When longtime Peterborough singer-songwriter Mark Beatty wrote “If You Know About Love,” his self-assessment of the song was muted.

“It was okay,” he told kawarthaNOW in August 2022 — but local musician and producer John Crown and Grammy award-winning producer Greg Wells begged to differ.

The duo named Beatty’s original song the winning entry of round five of their Don Skuce Memorial Music Collective (DSMMC) songwriting contest, which saw the track recorded by Peterborough producer James McKenty before it was shipped to Wells for final mixing and mastering at his Los Angeles studio.

At the time, Wells said Beatty’s song “just felt great from the very first bar,” adding “I could tell he really knows what he’s doing. It’s beautiful; really quite moving.”

That’s a pretty good endorsement from the Peterborough native who has produced albums for a number of popular music heavyweights — Adele, Céline Dion, Rufus Wainwright, and John Legend among them — as well as contributed to the multi-awarded soundtracks for The Greatest Showman and Wicked films.

Fast forward to late summer 2023 when Beatty contacted Crown and expressed a desire to record a full-length album of his music — his first such project after decades performing live as a solo artist and with his band House Brand.

Two years in the making, Audiodacity is the result, with “If You Know About Love” among its 12 tracks. Available for digital purchase at markbeatty.bandcamp.com/album/audiodacity, the album was produced and mixed by Crown and McKenty at their respective studios, with two of the tracks mixed by Wells.

“I call it my second debut album,” said Beatty, joined by Crown for a recent coffee shop sit-down. “I did do another album but it never got finished. I kind of ran out of money and life just got in the way, much the way it did with this album. Circumstances were different back then and I couldn’t get back to it.”

Reflecting on the impact of his winning DSMMC entry, Beatty said that proved to be everything in terms of what followed, particularly in regard to putting his songwriting and performance talent on the radar of both Crown and Wells.

“I had this one song and it was all professionally done, but it wasn’t 100 per cent what I wanted out of the song,” recounted Beatty of “If You Know About Love.”

“I was talking to Bruce Francis, one of my bandmates at the time. He brought up John’s name and said ‘You should have had John help you with the arranging of the song.'”

“John and I were acquaintances. We didn’t know each other that well. Bruce played me a couple of things that John had done and I was like ‘Wow, that’s pretty good stuff.’ So, I reached out to John and said ‘Hey, I’ve got this song now and I want to do an album’ and then I told James (McKenty) as well.”

Providing Beatty further encouragement was Wells’ earlier assurance that if he did move forward on making a full album, Wells would mix the material free of charge.

Having written some 3,000 songs and counting, Beatty had no shortage of material to draw from, despite his self-assessment that “most of them are crap.”

Beatty says choosing what songs to focus on and which to discard outright was a process aided by soliciting the opinion of friends with whom he shared songs he was considering for the album.

“They gave me feedback and helped me whittle down the initial list,” he said.

The journey from concept to finished product is a story on its own.

The plan early on, related Crown, was to produce a “stripped-down record, with mostly acoustic instruments. The mandate was economy and minimalism.”

“I began receiving MP3s of Mark’s songs in demo form,” Crown recalled. “They were mostly rough sketches that loosely pointed toward what the finished pieces might be.”

Crown imported those MP3s into his recording software and worked on possible arrangements. Greatly helping that process along, he says, was “cutting-edge software” that allowed for the extraction of the vocal from the instrumentation.

“I could take the lead vocal from Mark’s demos and build an entirely new instrumental arrangement for it to live in, building up the music the way I thought might best suit each particular song.”

That, says Crown, was when “our original concept of acoustic instruments and minimalism swerved off the road.”

“Actually, it drove off a cliff,” he said.

Starting to hear Beatty’s songs “through a more modern lens” rather than “trying to fit such an eclectic variety of tunes into a singular approach, I built my own demo templates according to where it felt each song was leading.”

In September 2023, recording began at McKenty’s In Record Time Studio. That process continued through the winter into spring 2024.

Four tracks were sent to Wells for mixing. The album was taking shape, but then “life just got in the way” when Beatty was forced to deal with health issues. By the summer of 2024, he says he had lost “a shocking” amount of weight.

During the overdubbing process, which sees a vocal or instrument recorded over a section of an existing track, it was discovered that Beatty’s voice had changed.

According to Crown, “He sounded like two different singers. It was impossible to match the two performances (the original vocal track and the new vocal track). The project had to be shut down.”

“That was crazy to me — I thought I was fine,” recalls Beatty, with Crown noting Beatty’s voice change made it impossible to do lyrical revisions to existing vocal tracks.

“We were trying to match a vocal that was done months earlier and it became glaring that the timbre of his voice was completely different,” adds Crown.

As 2024 wound down, seeing some improvement in his health, Beatty was able to get one song recorded before his voice started to wane. Things were looking good. Then, another setback — this one affecting Wells and his family.

In early January 2025, the Pacific Palisades community of Los Angeles was ravaged by wildfires. Wells and his family were safe, but they lost their home and his mixing studio. With Wells faced with having to pivot to work on music for Wicked 2, the mixing of Beatty’s album fell to Crown and McKenty.

Come March 2025, Beatty was back in form with his health having rebounded and the race was on to have all of the album’s tracked mixed by the end of June. That deadline was met, the tracks were mastered at Grey Market Mastering in Montreal and the album, so very long in the making, was done.

“I am absolutely over the moon that we’ve seen it to the finish line,” said Beatty. “There was a point there where I didn’t know if I was going to come back. I was becoming aware of John’s time and James’ time and the burden I was putting on them. I’m really excited that I got better and we were able to see it across the line.”

“Two years, 12 songs … it’s a double-edged sword kind of thing. I’m really excited that it’s out and people can listen to it, buy it, do whatever they want with it, but on the other hand, I’m so sick of these 12 songs. This is common. You often hear artists say they just want to move on and do something different.”

With Audiodacity featuring musical contributions from Greg Wells as well as a number of local musicians — Crown, James McKenty, Melissa Payne, Jimmy Bowskill, Carling Stephen, and Victoria Yeh among them — Beatty feels “blessed” for the support that members of the local music community habitually show each other.

For his part, Crown said the diversity of Beatty’s music “is what made it interesting for me right off the bat.”

“You want to be working with someone who’s pushing your creative buttons. The music that came across my desk, there was something in there. It might have been a melody. It might have been a lyric. There was something in there that was interesting.”

“That’s all you can ask for when you’re producing a record. Otherwise, you’re just chasing your tail. If something is boring, it’s just going to be boring. You can’t un-bore boring.”

As both Beatty and Crown await the arrival of 200 hard copies of the album — details of their arrival, and where and how they can be purchased will be announced on Beatty’s Facebook page — it’s not lost on them that what’s most important came through the process intact.

Despite creative disagreements over the past two years, they remain friends, able to come together in a downtown coffee shop and laud what each brought to the table to the great benefit of what Beatty describes as “our album.”

The album’s title, says Beatty, is a word he made up that refers to “a bold and daring act of sound.” Now, releasing his first album at the age of 65 after decades as a musician, Beatty fully admits to having being bitten by the recording bug.

“I think there will be a second album, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Artsweek, Peterborough’s biennial festival of the visual and performing arts, returns from September 28 to October 5 featuring 15 programs, over 75 artists, and 50 events across the city.

Presented by the Electric City Culture Council (EC3), Artsweek is a celebration of dance, theatre, poetry, audio and sound art, painting, sculpture, and music of all kinds. You can experience pyrotechnics, dazzling dancers, aerial arts performance, poetry a la carte, front porch concerts, art in the trees, concerts by consorts, storytelling, and more.

As the recurring theme of the multi-arts festival is “Art in Unexpected Places,” original works by local artists will be presented at Millennium Park (both outside and inside the Silver Bean), Peterborough Square, the Downtown Farmers’ Market, Armour Hill, Rotary Park, the Peterborough Lift Lock, Trent University, and more.

Funded by the City of Peterborough, the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA), Canadian Heritage, and the Ontario Arts Council, all Artsweek events are free and open to the public to experience.

The origins of Artsweek go back to 2005, when the City of Peterborough celebrated its 100th anniversary as an incorporated municipality and formed a committee — led by arts managers and champions Su Ditta and the late Liz Bierk — to come up with ideas for designated legacy projects in the arts, ultimately leading to the annual Artsweek festival. The city transferred responsibility for Artsweek to EC3 in 2014, and the festival became a biennial event after 2018.

Although EC3 presented a COVID-modified festival in 2020 and early 2021, Artsweek returned as a full-scale event in 2023 with popular programs including Porchapalooza (where local musicians perform on neighbourhood porches), the Take-Out Poetry Cart (where local poets type out spontaneous poems on a manual typewriter), and Hot Spots (where sometimes-overlooked artists perform during the lunch hour in the Peterborough Square courtyard).

VIDEO: Artsweek 2023 Recap

Those programs are returning for 2025, along with new programs including Trent Radio’s Radio on the Go series, A Broader View multi-arts concert on Armour Hill, Solace for the Spirit by the Hollow Woods Recorder Consort and guests, the play The Auction written and directed by 4th Line Theatre’s Kim Blackwell, and The Soul Buffet celebrating Black culture, food, and the oral traditions of spoken word within the Black community.

Artsweek 2025 launches at 3 p.m. on Sunday (September 28) beside the Silver Bean Cafe in Millennium Park, with opening ceremonies including the official proclamation of Artsweek by Peterborough mayor Jeff Leal, remarks by city councillor Alex Bierk (who is also Liz Bierk’s son), and performances by guest artists Samantha Banton, Sahira, Janet McCue, Hank Fisher, Destiny, local poets at the Take-Out Poetry Cart, Elizabeth Jenkins, Victoria Yeh, Caylie Staples, Blues in the Bottle, Josh Morley, and more. There will also be cake and facepainting.

Also happening on Sunday is Porchapalooza, which takes place from 1 to 5:30 p.m. on five porches in the Teacher’s College neighbourhood. Curated by Hank and Kristine Fisher, there are three guided tours starting at 1, 2, and 3 p.m. at 137 Benson Avenue, or you can just drop by any of the participating homes. Joslynn Burford will be performing soul and blues at 137 Benson Avenue, Tyson & Bex will be performing folk at 186 Aberdeen Avenue, old-country duo Mudfish will be performing at 209 Aberdeen Avenue, Jeanne Truax will be performing as a roots-rockabilly duo at 779 Aylmer Street, and four-piece folk-country band The Space Heaters will be performing at 793 Aylmer Street.

Artsweek programs continue throughout the week until the following Sunday. A list of all programs and performance dates and locations, with descriptions provided by Artsweek, is provided below.

A Broader View

Set on Armour Hill with a vista overlooking the city, A Broader View is a multi-arts concert featuring music, visual and media arts, all set at twilight. Vocalist Caylie Staples and Victoria Yeh’s string ensemble present a melodic fusion of classical, improvised, and contemporary music that brings artists and audience members together. Laurel Paluck’s lanterns light the way in this rare, memorable event that fosters a feeling of deepening connection to community.

Date: Saturday, October 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Heritage Pavilion Stage on Armour Hill (300 Hunter Street East)

A Dandy Lion’s Guide: How to Bloom from Rotted Roots

Blending raw poetry, drag fierceness, decolonial, non-linear storytelling, original spell-like lyricism, and groovy queer club basslines, this Afro-Drag fusion performed by Sahira dives deep to bare a truth about grief, addiction, and queer “surthrival.”

Date: Friday, October 3 at 9 p.m.
Location: Peterborough Square Courtyard (corner of Water and Charlotte streets)

A Spider’s Tale

Imagine a cabaret of insects performing physical theatre, aerial arts, vertical dance, hair suspension, and contortion on an aerial rig. Performed by Nicole Malbeuf with Jeffery Cadence, Victoria Kopf, Toria Summerville, and narrator/rigger/script editor Jeremy Pastic, this spectacular piece captures the lives, trials, and tribulations of insects. Inspired by Richard Mabey’s “A Cabaret of Plants,” and narrated by a stick bug, the show features a dragon fly, house flies, and of course a giantorb-weaving yellow spider. Circus arts at its best!

Date: Friday, October 3 at 4 and 7 p.m.
Location: Parking lot at New Canadians Centre (221 Romaine St.)

Blues in the Bottle

This delightful four-piece jug band Blues in the Bottle with David Tough tumbles out of traditional music venues and onto the streets. Riffing cleverly from the age-old tradition of busking, this group spotlights the kazoo, jug, washboard, and washtub bass. Musicians can always be slightly dangerous purveyors of joy, but a potentially powerful threat to the current social order. Contemporary jug bands like Blues in the Bottle reflect the original and revivalist approach. Gloriously out of place, jug band music maintains its power to surprise people and connect them.

Date: Sunday, September 28 at 3 p.m. (during Artsweek’s opening ceremonies)
Location: Millennium Park (270 Water Street)

Date: Tuesday, September 30 from 4 to 6 p.m.
Location: Rotary Park (100 Hazlitt Street)

Date: Wednesday, October 1 at 11 a.m.
Location: Bluestreak Records (394 George Street North)

Date: Wednesday, October 1 at 2 p.m.
Location: By the Books (384 Water Street)

Hot Spots

Hot Spots shines a light on some of Peterborough’s best, if sometimes overlooked, performing artists. Curated by the inimitable Zwena Gray, this eclectic lineup will liven up your lunch hour like nothing else could. Performances take place at noon each day from Monday, September 29 to Friday, October 3 in the Peterborough Square courtyard at the corner of Water and Charlotte Streets.

• Monday, September 29 (solo set): Beau Dixon (singer-songwriter and musician)
• Tuesday, September 30 (two sets): Niles Baby (Afrobeats musician) and DJ Flaco (lyricist and DJ)
• Wednesday, October 1 (solo set): Yousra (folk singer-songwriter)
• Thursday, October 2 (solo set): Destiny Cardinal (fancy shawl pow wow dancer)
• Friday, October 3 (two sets): Enoka Kawuma (singer-songwriter and guitarist) and Ayinde Skerritt-Williams (singer-songwriter)

Nitaawigi

Nitaawigi (an Anishinaabemowin word meaning one who grows) reflects on artist Josh Morley’s personal journey to better understand his culture and traditional Indigenous knowledge — a journey he captures in a series of paintings on a grand scale (up to 10 feet wide) that make a powerful statement as they occupy urban parks. An artist talk and other activities will be announced.

Dates: Tuesday, September 30 from 4 to 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, October 4 from 4 to 7:30 p.m.
Location: Rotary Park (100 Hazlitt Street)

Porchapalooza

Take a tour of five verandas in the Teacher’s College neighbourhood and savour a movable feast of live music curated by Hank and Kristine Fisher. There are three guided tours to choose from, starting at 1, 2, and 3 p.m., which each tour beginning at 137 Benson Avenue. Take one of the tours or just drop by any of the location on your own. This is a rain-or-shine event.

Date: Sunday September 28 from 1 to 5:30 p.m.
Locations: 137 Benson Avenue (Joslynn Burford, soul and blues), 186 Aberdeen Avenue (Tyson & Bex, folk), 209 Aberdeen Avenue (Mudfish, old-country duo), 779 Aylmer Street (Jeanne Truax, roots rockabilly duo), 793 Aylmer Street (The Space Heaters, four-piece folk-country band)

Radio on the Go – Arts Edition

Join Trent Radio 92.7 FM for four live, remote broadcasts at locations in downtown Peterborough and at Trent University’s Symons campus. Each broadcast features a collaboration between a Trent student and local artist, creating original audio art pieces using performance, poetry, music, literature or sound art. Witness the magic in person, tune into 92.7 FM, or stream online at www.trentradio.ca. All events, except the first one, are open to the public to attend in person.

Date: Monday, September 29 at 11 a.m.
Location: Trent University President Cathy Bruce’s Office with student Leighla Foster and musician Parker Farris (not open to the public)

Date: Monday, September 29 at 2 p.m.
Location: Seasoned Spoon at Trent University with student Sadye Middleton and poet Sarah Lewis

Date: Wednesday, October 1 at 11 a.m.
Location: Bluestreak Records (394 George Street North) with student Dave King and artist Kate Story

Date: Wednesday, October 1 at 2 p.m.
Location: By the Books (384 Water Street North) with student Ty McKeen and composer David Grenon

Solace for the Spirit

An outdoor tour of haunted spaces, bringing words and music of remembrance to entertain and comfort both audience members and the spirits who remain. Led by music director Tori Owen, the 13-member Hollow Woods Recorder Consort and guests, including Ken Arndt and Al Kirby, will perform at all three sites identified as haunted through stories and supported by history. Listen to the spirits’ tales at each site and hear music germane to the time and place of their passing.

Date: Monday, September 29 at 12 p.m.
Location: The Jail Park at the Peterborough County Courthouse (470 Water Street)

Date: Friday, October 3 at 5:30 p.m.
Location: West side of Peterborough Lift Lock (354 Hunter Street East)

Date: Sunday, October 5 at 1 p.m.
Location: Steve Terry Way (under the Hunter Street Bridge in East City)

Stab & Gab Felting Workshop

An intimate felting workshop providing a safe space for people experiencing cancer (diagnosis, treatment, remission, living with cancer). As a cancer survivor, artist Melissa Wilson found the slow, careful, and mindful stabbing action that felting requires cathartic. The artist hopes others experiencing cancer will feel the same way. Participants have the option of using their own hair.

While the workshop is free, advance registration is required at www.eventbrite.ca/e/1703018045819.

Date: Thursday, October 2 from 1 to 3 p.m.
Location: Silver Bean Cafe at Millennium Park (130 King Street)

Take-Out Poetry Cart

Step right up to the handmade, bicycle-pulled Poetry Cart, where an array of talented writers will write a poem just for you, tapping it out on a classic manual typewriter. Whether you request a Shakespearean sonnet, a vengeful haiku, or a tragic ode, you are guaranteed to walk away with a unique work of spontaneous art. The Take-Out Poetry Cart features a rotating all-star line-up of area poets including Sarah Lewis, Thamer Linklater, Amal Osman, Ziysah von Bieberstein, and more to come.

Date: Sunday, September 28 at 3 p.m. (during Artsweek’s opening ceremonies)
Location: Millennium Park (270 Water Street)

Date: Wednesday, October 1 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Location: Downtown Farmers’ Market (Quaker Square)

Date: Wednesday, October 1 from 12:45 to 2:45 p.m.
Location: Water Street between Charlotte and Hunter Streets

Terra Precarium

Artist Garrett Gilbart carves exquisite sculptural elements, inspired by the intricate structures of lichen, from paintings onto salvaged steel. Dynamically illuminated and outfitted with microphones, motors and sensors, the forms become instruments that respond to subtle movement, proximity, and touch — a live sound performance that unfolds over several hours. The work draws on lichen’s ability to survive in inhospitable environments and its role as a bioindicator of industrial pollution while reflecting questions around industrial decay, nature, and the process of resilience.

Dates: Tuesday, September 30 from 4 to 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, October 4 from 4 to 7:30 p.m
Location: Rotary Park (100 Hazlitt Street)

The Auction

Written and directed by Kim Blackwell and performed by Lindsay Wilson and Stew Granger, The Auction is a play exploring the breakable and unbreakable bonds in daughter-father relationships, the mental trauma associated with helping aging parents divest themselves of a lifetime of “stuff,” and the presence of nuclear power in Canada. Set against the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar and staged inside an actual storage unit, The Auction is part confession, part ritual, and part absurd comedy — an intimate performance that offers a deeper understanding of what we demand to hold onto and why.

While the play is free to attend, advance registration is required at www.eventbrite.ca/e/1703070462599.

Dates: Friday, October 3 at 12 and 3 p.m. and Saturday, October 4 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Location: My Storage Peterborough (796 Technology Drive)

The Soul Buffet

Presented by Peterborough Poetry Slam Invitational, The Soul Buffet celebrates Black culture, food, and the oral traditions of spoken word within the Black community, featuring a lineup of prominent BIPOC artists (and artists who are allies) curated by Elizabeth “EJ” Jenkins. The event includes performances by Lillian Allen, Sam Banton, Jon Hedderwick, and more, with guests Sarah Lewis and Ziysah von Bieberstein. A BIPOC open mic, where emerging and established poets can share their work, and a family-inspired cookout round out the affair.

Date: Sunday, October 5 at 2 p.m.
Location: Peterborough Square Courtyard (corner of Water and Charlotte streets)

For more information on Artsweek, visit artsweekpeterborough.ca.

For updates and any last-minute program or schedule changes, follow Artsweek on Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky.

This story has been updated with last-minute schedule changes.

kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the Electric City Culture Council and Artsweek 2025.