ROCKY MOUNTAIN FOLK CLUB
2009-10 CONCERT SCHEDULE
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We are pleased to present the Rocky Mountain Folk Club's 35th season. Each night begins with a set by our house band Ceard with Dick Howe on guitar, vocals and bodhran, John Campbell on vocals and guitar, Jim Atkinson on bass, guitar and vocals and Hal Curties on vocals, guitar and emceeing duties. Ceard plays predominently traditional songs but they throw in a few contemporary tunes and bad jokes occasionally. During the rest of the evening we normally present two sets featuring various combinations of touring performers and some of the great local talent available in Calgary. If we have time, we end with the world famous Rocky Mountain Folk Club Choir where audience participation is mandatory! We hope you will enjoy the performers we have selected. | |
| Doors open at 7:30 p.m., concert starts at 8:00 p.m. |
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Friday September 11 Cori Brewster and Steve Fisher plus Simon Budd Canmore's Cori Brewster accompanied by Steve Fisher on guitar, with a middle set from Fort McMurray singer/guitarist Simon Budd, and with house band Ceard returning once again to open the evening and the 35th season of the Rocky. Cori Brewster was born in Banff, and lived in various parts of Canada before returning to the Rockies to live in Canmore. Her most recent and very well received CD "Buffalo Street" is a collection of songs inspired by the history of the Canadian Rockies and its people. Friday October 9 Maura Hagan with Lizzy Hoyt on fiddle and Bryan Culliton on guitar, plus Jake Peters from Didsbury. Glasgow-born Maura Hagan moved to Canada with her family as a young adult, and her music has evolved with influences of traditional, folk and pop into her own unique sound. Among many career highlights have been performances at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, at the Edmonton Folk Festival, and on CBC's Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean. Just a couple of quotes...."the voice of a wee lintie on a Scottish morning" - Andy Donnelly, CKUA Radio (A lintie is a Scottish linnet by the way, a kind of finch). "Maura is blessed with an ethereal voice..." - Tom Coxworth, CKUA Radio. As regards singer, songwriter and award winning guitar and banjo player Jake Peters, I can do no better than quote Mike MacLeod of Calgary's Acoustic Guitar Store, who recently put on a concert with Jake as one of the performers. "Jake may be among the 1/2 dozen or so best players this country has on offer. He is a delight to hear and always comes up with something amazing. We are fortunate to have Jake living in the area. I strongly suspect that in a couple of years we'll all kick ourselves for not taking every opportunity to hear this amazing talent". Friday November 6 Noah Zacharin from Toronto plus BC's Leslie Alexander. Noah Zacharin was born in Montreal and now lives in Toronto. He has recorded with some of Canada's finest performers such as Penny Lang and Danny Marks, has produced several very well received CDs, and is also a popular radio and open stage host in Toronto (actually I heard of him first through Steve Fisher after Steve had been on Noah's radio show). His performances typically feature both his own outstanding well crafted songs and some older acoustic blues numbers, both featuring his terrific guitar playing. But don't just take my word for it... "One of the best songwriters this country has produced" - Rick Fielding. "A stunning guitarist... no stylistic boundaries" - Holger Peterson, CBC and CKUA. "A poet, a songwriter, a singer we have been waiting for" - Penny Lang. "One of the most original performers I've heard in a long time" - Steve Fisher. Leslie Alexander grew up on an Alberta sheep farm, moved to Vancouver and now lives in Ashcroft BC. She has written songs about everything from rural life and disappearing Prairie grain elevators to street life in Vancouver. Her recordings have been very well received, including being CKUA's featured record of the week in August 2006. Just a couple of quotes... "Sweet gentle country folk that recalls everyone from Emmylou Harris to Victoria Williams". "The best roots singer you've never heard of". Friday November 20 From Ontario, James Gordon (founding member of Tamarack). James Gordon has had a remarkably diverse 30-year career in the Canadian entertainment business. As a solo singer-songwriter and with the ground-breaking trio Tamarack, he has released over thirty-five albums, and has toured relentlessly around the world. Gordon has written for symphony orchestras, musical theatre and dance works, film scores, and for more than ten years was heard on CBC radio as songwriter-in-residence for the 'Basic Black” and “Ontario Morning” programs. His songs have been recorded and performed by such varied acts as The Cowboy Junkies, Melanie Doane, Al Simmons, James Keelaghan, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and many major choirs. His song “Mining For Gold” was featured in John Sayles film “Silver City.” Gordon's classic “Frobisher Bay” has been recorded by more than 100 different acts world-wide and was an audition piece on CTV's “Canadian Idol”. His most ambitious work, the full-length folk opera “Hardscrabble Road” debuted live in the fall of 2003, and was released in June '05 on Pipe Street Records. Gordon has produced Cds for many Canadian folk artists, and his popular “Rhyme Capsules” songwriting-in-the-schools project has resulted in over two dozen CDs of songs by young composers. In the last three years he's toured in Great Britain, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, and all across North America. Last year he produced a major community songwriting project called "Mining For Songs" for Canmore ALberta which resulted in an album and concert featuring songs of that town's coal mining heritage. Friday January 29 Robbie Burns Night. This is the night for our very popular Burns celebration. We have haggis, bagpipes and great scotch, . Also Jim Osborne, Ken Martin, Graham Tait and Rod Walsh, and The Jig's Up. Graham Tait (accordion and vocals) and Rod Walsh (guitar and vocals) are members of both recent and current versions of the Calgary Folk Club house band (The Wild Colonials, After the Storm etc) and will be part of the second set with Jim Osborne (ode to the haggis) and Ken Martin (pipes), or else a separate short or "half" set, depending on the readiness of the haggis for distribution. The Jig's Up make a very welcome return to Robbie Burns Night and will play the final set of the evening. Members are Sean Buckley (bodhran and vocals), Kathy Pepers (keyboard), Jon Harris (fiddle), Mark Foster (guitar) and Janet Dracek (vocals and percussion). They will also be joined by Ken Martin on pipes for a few numbers. Friday February 26 The Rocky's 35th birthday party, with After The Storm, Ceard, Dave Settles, David Foster and more. After The Storm consists of Rod Walsh (guitar, vocals), Graham Tait (accordion, vocals), and two of Calgary's most talented fiddlers, Scott Duncan and Ben Plotnick*. Graham and Scott performed a very enjoyable mini-set at the Rocky's Robbie Burns Night and make a welcome return with the rest of their bandmates to play a full set of their lively songs and instrumentals. *There is one change in the line-up for After the Storm. There will just be one fiddler (Ben Plotnick) but the drafting in of bassist Brendan McGuigan allows the multi-instrumentalist Ben to concentrate on the fiddle. Dave Settles will be known to many as a member of the Sunday Night Band (and other bands and musical sessions) as well as the organizer for the last ten years of the highly successful Water Valley Festival. He makes a welcome return to the Rocky as a solo act, as part of the middle set. The rest of the middle set will feature songs from a number of the Rocky's talented volunteers: David Foster, Milada Rysan, George Smith and emcee Joel Weder. The latter two are bringing along some of their friends from Men Folk Singing to back them up in songs ranging from the funny to the hilarious, possibly even the serious. House band Ceard, including Rocky founding member Dick Howe, plus John Campbell, Jim Atkinson and Hal Curties, will once again get the Rocky off to a rousing start as they have done (with some changes in personnel) for 35 years. Friday March 26 Tir Na N'og plus Rokka (Steve and Eszter Savanya). Tir Na N'og Tir Na N'og make a long overdue return to the Rocky, with a somewhat changed line-up from last time. Band founder Brian Volke (vocals, guitar, mandolin) and bassist R.J. McConnell are joined by relative newcomers Christie Simmons (vocals, whistles, flute, guitar), Colin Peters (fiddle) and Brad Uphill (bodhran). A lively set of traditional and original songs and tunes is guaranteed. Steve and Eszter Savanya of Rokka have performed at the Rocky before, so long ago that the date is a bit fuzzy but approx. 20 years ago. They will perform traditional Hungarian songs and instrumentals with vocals from both Steve and Eszter (a former best vocalist prize winner in Europe), and using guitar, hurdy-gurdy, mandolin, zither and more. One or two more familiar songs from the North American tradition may also be included. The case could also be made that the Hungarian material fits well with St Paddy's - beautiful songs about unrequited love, suffering and death in a language you don't understand. Ceard will up their Irishness quota for the evening, probably in both the song and joke departments. Special note for the Ceard fan club - Dick promises that they'll throw some of their clothes into the audience! (I think he means their green hats). It should be a very enjoyable set. Friday April 16 Wild Rose Xpress plus Hal Curties, Willow Brocke and friends. Wild Rose Xpress have performed at numerous venues around Alberta, from bluegrass festivals to corporate gigs to the Water Valley Celtic Festival. Their repertoire ranges from traditional bluegrass to melodic ballads and old time fiddle tunes. Expect a highly entertaining set featuring great harmony vocals, backed up by fiddle, mandolin, banjo, guitar, dobro and bass. Hal Curties will be known to most as a member of house band Ceard, but he has also been involved in various other musical activities over the years. One of these has been a long time collaboration with Willow Brocke. Some of you may remember Willow from the time she performed with Ceard a year or two ago - she was one of the two guest performers who not only were terrific singers but also reduced the group's average age by about half! Willow has performed professionally since the 1980s, studied at Selkirk College's jazz studies programme in the 1990s, is an accomplished songwriter as well as an outstanding singer, and in 2008 released a self-titled CD with some of Alberta's top musicians such as Aaron Young, Johanna Sillanpaa, Sheldon Zandboer and Simon Fisk. |
