named one of the 15 best Canadian pianists by CBC, Jalbert is both a national and international prize winner, with six Opus Awards on his mantle. He’s also been nominated for six Juno Awards. This marks his third guest performance with the PSO.

Opening the program is a composition by Andrew Balfour, a Juno-nominated Cree composer and conductor from Winnipeg. The PSO will perform Pyotr’s Dream, a Tchaikovsky-inspired piece he wrote in 2029 as commissioned by Toronto-based Tafelmusik. Also featured is Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8, composed in 1889 and premiered the following year in Prague.

Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. performance cost $33, $48 or $55 depending on seat location; $12 for students for all seats. To order, visit www.showplace.org. Meanwhile, for a look at the PSO’s new season lineup, visit thepso.org.

Sarah McLachlan gives “Fumbling With Ecstasy” its full due< (POSTPONED)

VIDEO: “Circle” by Sarah McLachlan

I’ve caught some terrific concerts at the Peterborough Memorial Centre over the years. I know many reading this have done also.

Bryan Adams, Foreigner, and Elton John come to mind quickly, along with a very unexpected visit from comic Jerry Seinfeld, which marked the closest I’ve ever come to having a laughing fit “accident” in public.

This Saturday (November 2), Grammy and Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan will join that impressive list as she continues her tour celebration of the 30th anniversary of her iconic 1993 album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.

The Halifax native launched her music career in 1987 but Fumbling Towards Ecstasy — her third studio recording — broke her internationally. Featuring the hit singles “Possession,” “Hold On,” “Ice Cream,” and “Good Enough,” the album topped Canadian charts and was certified platinum. McLachlan would later claim three Grammy Awards, but this is the album that established her as a musical force well worth our collective attention.

The concert will see McLachlan perform Fumbling Towards Ecstasy in its entirety, along with other selections spanning her career. Equally well known for her philanthropy, she’s donating $1 from every ticket sale to the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, an outreach program in Vancouver that provides music education for inner city kids.

Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. concert, opened by the acoustic harmony trio Tiny Habits, cost $51 to $121 plus taxes and fees. To order, visit tickets.memorialcentre.ca.

A musical theatre remembrance of the Great War years

VIDEO: “100 Years From Now – An Original Musical of the Great War” trailer

This year marks 110 years since the start of what was proclaimed “the war to end all wars”: a four-year mud-encased conflagration that claimed a combined 17 million military and civilian lives. It was and still is widely known as The Great War, but there was nothing even remotely great about it.

As Remembrance Day nears and we pause to remember and honour those Canadians who served in that war, and those conflicts that unfortunately followed, the stories of those who fought, and those who loved them, are again at the centre of a number of musical and stage tributes.

Billed as “An Original Musical of the Great War,” 100 Years From Now will be performed Friday, November 8th at Peterborough’s Market Hall.

Presented by the Shipyard Kitchen Party, a troupe that blends traditional instrumentation with humour, artistry, and history to tell uniquely Canadian stories, the production sees two brothers and the women they love recount their triumphs and tragedies during the years of World War I.

Based on the inspiring life of Mae Belle Sampson, one of the first women to enlist in the Canadian Army Medical Corps, 100 Years From Now combines an original folk music score with dramatic storytelling and archival imagery, taking its audience on a musical journey from Georgian Bay to Vimy Ridge and beyond.

Of note, Shipyard Kitchen Party, featuring John Eaton, Sacha Law, and Jason Murphy, will be joined by Peterborough’s own Victoria Yeh, a highly acclaimed classically trained electric violinist whose talent, on any given day, is well worth the cost of admission alone.

Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. performance cost $51 at www.markethall.org.

Murray McLauchlan’s tour road leads to the Capitol Theatre

VIDEO: “The One Percent” – Murray McLauchlan

Somebody at True North Records was on the ball back in 1970, signing Murray McLauchlan to the company’s growing roster of performers.

The Scotland native (he moved to Canada at age five) produced right from the get-go on his way to establishing himself as a folk-pop music icon right alongside the likes of Gordon Lightfoot and Bruce Cockburn.

On the strength of 20 albums, McLauchlan has claimed 11 Juno Awards, hosted the very popular Swinging on a Star weekly CBC radio program for five years and, in 1993, was appointed to the Order of Canada. Among his numerous singles are several of the timeless variety, such as “The Farmer’s Song,” “Whispering Rain,” “On The Boulevard,” “Down By The Henry Moore,” and “Try Walkin’ Away.”

McLauchlan produced new music as recently as 2021, the result being his latest album Hourglass. Making up for pandemic lost time, he’s now back on the road, performing new music and the standards that remain so well loved. That tour brings him to Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre on Friday, November 8th.

It’s not all too often we get the chance to spend a few hours in these parts with an artist who has the pedigree that McLauchlan has earned. Frankly, it’s too good to pass up. Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. concert cost $77.50 at capitoltheatre.com.

Peterborough Pop Ensemble sings songs too good to forget

VIDEO: “This Is the Army Mr. Jones” – Peterborough Pop Ensemble in rehearsal

One of Peterborough’s most beloved musical institutions is again marking Remembrance Day via a performance of the music that did much to keep up the spirits of military members and civilians before, during and after World War Two.

On Sunday, November 10th at Westdale United Church on Sherbrooke Street West, the Peterborough Pop Ensemble presents Songs We Remember. Jazz, big band, and swing will be prominent as the ensemble takes its audience on a nostalgia-soaked journey back to a tough time when what we heard did much to dictate how we felt.

I have nothing but admiration for the Peterborough Pop Ensemble, which rebounded from the 2019 passing of beloved conductor Barbara Monahan. It would have been easy to fold the tent but the ensemble persevered, and today honours Monahan with every performance it gives. If there’s a clearer local example of “the show must go on,” I’m not aware of it.

Admission to the 2 p.m. concert is by donation (cash or card). Do be generous.

Another whodunit to be solved at the Lakeview Arts Barn

Things will once again be as interactive as it gets at Bobcaygeon’s Lakeview Arts Barn when Globus Theatre presents Murder at the Snowball Ball fom November 13 to 23.

The interactive dinner theatre experience takes its audience to the highlight of Winterton’s social calendar, when the townsfolk are dressed to impress and ready to regale each other with glad tidings and the usual small-town gossip. All is good until one guest is murdered, leaving the audience to solve the case while figuring out which of the ball guests is treading on thin ice.

Now in its 20th season, Globus Theatre was established by Sarah Quick and James Barrett. Since 2006, the Lakeview Arts Barn has been home to theatrical, musical, and comic presentations staged where cattle once roamed the 150-seat space. Globus Theatre has produced an impressive 10 world premieres and 15-plus Canadian premieres at its Bobcaygeon home since the cows vacated.

Performance dates are November 13 for private group bookings, with public performances from November 14 to 16 and 21 to 23, with the dinner and show starting at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $100, available at www.globustheatre.com for tickets.

Encore

• Peterborough’s Electric City Culture Council (EC3) has come bearing gifts in the form of $57,143 divided up among 28 local artists. Mini-development grants up to $1,500, and project, production and presentation grants up to $3,500 are awarded annually, jointly funded by EC3 and City of Peterborough, the latter contributing $50,000. A call for applications back in June saw 66 applications received by the August 20 deadline. A five-member peer assessment jury than evaluated each application.
• One of the highlights of the 2024 Peterborough Musicfest season was undoubtedly the mass sing-along party hosted by Choir! Choir! Choir! If you missed it, well, you have two chances to join in the fun this Saturday (November 2) at Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre. Presented by Kawartha Metals as a fundraiser for Northumberland County’s SONG (Sounds of the Next Generation), the 2 p.m. matinee’s focus is ’80s songs while anthems are on the menu for the 7:30 p.m. show. They teach; you sing with your pals and community. For tickets, visit capitoltheatre.com.

Millbrook’s 4th Line Theatre has announced the outdoor theatre company’s 33rd season with two world premieres next summer, including a historical play by Peterborough’s Megan Murphy that will be part of the 200th commemoration of the arrival of the first of the Peter Robinson Irish settlers in 1825.

The season will begin on Canada Day with the world premiere of The Housekeeper, a mystery romance written by Ian McLachlan and Robert Winslow. Directed by Winslow, the play tells the story of a mysterious woman named Eleanor Gwyn who arrives in Millbrook in 1955 looking for a job, and being the housekeeper for widower Walter White might be the perfect fit. Gwyn is hoping to make a fresh start in life and to find a place to call home, but is Millbrook ready for her and her progressive world views?

The Housekeeper is the fourth in a series of plays by McLachlan and Winslow about the Barnardo children — 2005’s Doctor Barnardo’s Children (restaged in 2006 and 2014), 2014’s Wounded Soldiers, and 2019’s Carmel being the others — and their impact on Canadian culture and history.

Between 1870 and 1930, Irish philanthropist Dr. Thomas John Barnardo sent thousands of destitute and orphaned children to Canada, including to Hazelbrae, the Barnardo’s home for girls in Peterborough and the namesake of Barnardo Avenue. Called home children, the orphans were sent to Canada to be adopted and to be used for labour, with many girls becoming domestic workers and boys becoming farm labourers.

Following The Housekeeper, 4th Line will then present the world premiere of Wild Irish Geese beginning July 29. Written by and starring Megan Murphy and directed by Kim Blackwell, the play tells the story of the impoverished Irish settlers who came to Canada in the 1820s under an emigration plan administered by Upper Canada politician Peter Robinson. More than 2,000 Irish Catholic families settled in what is now eastern Ontario, including in the Peterborough area.

The production will be a part of next summer’s 200th commemoration of the arrival of the first of the Peter Robinson Irish settlers in 1825. Many descendants of these original Irish settlers still live in the area, and others are being invited to return to the region to pay homage to their forbears.

“Murphy’s play is highly anticipated and sure to be an instant hit,” reads a media release from 4th Line.

According to 4th Line Theatre’s managing artistic director Kim Blackwell, both plays — which have been developed through 4th Line’s new play development program — focus on people who are in search of new lands, towns, and homes, many of whom are escaping persecution and abuse in search of safe and secure lives for themselves and their families.

“Two world premiere plays which explore people looking for a better life, for themselves and their families,” Blackwell says.

“The people in both plays will risk it all to find a haven of calm and peace in their lives. I think we can all relate to that desire.”

The Housekeeper will run at 6 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays from July 1 to 19, with preview nights on July 1 and 2 and opening night on July 3, and an added Monday performance on July 14. The play contains mature content and is recommended for audience members 16 and older.

Wild Irish Geese will run at 6 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays from July 29 to August 30, with preview nights on July 23 and 30 and opening night on July 31, and an added Monday performance on August 25.

Gift certificates and tickets for both productions will be on sale beginning Monday (November 4) by phone at 705-932-4445 (toll-free at 1-800-814-0055), online at 4thlinetheatre.on.ca, and at 4th Line Theatre’s Box Office location at 9 Tupper Street in Millbrook.

Those Other Movies is bringing the biggest, all new films you can’t find anywhere else to Haliburton International Film Festival (HIFF).

This year’s festival is returning from Friday, November 1st to Sunday, November 3rd with seven feature film screenings and special guest talks at the Northern Lights Performing Arts Pavilion, a 226-seat professional theatre located in Haliburton Highlands Secondary School.

“Once you’ve HIFF-ed you should be a better person,” says Tammy Rea, a volunteer committee member with Those Other Movies. “You should know more human stories, you should be more empathetic, you should understand something you didn’t understand before, and you might look at something in a little bit of a different way.”

The whole community is showing excitement for the annual festival as moviegoers can access discounts at the Lakeview Motel, while restaurants will be anticipating a busy weekend and be prepared to serve quick meals. The Haliburton and District Lions Club will also be present at the Pavilion, serving up drinks, popcorn, and other snacks with all donations going back to the Lions Club.

“Usually they’re helping to raise money for somebody else, and we thought we just want to raise money for them and all the great programs they do,” Rea says.

Those Other Movies is a non-profit volunteer-run division of the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) Film Circuit, which allows more than 170 communities across Canada to bring international films to their residents. Launched 18 years ago, Those Other Movies has been holding the annual international film festival since 2007.

VIDEO: “Home Free” trailer

This year, Rea and other organizers travelled to TIFF and Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival to curate the festival, watching more than 50 films from around the world.

“A lot of them don’t know yet when or if they will be released,” Rea says, noting HIFF is focused on showcasing the films that are not as likely to get picked up. “For many of the films, it will be only the second or third time they’re shown in Canada.”

Coming from Italy, France, Germany, Latvia, Belgium, and beyond, the films cover a range of genres, inviting to those who enjoy family dramas, sci-fi, animation, and adventure to be part of the festivities.

“We want to always make sure we’re going around the world, but we’re also now going through different genres and different time periods to see the stories that connect us all,” Rea says. “The order we’re showing them really matters to us, so we try to really balance things out, and it’s a lot of fun.”

For some Canadian content, there will be the screening of Home Free, which Rea labels as a “very personal story.” Starring Tara Spencer-Nairn of Corner Gas, the film follows a father who refuses to get treatment for a brain tumour and instead wishes to have one last weekend getting to know his three daughters and trying to clear the air between them.

Director, writer, and producer Avi Federgreen and select cast members will be in conversation at HIFF, sharing all about how a movie is made and brought to the big screen.

“I think our audience has learned to appreciate how hard it is to make a movie — from getting the money, to getting it to the screen, and getting a deal so that you can afford it,” Rea says. “He’s going to talk about that which it great.”

Another speaker during the weekend will be Kate Campbell, a director and actress who grew up in Haliburton and made a short film called Boundless about the untold women pilots of World War II, inspired by her grandmother.

The award-winning short stars Canadian television and radio host Dini Petty, the first female traffic reporter to pilot her own helicopter. The short will be screened at HIFF for the second year in a row, after which Campbell will give updates on where she is in the process of turning it into a full-length film.

“It’s brilliant,” Rea says of the film. “It’s so good and has played at festivals all around the world. She’s been trying to get this story told.”

Another Canadian film on the HIFF lineup is Drive Back Home, which will close out the festival. Inspired by a journey taken by director Michael Clowate’s grandfather and great uncle, the film follows a small-town plumber from New Brunswick who has never left his hometown but drives to Toronto to get his estranged, gay brother out of jail.

“It’s just an unbelievable touching, funny story — and horrific in terms of what happened to gay people in the ’70s,” Rea says. “The ’70s footage of Toronto is so great and the way they incorporate it.”

Another film that Rea is excited to share with the community and shows exactly what the festival is all about, Can I Get a Witness? is screening on Saturday afternoon. Starring Sandra Oh (Killing Eve, Grey’s Anatomy) and combining live action and animation, the film depicts a world 30 years in the future devastated by climate change where technology and travel are almost completly banned and, by collective agreement, nobody is allowed to live beyond the age of 50.

“I’ve seen dystopian movies about what happens after climate change, but I’ve never seen a movie about a positive solution,” Rea says. “It’s interesting, so we talked about this movie nonstop for weeks afterwards — it’s just such an interesting take.”

VIDEO: “Can I Get a Witness?” trailer

Rea notes the aim of HIFF is always to “leave the audience with hope,” as the majority of the films are exactly that — hopeful.

“Our goal at HIFF is to take a journey together. The connections we can make by seeing these people’s stories, whether it’s told from the 1700s or 30 years in the future, the humanity of things — the problems, the challenges, the love, the community of humans — it doesn’t change.”

“You can feel when no one in the audience is breathing, and the laughter when 200 or 300 people laugh is amazing. It’s just such an amazing journey to take together, and you come out of there feeling like you’re friends with everyone in the audience as well, so it’s great.”

Those Other Movies offers other scheduled programming throughout the year, including the Doc(k) Day which has just been announced will take place on Saturday, April 5, 2025, with four documentary screenings throughout the afternoon.

“We really feel now that documentaries are also amazing well-told stories, and over the last 20 years, they’ve really become their own version of storytelling,” Rea says. “We’re really looking for balanced stories and we’re looking for local connections, because it’s all about the connections through storytelling. The connections are fantastic.”

Tickets cost $10 at the door for individual films, or $65 for a VIP pass for all the films. Moviegoers who want to buy tickets for individual films only have to line up once to stock up on tickets for all the films they want to see over for the weekend.

For the full Haliburton International Film Festival schedule and to purchase a VIP pass, visit www.thoseothermovies.com.