Songs of the Season with Mike Biggar & Jessica Rhaye Thursday, December 15, 2022 at 7:30pm at the Imperial Theatre. Tickets: Adult $36.00 / Youth $22.00
Mike Biggar’s “Songs of the Season”, an acoustic concert of original and classic holiday music, featuring multi award-winning Roots/Blues artist Mike Biggar with his merry band of friends, along with guest performer Jessica Rhaye. Together they join their voices for some much-loved duets, and lovely full-bank, five-part harmonies.
The show features Mike’s original holiday songs from his ECMA award-winning Christmas album “The Season”, along with some freshly arranged traditional favourites, impromptu, disarming humour, heartwarming cheer, and holiday smiles all around.
“Songs of the Season” is described by presenters and attendees as lighthearted, jubilant holiday fun, reminiscent of vintage Christmas TV specials of yesteryear.
Uplifting, heartwarming, hilarious and inspiring, with enough Christmas fun to fill a magical sleigh! Lansdowne Concert Series and New Country 92.3fm proudly present Award winning Roots & Blues Singer-Songwriter Mike Biggar and his Songs of the Season Christmas show, uniting him again with very special guest – acclaimed songstress Jessica Rhaye, and their stage band. Performing holiday shows together for several years, this will be the inaugural appearance for SOTS in Fredericton NB, coming to the Charlotte Street Arts Centre on Thursday, Dec. 8 at 7:30pm.
Mike and Jessica will be joined by their merry band of musical friends:
GRANT HECKMAN (guitar, vocals)
SANDY MACKAY (bass, vocals)
BILL PREEPER (guitar, mandolin, vocals)
COLTON CRAFT (piano)
DAVE BARTLETT (drums)
SONGS OF THE SEASON evolved from Biggar’s ECMA award-winning holiday album THE SEASON. The show features many of his acclaimed, original holiday songs, inspiring carols and standards of the season, and knock-down fun Christmas revelry, playfully arranged in his noted soulful, bluesy roots styling. With a voice like a winter songbird, Jessica Rhaye offers a heaping helping of her own personal seasonal favourites and original holiday music. And together the pair, along with the boys in the band, join their voices for much-loved holiday duets inspired by unforgettable vintage TV Christmas specials of yesteryear. With lots of impromptu fun, hilarious stage banter, heartwarming cheer and warmth, Songs of the Season will deck the halls with holiday smiles and laughter all around.
If you’re making a list, check it twice to be sure you’ve got your tickets!
Joel Miller with Alan Jeffries and Jason Flores, November 25th, 7pm at the Tispy Muse in Fredericton. As an award winning saxophonist, Joel Miller is known in jazz circles all across Canada and beyond, however, as a musician, he is always looking for new ways to challenge himself. On Nov 25th Joel will be offering something completely different and perhaps taking his listeners to uncharted territory: a fusion of jazz and bluegrass.
To complete this odyssey, Joel has incorporated the talents of Alan Jeffries and Jason Flores, two red-hot and highly respected players from our blossoming bluegrass scene. Come on out on Nov 25th, as these artists take their genres to places they’ve never been before. “Exciting” is the word.
November 25, 2022
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7:30 pm
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November 29, 2022
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10:00 pm
2022 marks 25 years that The Ennis Sisters have been connecting to audiences across the world. From church halls in outport Newfoundland to performing for International leaders and delegates at the 75th anniversary of D-Day on Juno Beach, their harmonies resonate with us all.
For years, Maureen, Karen and Teresa have been captivating audiences with their highly woven sibling harmonies and endearing humour. With a mix of original songs, holiday classics, humorous recitations and a little Irish step-dancing, the evening is sure to ignite your holiday spirit. Don’t miss the chance to delight in a Christmas tradition, cherished by so many!
In thirty years of activity, the Debussy String Quartet has been acclaimed throughout the world, continually sharing the same passion in its musical interpretations on the world’s most prestigious stages: Japan, China, United States, Canada, Australia, Russia, Europe, gaining renown through regular tours on all the continents.
Thirty years of evolution which have made the Quartet a key player on the international music scene, with numerous awards, including a First Prize in the Evian International String Quartet Competition in 1993 and a Victoire de la musique 1996 (« Best Chamber Music Group”). Today, the professional recognition of the Debussy String Quartet is indisputable
At 56, Canada’s foremost well-heeled troubadour has made a most unlikely discovery: domestic bliss. All it took, it turns out, was leaving the city he loved.
Following 30 years as an emblem of Toronto’s west end, Ron Sexsmith reluctantly uprooted to the serene hamlet of Stratford, Ontario, and the melodic, playful, theatrically vivacious Hermitage came gushing out.
“Almost immediately after arriving here I just felt this kind of enormous stress cloud evaporate and all these songs started coming,” recalls Sexsmith. “I’d walk along the river every day into town and feel like Huckleberry Finn or something. It had a really great effect on my overall state of being.”
This new zen can be heard from the first moments of Kinks-esque album opener, Spring of the Following Year, as the serene sound of birds situate the listener into Sexsmith’s state of grace.
It’s not like he was planning to write his 16th long player as soon as he arrived, he adds. After all, Sexsmith was already quite busy turning his first novel, Deer Life, into a prospective musical. But when melodies as infectious as the Chi-Lights-inspired You Don’t Want to Hear It or the ear-worm inducing Lo and Behold entered his mind, he had to get them on record. Adding his signature mischievously astute worldplay (in Dig Nation, for example) to ground the album firmly in the Sexsmith oeuvre. Even the album’s title is a coy subversion of the 15-time Juno nominee’s own expectations upon arriving in Justin Bieber’s hometown. “I felt I’d reached the age where I could be a hermit finally, but it didn’t really work out that way,” he laughs.
Further reflecting Sexsmith’s new confidence, Hermitage is the first album on which he played nearly all the instruments, an idea he credits to producer and longtime drummer Don Kerr. “Don said ‘Why don’t you make one of those sort of Paul McCartney-type records?’ and it’s like a light bulb went on over my head,” he says. “That had never occurred to me.”
The result is the songwriter’s most self-assured collection, still charmingly subtle yet increasingly full of musical vigor, as on Chateau Mermaid, an ode to his own Stratford Graceland, or the surprisingly hopeful Small Minded World, (originally penned for the Adams Family film), in which Sexsmith croons, ‘Oh now don’t feel blue ‘cos they don’t get you, you’ll win this small minded world.’
FEST FORWARD is an annual music festival for emerging New Brunswick musicians. Taking place between October 14-16, 2022, FEST FORWARD acts get a crash course in the music industry, including professional development training on grants/funding streams, how to pitch and market themselves, a professional video and photos for their press kits along with a showcasing opportunity AND booked festival slot at an upcoming NB music festival. Past emerging artists who have participated in FEST FORWARD include M3D14, Motherhood, and Run The River.
Have questions? Contact programs@charlottestreetarts.ca
Applications are now closed. Stay tuned for the line-up announcement!
With a splash of Nilsson eccentricity – Marla & David Celia are back on tour with their second album “Indistinct Chatter”.
With duet vocal harmonies in the foreground, they dive through progressive chord changes, elaborate arrangements and round it all off with well-crafted ballads. The lyrics circle around our lives in the present, during times of overproduction, corporate greed and today’s disposable culture, capitalism and the desire to see change. The album title is a reminder that often the whisper is far more effective than the scream.
Music brought Marla & David Celia together when they met at a festival in 2015. They later shared the stage for other shows in Germany and naturally started accompanying each other. Their chemistry was magnetic and soon David was producing Marla’s first record at his studio in Canada. He also released his latest solo album during that time which lead to their continued performances all over Europe.
Not only did their vocal harmonies blend warmly, but so did their love for one another and they began writing and recording music as a duo. Their debut Daydreamers (2018) has taken them from L.A. to Russia and England’s famous Glastonbury Festival. In the last 6 years they have played over 800 shows together.
