In many a home, the kitchen is the beating heart. It’s there that food is served and family matters are discussed; it’s there that the only thing warmer than a welcome cup of coffee or tea is the company in which it’s enjoyed.

And it’s there, as Peterborough resident Astarte Devi has demonstrated, that some magical things happen when friends come together to share a culinary and musical experience.

It was last winter that Peterborough real estate agent Kat Tannock, who wanted to bring a music artist to the area to perform, asked via Facebook if anyone wanted to host a house concert. That got Devi’s attention.

“I said ‘Hey, I think that’s on my bucket list’,” she recalls.

So it was that, in March in her home overlooking the Otonabee River, Devi hosted a performance by Windsor-based musician Eamon McGrath. Thrilled with how it was received, her wheels started to turn, the question being ‘Why not do it again?’

That she did, thrice, and here we are with the “Not Yet Yule Kitchen Party,” a fundraiser for Kawartha Youth Orchestra’s Upbeat! Downtown music program, set for Sunday, December 3rd from 5 to 9:30 p.m.

There will be plenty to digest, both literally and musically, as Devi welcomes musicians Astrid Young, Irish Millie, Saskia Tomkins and, from Montreal, Sule Heitner. Each will perform as guests also enjoy a 10-course tapas dinner prepared by Devi as well as partake in a wine-tasting session hosted by Young, a fully certified sommelier. Limited tickets, at $55 each, are available at eventbrite.ca/e/754973464957.

After that initial house party back in March, a fully motivated Devi resolved to host another. That she did on May 27th — the eighth anniversary of her son’s passing.

“His name is Joel — he loved music and art,” she says. “To commemorate what I call his fly-away day, I decided to do a hip-hop kitchen party. A friend of mine, a hip-hop artist, did his thing in my kitchen one day. I had never heard hip-hop like that. I thought ‘Everyone should hear it in this quiet space where we can pay attention to the poetry and it’s not this loud, banging thing.”

What followed was a July kitchen party featuring The Hippie Chicks — Tami J. Wilde, Joslyn Burford, and Joan Lamore — and then, in September, another house concert event billed as Back To Groove, a play on back to school.

The seed for the Not Yet Yule Kitchen Party, says Devi, was planted in early September when she bumped into Astrid Young — a musician, sommelier, and author of the book Being Young about her famous half-brother Neil Young and their father Scott — at Crestwood Secondary School at a memorial for Peter Ford, a longtime music teacher who taught both of them at different times.

“I said ‘Hey, would you ever consider doing a kitchen party?'” Devi asked Young, who agreed.

VIDEO: “Lay Me Down (Borrowed Tune)” – Astrid Young

Devi made the same ask of the other performers.

“I’ve known Irish Millie for a number of years. I first saw her playing on a porch on Bonnacord (Street). I asked Millie ‘Would you do a kitchen party?’ And then later I ran into Saskia at a performance of Upbeat. I asked ‘Would you do a kitchen party?'”

With all three on board, along with Heitner, an accomplished multi-genre singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Montreal, Devi set the date and got busy planning the menu.

“I have to say you are going to eat well,” she advises potential attendees, noting “I’m not a professional, I’m not trained — but I’m very good.”

With products donated by event sponsors including local food producers Riel Acres Farm, Selwyn Garlic Farms, and Harley Farms, the menu — from pan-seared balsamic foie d’angeau to bacon melon wraps to poulet potpie — is well worth the ticket price alone.

The wine-tasting aspect of the evening, meanwhile, sees Young, who has three sommelier designations and at one time was a candidate for Master of Wine, in her element.

A wine professional since the mid 1990s, Young was a touring musician “until wine started taking over my life.” That, combined with hearing loss, saw her cut back on playing big stages.

“When she (Devi) said that Saskia was playing, it was a no-brainer,” says Young. “I’ve been playing with Saskia for years. We’ve toured together. She played on my record.”

Devi then also proposed the idea of Young leading a wine tasting at the event.

“Two of the most pleasurable things in my life are music and wine — they go together really well,” says Young. “This time, I get to do both on the same night instead of having to separate the two, which has usually been the case.”

Young adds she’s particularly excited to share her music “with people that are there to enjoy it.”

“It’s not ‘I’m going to have a burger and see if I can talk louder than music.’ There are so many places like that. I don’t have time for those kinds of gigs. A good majority of the gigs I’ve done over the past couple of years have been private gigs. You have a very engaged audience that’s really interested in your music. They’re not there for any other reason.”

VIDEO: “Road to Errogie” – Irish Millie

Equally thrilled to be involved is Irish Millie, whose fiddle-playing prowess lends itself to the intimacy of a house concert setting.

“I participated in a lot of jam sessions over the summer — very small spaces where people had a lot of fun,” she says.

“There’s like a wall between you and the audience when you’re on a big stage. At a kitchen party, you’re on the floor with the audience and you’re socializing. You’re all on the same level. It really connects performer and audience better than being on a stage.”

VIDEO: “Farewell to Music” – Saskia Tomkins

Helping to create that more intimate ambience are two very hard-and-fast rules that Devi makes clear before things get underway: cell phones must shut off and tucked away, and no chatting while music performed.

Previous concerts at Devi’s Armour Road home — which she calls Le Pont Traversé-Nogo, a nod to the long-closed landmark Parisian bookstore Le Pont Traversé that she frequented as an 18 year old living in The City of Light — raised funds for One City Peterborough and the YES Shelter for Youth and Families. The benefactor this time around is Kawartha Youth Orchestra’s Upbeat! Downtown music program.

A fully subsidized after-school program for children aged seven to 14 years old facing barriers accessing instrumental and choral music education, Upbeat! Downtown is led by music educators who not only hone their students’ musical talent but also help develop critical life skills such as problem solving and self-discipline. It’s a program that’s near and dear to Irish Millie, who has taught viola and violin to program participants.

“When I was younger, I had great privilege and opportunity to be in (the music) industry,” she says. “For those who don’t have that, it’s important that musicians step up and help encourage that. We get to feel something wonderful when we play music. Why would we not want other people to feel that?”

VIDEO: “Going My Way” – Sule Heitner

Meanwhile, for anyone thinking the Not Yet Yule Kitchen Party is a grand finale … well, think again. Devi is already looking well ahead.

“I already have one set for the third Sunday of January — a New Year Metal Kitchen Party,” she says. “I like the idea of getting people together to listen to genres of music that maybe they haven’t given the time of day to.”

“I have a good friend who is a guitar aficionado. He plays metal riffs and he knows his music theory. He and his band mates are going to slow down metal music, quiet it down, and help us understand it and appreciate it.”

Don’t be surprised if Young, a self-admitted super fan of Black Sabbath, is on board for that event too — “I can’t remember what I did last week but every Black Sabbath lyric is still in here,” she says, tapping her head which, accordingly, is topped by a Black Sabbath ball cap.

Beyond that event, Devi is planning another hip-hop house party for the end of May, again close to the date of her son’s passing. Far from shy, it’s a safe bet that she’ll take a turn or two as a performer.

“I’m also now a rapper apparently,” she says. “I’ll be ready by then.”

For information updates on the Not Yet Yule Kitchen Party, visit the event’s Facebook page.

There’s something about the great outdoors that agrees with musician Terra Lightfoot, who recently released her latest album Healing Power and will be performing at Peterborough’s Market Hall at the end of November.

Whether walking alongside a rural dirt road in her Haliburton Highlands home or sitting atop a majestic Austrian mountain, the Juno award-nominated singer-songwriter and guitarist is at peace and, as such, inspired.

“The first time I was in Austria was about five years ago,” recalls Lightfoot, who was beginning a three-month European tour at the time. “Despite how well my career was going, I wasn’t feeling as great about it as maybe I should have. Healing Power is about where I was at that moment five years ago. I started to write songs about things I had never written about — friendships, a friend struggling with addiction, and my childhood. For me, that was healing.”

Released in mid October, Healing Power is Lightfoot’s fifth studio album and the springboard for a tour of Ontario that includes a return to Market Hall Performing Arts Centre on Thursday, November 30th. Tickets for the 8 p.m. show, being opened by Ennismore native Melissa Payne, cost $20 ($25 for cabaret seating) and are available online at www.markethall.org.

On that Austrian peak, Lightfoot sang and played guitar in the shade of a lonely larch tree. For her, that tree symbolized perseverance. She resolved, then and there, to keep growing and changing.

“I later brought my husband to Austria to that same tree,” she says, referring to American musician Jon Auer (The Posies, Big Star, Sky Cries Mary), noting Auer shot the Healing Power album cover photo there. “We hiked up that same mountain. It took just as long, if not longer. When I was originally up that mountain, he was not in my life. I met him a few days later, which seems miraculous.”

“If you get the vinyl copy of the record, there are a bunch of hidden messages that we put into the design,” Lightfoot adds. “One of them is something we always say to each other before every show: ‘To the healing power of rock and roll’.”

“I know from being at shows, whether I’m an audience member or whether I’m on the stage, everyone feels better after. I’ve never walked out of a show feeling worse than I did when I came in. Music is healing for all of us, no matter what kind it is, no matter who’s playing it. It always feels good.”

Since Lightfoot’s first serious step onto a stage in 2010 as a member of the country-folk band The Dinner Belles, the Hamilton native has left her audience feeling more than good, her multi-octave mezzo-soprano singing voice and explosive electric guitar talent capturing, and keeping, rapt attention en masse.

In 2011, Lightfoot’s self-titled debut album put forth a modern folk sound but, come 2014, that changed dramatically when indie rockers Gus van Go and Werner F came on board to produce her follow-up album Every Time My Mind Runs Wild. Now there was a rockier power-pop edge to Lightfoot’s sound that was here to stay.

If there’s such a thing as a breakout year, 2017 was it for Lightfoot as her third studio album, New Mistakes, was nominated for a 2018 Juno Award as the Adult Alternative Album of the Year. For his part, producer van Go was shortlisted for not only a 2018 Juno for Recording Engineer of the Year but also long-listed for a 2018 Polaris Music Prize.

In October 2020, Lightfoot released Consider The Speed with a new producer in Jay Newland. For Healing Power, however, the duo reunited.

VIDEO: “Cross Border Lovers” – Terra Lightfoot

VIDEO: “Kept You In My Pocket” – Terra Lightfoot

“He (van Go) and I have a really good thing going,” understates Lightfoot. “We just feel very comfortable together. We can say anything to each other. We can say ‘I don’t like that. Let’s move on’ or ‘You know what? I love that. Let’s chase it’. The inspiration is always there with us, and there’s a lot of trust. That’s really important in the studio. You’ve got to trust the person you’re working with.”

Reflecting on her evolution as a songwriter and performer, Lightfoot says it has been “a great ride.” That said, she notes her emergence as a solo performer wasn’t all that sure-footed.

“That first record, I was so afraid to share with anybody other than the band,” she recalls, adding “The band actually threatened to put it out under their own name if I didn’t go to (independent record label) Sonic Union and ask them to put it out.”

“I think a lot of it for me has been confidence,” Lightfoot reflects. “That has often come from people ahead of me in the business, whether it’s Whitehorse or Blue Rodeo. Different bands that have brought me on tour, I got a lot of encouragement from them. Also from my old country band, The Dinner Belles, I got so much confidence.”

Noting her great aunt played lead guitar and sang in a country band in the 1970s and, in the decade prior, her grandmother played piano on the VIA train between Toronto and Montreal, Lightfoot says, in hindsight, it’s hardly a stretch that she followed her own musical path.

“As a musician, you always need to know there’s a reason to keep going,” says Lightfoot. “In my family, it was what people did. But I also love it. I love travelling with my friends. I have a great band. It’s a great thing to be able to go on the road and play music with your buddies.”

VIDEO: “Darker Than Your Dark” – Melissa Payne

Buddies like Melissa Payne, whom Lightfoot first met at the Peterborough Folk Festival and has become closer to over the past four years.

“She and I get along like a house on fire,” says Lightfoot. “She’s so much fun and so talented — a great songwriter. When I heard her song Darker Than Your Dark, my mind was blown. She’s always up for a laugh. That’s my favourite thing about her. I love playing with people who also have fun off stage.”

Payne isn’t the only local musician that Lightfoot is a fan and friend of. She mentions Jimmy Bowskill in the same vein. She recorded “Anyone But Me” — the first demo for Healing Power — at his Cobourg studio, which ended up on the album pretty much as is.

Lightfoot is also no stranger to Peterborough’s Market Hall, having performed there last December with roots rockers Blackie and the Rodeo Kings — Tom Wilson, Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden, John Dymond, and Gary Craig. In fact, she joined the Juno award-winning band as a special guest on every date of their 25th anniversary cross-country last year and has continued to tour with them this year.

“It feels really good coming back there (to Peterborough) on my own steam,” says Lightfoot. “I’ve always felt very connected to Peterborough, especially since I’ve become better friends with Melissa, James McKenty, and Greg Keelor. It’s such a great community. I’m not from there but I feel like I’m part of it.”

Married just this past August to Auer — she calls Healing Power “her honeymoon record” — Lightfoot is loving the country life, with the Hamilton native having moved to the Haliburton Highlands with her then-fiancé in late 2020.

“There is a great sense of peace you obtain from living in the woods,” says Lightfoot. “I’ve been inspired in a way I never was before living here.”

“My trips to record in the city … you get that two and a half hour drive, which is great because I love to write when driving — pulling over and writing lyrics. I’ve stopped many times. Only one time was I stopped by a cop for pulling over at the wrong part of the highway. He called in on his radio and said ‘Uh, we have a 36-year-old female taking notes’. I was like ‘I’m not taking notes, I told you I’m writing a song’.”

The Healing Power tour, says Lightfoot, will wind up in her hometown, where she has been writing with fellow Hamiltonians Tom Wilson and Daniel Lanois.

“As an artist, there’s pressure to always be producing something new, which I don’t necessarily adhere to,” confesses Lightfoot. “But for the first time, I feel ready to start writing again as a new record is coming out. I’ve always felt so exhausted from touring but this time I’m like ‘Yeah, I can see myself doing that again’. I’ve normally taken about three years between records but I don’t think I will this time.”

Not lost on Lightfoot is the prospect of longevity in the music business and the challenges associated with that.

“How many women over the age of 50 are still touring? Not a lot. That’s part of my reason that I look to the future and think ‘OK, what’s going to happen if nobody keeps going?’. You’ve got to keep trying to make your best, most authentic work. What do we have if not that? I’m 37. I’m already over the hill so I might as well just keep going.”

VIDEO: “Someone Else’s Feelings” – Terra Lightfoot

VIDEO: “Sleepyhead” – Terra Lightfoot

When all is said and done, Lightfoot is grateful for what has been “an amazing life.”

“I’m married to someone who had a very successful career. He’s a little bit older than me, so it’s very funny to have my career kind of blossom alongside having him with me. For him, it’s just normal but I’m like ‘Wow, this is really cool. It’s very exciting. Always.'”

For more information about Terra Lightfoot and to stream her music, including Healing Power, visit www.terralightfoot.com.

Anne Shirley Theatre Company is presenting an updated version of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale with a production of Alice by British playwright Laura Wade for six performances from November 17 to 26 at Nozhem First Peoples Performance Space.

First premiering at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield in 2010, Wade’s modernized take is a mash-up of parts of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland from 1865 as well as its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass, while borrowing elements from The Wizard of Oz.

The dreamy Alice of the original story is recast as a modern-day teenager who, dealing with grief after a family tragedy involving her beloved brother, finds herself leaving her Sheffield home to enter a topsy-turvy world filled with surreal but familiar characters including the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter and the Hare, the Queen of Hearts, Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, and more.

Anne Shirley Theatre Company is a student-run, not-for-profit theatre organization at Trent University aiming to provide opportunities for students to experience all aspects of theatre, both on and off the stage. Established in 2003, the theatre company’s name comes from the title character of its inaugural production Anne of Green Gables.

The company’s production of Alice, directed by Paige Nelson and Liam Hammond, features a diverse cast and crew including Ava Becker, Harper Caldwell, Tristan Cruise, Samantha Daly, Oskar Ferguson-Glaspell, Lela Fox-Doran, Tia James, Ashton Kelly, Anand Kumar, Chancellor McGuigan, Everett McIntyre, and Callum Sywyk.

“We believe there is a lack of inclusivity within the theatre industry that causes new and experienced artists alike to stop performing and lose the joy that being a part of a production brings, which is why we are excited to continue our work to make theatre accessible to all with our upcoming production of Alice,” reads a media release.

Alice runs from November 17 to 26 at Nozhem First Peoples Performance Space at Gzowski College at Trent University (1600 West Bank Drive), with evening performances at 7 p.m. on November 17 and 18 and November 24 to 26 and a 2 p.m. matinee performance on November 19.

Tickets can be purchased online at anneshirleytheatrecompany.com for $15 plus a fee and on the Trent University campus for $15 cash only on selected dates until November 23.

Pay-what-you-can days (minimum $5, cash only) take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, November 10th and Wednesday, November 15th outside the Wenjack Theatre.

Every Thursday, we publish live music events at pubs and restaurants in Peterborough and the greater Kawarthas region based on information that venues provide to us directly or post on their website or social media channels. Here are the listings for the week of Thursday, November 9 to Wednesday, November 15.

If you’re a pub or restaurant owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our nightlifeNOW editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com. For concerts and live music events at other venues, check out our Concerts & Live Music page.

With the exception of karaoke, we only list events with performing musicians. Venues may also host other events during the week (e.g., dancing, DJs, comedy shows).