The first concert of our 22nd season was a big success, thanks to Black Umfolosi (blackumfolosimusic.com) for getting us off to a great start. It was a wonderfully energetic and uplifting show, full of joyous music and dance. I’m sorry I didn’t get their names but I have to applaud the three audience members who volunteered to get up and dance with Black Umfolosi, they were terrific and I was very impressed with the high kicks, well done! In fact, if you dancers email [email protected], you'll get a free ticket to this Sat night's show (Sept 22).
I can tell you now that we were a bit panicky wondering if we would get an audience with the show scheduled for mid-week after the Labour Day weekend. But we needn’t have worried, it was a excellent turn-out and an enthusiastic crowd. It was great to see some new faces in the audience and it’s always nice to welcome our regulars, as well as some familiar faces we hadn’t seen in a while.
I heard quite a few people say how lovely the space was, and the Great Hall at Beach United is indeed an impressive room with excellent acoustics. We were made very welcome and we have to thank Operations Manager, David Lewis (beachunitedchurch.com) for going above and beyond to make sure everything ran smoothly.
Speaking of sound, one of the band members singled out our sound technician, Jason LaPrade, for special praise. He said he was one of the two best soundmen they’d ever had in their many tours; the other guy is from the Netherlands, not sure why but that impresses me more than if he was, say, from Baltimore. We are indeed lucky to have Jason (www.jasonLaPrade.com) and he is definitely one reason why so many musicians love coming to Acoustic Harvest (AcousticHarvest.ca). And now it’s official, Acoustic Harvest has a World Class soundman!
Our next concert will be on the usual Saturday night, September 22nd, and we’re proud to present Mary Kelly and John Sheard in a Folk Cabaret. There are a lot of talented Mary Kellys out there on the internet; our Mary Kelly isn’t one of them, well, she is talented, just somewhat technophobic. If you’ve heard the Folk Diva before, and you may have seen her at Acoustic Harvest, you’ve probably already booked your seat for this show. If you haven’t heard Mary sing before take our word for it, this is going to be a very special show. Lillian tells me that John and Mary met prior to, and performed at, our Gala 20th Anniversary celebrations; Mary asked John to accompany her and here we are. John will, of course, be a familiar name to many people who remember John (johnsheardmusic.com) from his many years as music director and pianist for Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café on CBC radio.
This concert will be at Beach United and what a perfect room for this show; it even has a grand piano! Don’t forget that booking online (acousticharvest.ca/tix.html) not only gets you a discount but gives you an entry into the draw for free tickets to future shows.
That might be something you’re interested in because look who we have coming on October 13th - Garnet Rogers and Scottish legend, Archie Fisher. More on this concert in our next newsletter. Note that this concert will be at the St Paul's United Church, 200 McIntosh St. Scarborough.
For some years now we’ve had a reciprocal arrangement with Winterfolk where we present Acoustic Harvest performers in a showcase at the festival and Winterfolk presents a preview concert for us. A couple of years ago, we were delighted to be introduced to the duo Tragedy Ann (tragedyannmusic.com) and here’s some news from Braden and Liv.
“GREAT NEWS: We are the recipients of two Songs from the Heart awards from Folk Music Ontario! Roots Music Canada has written a terrific feature on the winning tunes, and we're overjoyed to be sharing two new songs from our upcoming album! You can take a listen over on rootsmusic.ca. We can't wait to share the rest of this record with you, but this teaser will have to work for now!”
By the way, check out Lillian's article at rootsmusic.ca on the News page (scroll down to the bottom of the Home page to Categories)
More news from one of our past performers, I’m excited to have my copy of Jon Brooks’ new CD “No One Travels Alone” which you can get from Jon (jonbrooks.ca) or from (borealisrecords.com) As is usual with Mr. Brooks there’s a twist; here’s what Borealis has to say:
“Jon Brooks’ 6th album, No One Travels Alone, accomplishes something truly interesting in modern songwriting: borrowing from the Elizabethan sonneteers, the album fulfils a ‘corona' of songs. Corona form interconnects each song by first and last lines – the last line of the first song is the first line of the following song, etc…until the final song completes a circle, or corona. This is brilliant”
That’s all for just now, see you on September 22 at Beach United.
Heather Fielding
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