Painter JoEllen Brydon’s latest art show gives viewers a glimpse into a life well lived at her home in the small village of Mount Pleasant in Cavan Monaghan Township.

“Home” is a love letter to the house in which Brydon has spent the last 40 years raising her children and grandchildren, crafting her oil and acrylic paintings, and building her professional art career.

The exhibit is on now until Sunday, October 29th at the Atelier Ludmila Gallery, located at 129-1/2 Hunter Street West in the Commerce Building in downtown Peterborough. The gallery is open from noon to 4 p.m. on weekends and by appointment during the week.

Though this is the first time Brydon has used her home as the theme for an exhibit, the professional artist explains it’s not the first time her work has been influenced by her 153-year-old house and the acre lot on which it sits.

“It’s an old house and it’s got lots of character,” she says. “I’ve always found that it tends to inspire me and shows up a lot in my work. I never do an exact image of something, but the feel of what’s going on is in all of the pieces.”

In 1983, after spending six months searching the region for a house to buy, Brydon accidentally stumbled upon the home two months before she purchased it. The first time she saw it, she knew it was hers — even though it wasn’t for sale at the time.

“We were just driving around everywhere looking for a house and then I saw this one and said ‘That’s the house I want’,” she recalls, noting that she still can’t pinpoint what exactly appealed to her so immediately. “I just knew it was mine from the very beginning.”

Calling the experience “magical,” it’s almost as though Brydon willed the house to be put on the market. In July of that year, she was spending the first night in her new home. Since then, the house has “evolved” as she’s turned it into a home, planting trees and gardens, adding pets, and raising two children who have since given her grandchildren.

This summer, when Brydon’s 40-year anniversary of purchasing her home collided with the time she was preparing for her show at the gallery, she began to notice just how much her home had become a theme in many of her pieces.

“When I started working on this, there wasn’t a specific theme,” Brydon explains. “But as I went along, I suddenly realized most of the paintings in this show reflect this house and my family here, and the things that I’m familiar with.”

Exploring her own stories for the 15 pieces that are part of “Home” was a different experience for the artist, as much of her regular work involves telling other people’s stories as they’re relayed to her.

Specifically, her work often depicts stories from her relatives and their history. In the 1920s, Brydon’s family emigrated with a “whole gaggle” of brothers and sisters from a small farming community called Sixmilecross in Northern Ireland’s County Tyrone. They brought with them a love for the tradition of storytelling, which has been passed down to Brydon.

“They all had this real spirit and storytelling nature,” she explains. “They were always joking or gossiping. And that really came through the family and rubbed off on my mother and then me. To them, a story or a tale was the most important thing.”

With Brydon painting portraits of people and places since the mid-1980s, storytelling has become a central aspect in her vibrant acrylic and oil paintings as well. Oftentimes, she’ll even pen the story, told in a few lines scribbled somewhere on the painting itself or as a descriptive title.

“Most of the things I’ve painted are based on stories — I listen to people,” says Brydon. “I don’t necessarily experience the story, but they’re always telling it so I’m always listening.”

Much of the work that’s been inspired by her relatives’ stories can be purchased internationally at the Nicholas Gallery in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she has been presenting her work since the early 2000s.

While many of the pieces currently showcasing at Brydon’s Atelier Ludmila Gallery show explore the more mundane moments of life — chopping wood, waiting in line, taking a bath — the artist explains that as a “nostalgic person,” her work also often unintentionally depicts characters using items that could seemingly be called “outdated,” such as rotary phones, televisions with antennas, and print newspapers.

“The paintings are documents of a culture in history,” the artist explains. “I’ve always been focused on things we’re losing — the things I see slipping by.”

History is often a component of Brydon’s work, most evident through her previous two large-scale installations that depict the Romani visit to Peterborough in 1909 (when 60 Roma set up camp on an extension of George Street and thousands of people came to watch them) and John Smith’s tragic attempt to paddle his canoe from Peterborough, Ontario to Peterborough, England.

Both installations relied on news coverage during the time period, in addition to Brydon’s research gathered from existing diaries and by listening to stories from community members.

Brydon is further exploring her own familial histories by working on a third mixed-media installation based on the compilation of work by her late mother Jean Armstrong Brydon when she wrote an advice column under the pen name Elizabeth Thompson for Toronto’s Globe and Mail from 1966 to 1978.

As for her individual paintings, Brydon has been showing them at the Atelier Ludmila Gallery for four years. Her current show “Home” is running until Sunday, October 29th, with pieces selling fast.

For more information about the exhibit or to make an appointment to visit the gallery, contact Laurel Pluck at gallery@ludmilagallery.ca or visit ludmilagallery.ca. For updates on which pieces have already been sold, visit Atelier Ludmila Gallery on Facebook.

More of Brydon’s work can be viewed at www.joellenbrydon.com or by following her on Facebook.

For the opening concert of its 2023-24 season this fall, the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra (PSO) will host world-renowned violist Máté Szücs to perform a new concerto created especially for him and the orchestra by Canadian composer Ronald Royer.

Along with Royer’s new concerto, the PSO will perform works by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, French composer Maurice Ravel, and Canadian composer Christine Donkin during “The Muse” concert at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 4th at Showplace Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough. While many people think of “classical music” as music written hundreds of years ago, these works were all composed in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Royer’s Rhapsody Concerto for viola and orchestra is a work he composed to be performed by Máté Szücs and the PSO. Commissioned by the Canadian Sinfonietta in collaboration with the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra and the PSO, the three-movement concerto combines elements from both the rhapsody and the concerto. Inspired by the rhapsodies of Franz Liszt, Bela Bartok, and others, Royer’s concerto starts slow and moody, goes through a variety of episodes, and ends with upbeat and virtuosic music for the soloist.

“The idea of having a world-class soloist to open up the new PSO season naturally excites me,” PSO music director and conductor Michael Newnham tells kawarthaNOW. “Máté Szücs was very familiar to me, since I had seen him many times as the leader of the viola section in Berlin Philharmonic broadcasts.”

The 44-year-old Hungarian-born violist has had a long career as an award-winning soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. He was 17 when he switched from the violin to the viola which, while similar in appearance and played in a similar manner, is larger and heavier, has a longer bow, is tuned differently, and has a lower pitch. After graduating from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and the Royal Conservatory of Flanders in Antwerp with the highest distinction, Szücs became a member of various chamber ensembles and has won several awards.

From 2011 to 2018, Szücs was principal viola in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition to performing solo with the Berlin Philharmonic, he has soloed with orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders, the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, and at the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, where he was also principal viola. Also a sought-after teacher, Szücs has been professor of viola at the Geneva University of Music in Switzerland since 2018.

As for composer Royer, he is a multi-talented musician who has an active career as a conductor, composer, cellist, teacher, and recording producer. His concert music has been performed by 70 orchestras in Canada and the U.S. as well as internationally. He began his musical career as a freelance cellist in Los Angles during the 1980s, including working in the motion picture and television industry in Hollywood. Inspired by the opportunity to work with top film composers including Jerry Goldsmith, Maurice Jarre, Henry Mancini, Lalo Schifrin, and John Williams, he has since composed for both film and theatre. He is currently music director and conductor of the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra, in which his wife Kaye Royer is principal clarinetist.

“When composer Ronald Royer approached me with the idea of his writing a concerto for Máté Szücs, I jumped at the idea,” Newnham says. “The PSO and I have performed much of his music over the years. The audiences and orchestra readily take to Ron’s idiom, which is mainly inspired by the great Hollywood film composers.”

To complement Royer’s new concerto, Newnham chose two very popular pieces from the early 20th century: Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin.

“Both of these pieces are instantly recognizable and extremely fun to play and listen to,” he explains. “Both pieces are attempts by these composers, writing just around the end of the First World War, to look back to the style of music from the 1700s and give a new spin to it. They both show a move away from big, romantic works and a shift to a more objective treatment of music.”

Russian composer, pianist, and conductor Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century, with his most well-known works including the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet (which includes the composition “Dance of the Knights”), Peter and the Wolf, and the Classical Symphony.

His Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, which the composer himself nicknamed as the Classical Symphony, was Prokofiev’s first numbered symphony. He began to compose it in 1916 on holiday in the country, using it as an exercise in composing away from the piano. He completed the composition in September 1917 and conducted the first performance of the symphony in April 1918 in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) in Russia. The four-movement piece, lasting around 16 minutes, is based on the style of Haydn and Mozart and remains one of Prokofiev’s most popular works.

French composer, pianist, and conductor Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), a contemporary of French composer Claude Debussy, was regarded as France’s greatest living composer during the 1920s and 1930s. He liked to experiment with musical form, incorporating into his compositions elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, later, jazz. He is best known to the general public for his 1928 one-movement composition Boléro, which found new fame when it was featured in the 1979 romantic comedy 10 starring Dudley Moore and Bo Derek, generating an estimated $1 million in royalties for Ravel’s estate and briefly making him the best-selling classical composer more than 40 years after his death.

Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin (The Tomb of Couperin) was originally a suite for solo piano he composed between 1914 and 1917. The six movements of the composition are based on those of a traditional baroque suite, and each is dedicated to the memory of one of Ravel’s friends who had died fighting in World War I, including two brothers who were killed by the same shell in 1914. Ravel produced a four-movement orchestral version of the work in 1919, which has remained one of his most popular works.

The PSO will also perform Four Poems by Canadian composer Christine Donkin, a four-movement composition inspired by the work of Sir Charles G.D. Roberts (1860-1943), a Canadian poet and prose writer who was one of the first Canadian authors to be internationally known. He published various works on Canadian exploration and natural history, verse, travel books, and fiction.

“Her Four Poems was commissioned by Symphony New Brunswick while I was their music director,” Newnham says. “These are beautiful, short pieces that have to do with the passing of the seasons. They’re a little wistful at times, but also playful and fun.”

Donkin, who studied music composition at the University of Alberta and University of British Columbia, composes choral, chamber, and orchestral works that have been performed internationally including at Carnegie Hall, the Moscow Conservatory, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai. An award-winning composer, Donkin is also active in the field of music education as a composer, arranger, and adjudicator.

She has a long-standing relationship with the PSO. Her composition Canoe Legends, commissioned by the orchestra and The Canadian Canoe Museum, was performed for the first time by the orchestra in 2017 and featured local Indigenous a cappella ensemble Unity.

Sponsored by McDougall Insurance & Financial, “The Muse” begins at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 4th at Showplace Performance Centre at 290 George Street North in downtown Peterborough. A pre-concert “Meet the Maestro” talk takes place at 6:45 p.m., where Newnham takes the Showplace stage for an intimate chat about the evening’s program.

Single tickets are $33, $48, or $55, depending on the seat you choose, with student tickets costing $12 for all seats. Tickets are available in person at the Showplace Box Office from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, and one hour before the concert, or online anytime at showplace.org. Season subscriptions are also still available.

For more information about the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra’s 2023-24 season and for season subscriptions, visit thepso.org.

kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra’s 2023-24 season.

For Globus Theatre’s 20th anniversary season, Canadian songstress Leisa Way is returning to Bobcaygeon’s Lakeview Arts Barn to perform Rhinestone Cowgirl — a celebration of the music of American country music legend Dolly Parton that was Way’s debut on the Globus stage almost 10 years ago — with seven performances from October 17 to 21.

Backed by her Wayward Wind Band, Way will perform hits from every era of Dolly Parton’s career, including “9 to 5,” “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene,” “Two Doors Down,” “Here You Come Again,” “Coat of Many Colours,” “Islands in the Stream,” and “Why’d You Come In Here Looking Like That.”

Rhinestone Cowgirl is not a tribute concert. While Way dresses like Dolly and uses her vocal power and range to sing Dolly’s songs, she also shares facts and anecdotes about Dolly’s life in between the songs, and delivers some of Dolly’s trademark one-liners such as “You folks paid a lot to come here tonight, and frankly I need the money — It costs a lot to look this cheap.”

When developing the show, Way watched over 60 hours of interviews and shows Dolly had done.

“When I opened my Dolly Parton show in 2010, I was so scared,” Way told kawarthaNOW about her transformation into the musical icon. “But my husband said ‘Don’t be scared. The magic of theatre will make you look like Dolly. Go out there and tell her story and have her heart.'”

Over the past 14 years, Way has created 12 musical shows, beginning with Sweet Dreams: A Tribute to Patsy Cline, which she performed at Globus in 2016. She has become a Globus audience favourite, returning year after year to perform many of her other shows such as Oh, Canada, We Sing For Thee!, Across the Pond: The British Invasion, and Opry Gold.

VIDEO: “Rhinestone Cowgirl” by Leisa Way and the Wayward Wind Band (2011)

“I really love the women I perform as — I can’t be them but I can evoke the feeling of them,” Way said. “The costumes and the wigs help a lot. I put them on and I look in the mirror and then I say ‘Okay, I’m this person’.”

Born in Kitchener and raised in Sudbury, Way was passionate about music as a child and, by the age of 16, had already sang solo concerts for Queen Elizabeth, Terry Fox, Teddy Kennedy, and Wayne Gretsky. Her career took off when she was cast as Anne in Anne of Green Gables at the Charlottetown Festival in PEI, a role she performed for six seasons. Since then, she has performed in more than 50 countries, including at major theatres in Canada and the U.S. in various musical theatre roles.

Way credits the success of her own musical shows to the Wayward Wind Band, comprised of Bruce Ley (arranger, pianist, guitarist, vocalist), Fred Smith (lead vocalist, guitarist), Bobby Prochaska (lead vocalist, bassist), Alexander George (violinist), and Don Reid (drummer).

“Without my band I’m nothing,” Way said. “With the Dolly and Patsy shows, I carry the performances by being in front of the audience talking. But this show is not all about me, and that is really a cool thing. It’s been really nice to share. I’m so lucky that I found these guys.”

Rhinestone Cowgirl runs at the Lakeview Arts Barn in Bobcaygeon at 8 p.m. from Tuesday, October 17th to Saturday, October 21st, with additional 2 p.m. matinee performances on Thursday and Saturday.

An optional dinner is available at 6 p.m. before the evening performances. Tickets are $45 for the show only, or $90 for dinner and the show, and are available by calling the Globus Theatre box office at 705-738-2037 or online at globustheatre.com.

Globus Theatre’s 20th anniversary season will continue this fall with the comedy show Girls Night Out (November 4) and the murder mystery A Christmas Story … of Murder (November 15 to 25). From December 5 to 17, Globus Theatre will present its annual traditional British panto, Puss In Boots by Sarah Quick.

This story has been updated to Alexander George rather than Aaron Solomon will perform in the Wayward Wind Band for this show.