Heather Kitching

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Plumes debut Western Canadian tour:

May 24 – Ritornello Festival, Saskatoon SK
May 25 – Ritornello Festival, Saskatoon SK
May 28 – The CYRK, Winnipeg, MB
May 29 – The Artful Dodger, Regina, SK
June 1 – The Streaming Café, Kelowna, BC
June 2 – The Armstrong Inn, Armstrong, BC
June 3 – Duncan Garage Showroom, Duncan, BC
June 5 – Lucky Bar, Victoria, BC
June 6 – Raw Canvas, Vancouver, BC
June 8 – Wunderbar, Edmonton, AB

Armed with plenty of indie rock credentials, one ivy-league classical music education, and the literary prowess of their vaguely Björk-like lead vocalist, Plumes announced their arrival on the Canadian indie scene last year with an album that NYC’s Deli Magazine called “a Baroque masterpiece.”

Now, they’re premiering their sound live for the first time in Western Canada. And the tour kicks off with a classical music engagement at the Ritornello Chamber Music Festival in Saskatoon – a gig that will see them combine the more heavily classical numbers from their set list with Bartok, Luciano Berio, and Arvo Pärt.

The ensemble marries indie pop and vocal chamber music with the clever lyricism of ex-Flotilla vocalist Veronica Charnley to create epic, cinematic and sometimes dreamy compositions that often have an art song-like quality to them. Read the rest of this entry »

This Great Compromise releases May 28

Saturday June 1st – The Company House, Halifax (matinee 4pm start)

Sunday June 2nd – West Dublin Hall w/ Ian Foster (7pm start)

Ten years ago, Ashley Condon wept through an entire David Francey concert, realizing she had discovered the kind of simple honest, folk music she herself wanted to make.

A decade later, she was an award-winning East Coast singer-songwriter and an ECMA nominee, praised for her powerful voice and astonishing emotional range as a writer and singer – and Francey’s manager was on the phone offering to sign her to Francey’s record label. 

It was as if the universe was finally paying Condon back for everything it had put her through early in life. 

The only child of a fishing family from rural Prince Edward Island, Condon had lost both her parents by the time she was 22.  Her father died when she was six.  Her mother raised her as a single parent and fought to hold onto the family home and business, taking over her deceased husband’s fishing fleet and ultimately becoming one of the first female fishing captains in Eastern PEI.  But then she too passed away from cancer while Condon was in her second year of drama studies at the University of Toronto. Upon completing her degree, Condon spent three years studying psychotherapy to help heal from the loss.

Not surprisingly, Condon’s music is marked by an astonishing degree of maturity and nuance – the kind almost never heard in emerging artists.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Eliana Cuevas launches Espejo

May 15th at the Lula Lounge
Doors at 7pm
Show at 8pm
Tickets $15
A la carte menu available.
To reserve a table for dinner, call 416.588.0307

Musically stretched by a series of challenging recent collaborations and emotionally transformed by motherhood, Eliana Cuevas makes an explosive return to the stage next month with Espejo (pr: ess-PAY-ho), a sophisticated and deeply personal oeuvre that showcases her vastly expanded range as a composer and performer.

Cuevas’ pure, versatile and dexterous vocals are now deeper and more nuanced than ever before and marked on several tracks by a profound sense of vulnerability. The arrangements – featuring a total of 20 top Toronto musicians – are far and away her most adventurous to date. And her repertoire has diversified to include tracks such as “El Tucusito,” a piece sung entirely in complex, wordless vocalizations of the type Cuevas sings in Darren Sigesmund’s Juno-nominated jazz ensemble.

The 2009 birth of Cuevas’ daughter, Leila, and her sometimes-wearying efforts to reunite her far-flung family members in the wake of the birth, vastly deepened the well of life experience the she drew on in writing the new material.

The album’s expanded musical depth comes courtesy of ingenious producer Jeremy Ledbetter, the musical director for legendary Calypsonian David Rudder and the leader of the internationally-touring Latin-Caribbean jazz outfit Canefire.

Trained in classical and jazz, and exceptionally well-studied in Latin and Caribbean styles, Ledbetter expanded Cuevas’ synthesis of South American sounds on Espejo. He also played a key role in encouraging Cuevas to push her creative boundaries on the album, resulting in an eclectic and captivating musical journey. Read the rest of this entry »

Jorge Miguel Guitarra Flamenco / Flamenco Guitar album launch residency at the Lula Lounge

April 17– Up-and-coming Flamenco dancer showcase

May 22 – Asian Heritage Month show featuring Indo-Flamenco ensemble FlamenKathak

June 19 – Flamenco with a touch of jazz in honor of Jazz Fest

“Flamenco at its finest” – Nicholas Jennings, Penguin Eggs

A leading figure in Canada’s Flamenco community continues his album launch residency at the Lula Lounge this spring with a series of themed performances that will showcase his new album Guitarra Flamenca / Flamenco Guitar – and let audiences savour different flavours of Flamenco at an affordable price.

Some of Toronto’s finest singers, dancers, and musicians will take the stage with him for the one-hour – short and sweet! – soirees, which include an emerging artist showcase in mid-April, an Indo-Flamenco fusion show for Asian Heritage Month in May, and an evening of jazzy Flamenco in June as a salute to the Toronto Jazz Festival.

With the release of Guitarra Flamenca / Flamenco Guitar, Jorge chose to liberate himself from the standard-issue pop music record release schedule of a grand launch concert and tour followed by a gradual decline in momentum – and instead follow a path he felt was more suited to the music.  Flamenco is a form that is meant to endure.  It is also a style of music that has its origins in the creation of community – derived as it is from the intermingling of persecuted peoples such as Gypsies and Muslims in the south of Spain.  So Jorge planned a year of monthly performances at the Lula that would bring Toronto’s Flamenco community together for a series of unique events.  …and hopefully help grow the community too! Read the rest of this entry »

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“The closest thing this country has to Woodie Guthrie” – The Georgia Straight

“One of Canada’s outstanding poets, songwriters, storytellers …” – Ron MacLean, Hockey Night in Canada

“One of the greatest songwriters that Canada has ever produced.  His words cut to the very core of human emotion.” – John-Angus MacDonald, The Trews

Fourteen years ago at the age of 45, David Francey began an astonishing journey from life-long manual labourer to three-time Juno-winning folk troubadour – renowned for writing with heart-wrenching honesty about the struggles of the poor and working class.

His new album, So Say We All, is a collection of 14 songs that reflect Francey’s own journey through a period of struggle.

“The lesson learned,” he says, “was to celebrate every day spent on this side of the soil and to keep marching no matter what comes our way.”   And that spirit of perseverance bursts from each track of the collection. Read the rest of this entry »

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Lenka Lichtenberg launches Embrace
April 28, 8pm, at Glenn Gould Studio
$25, $15 (students & seniors)
Tickets available at the Roy Thomson Hall Box Office
Address: 60 Simcoe Street.
Phone: 416-872-4255

To download tracks from Embrace, please visit www.heatherkitching.com, click “media downloads” and use the password “$ecretpage”

“A force of nature within Canada’s world music scene … Like Loreena McKennitt with Celtic sounds, Lichtenberg is pushing Yiddish music beyond its klezmer stereotype into a truly inspired form of world music.” – Nicholas Jennings, Penguin Eggs

Almost 25 years ago, Lenka Lichtenberg (Pr. LIK-tin-burg The “ch” is pronounced as in “Bach”) set off on a journey to reclaim a long lost cultural heritage.
On Embrace, the award-winning composer, arranger, singer and veritable tour de force of Toronto’s world music community embarks on a new musical journey – one aimed at bringing that Yiddish heritage to a wider audience.
The daughter of a Holocaust survivor who raised her with no religious identity, the former child star from Czechoslovakia sings frequently in English on Embrace, performing unique, contemporary compositions derived from Yiddish tradition and layering her ornate Middle Eastern vocals over otherworldly global arrangements.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Sagapool in concert
April 11, 8pm, at Gallery 345, Toronto
345 Sorauren Ave
(416) 822-9781
Tickets $20 (cash only) at the door

Other Ontario dates:
April 10 – Twisted Pines, Penetanguishine
April 12 – Mason Perth Theatre, Perth

Inspired by windswept northern landscapes, tranquil wintery mornings, and the atmospheric music of acts like Beirut, Sigur Ros and its compatriots, Patrick Watson, Quebec indie instrumental ensemble Sagapool has charted a new musical course with its Felix Award-winning eponymous fourth album – one so cinematic and evocative that it unfolds like the score to an as-yet-unwritten film.

After premiering the material to enthusiastic crowds at last year’s Ashkenaz Festival, the band – recipients of a 2008 GAMIQ (Quebec indie music award) nomination, two Canadian Folk Music Awards,  a Galaxie Rising Star Award and a 2006 ROSEQ-RADARTS discovery award — returns to Toronto for its first full-on concert since the album’s release.

Audiences can expect an all-encompassing musical journey weaving the often wry and mischievous  klezmer and hot jazz-inspired compositions of the act’s three previous albums with periods of dreamy introspection that build in intensity toward moving crescendos.   The core instrumentation will be familiar to long-time fans:  clarinet, accordion, violin, guitar, bass and percussion.  But the new sounds provide a lush contrast to some of their more angular earlier compositions. Read the rest of this entry »

“Melancolía” out Feb. 26

Long celebrated for her sophisticated Latin jazz compositions and impressive vocal acrobatics, the woman already dubbed “Canada’s emerging Latin music queen” by 680 News is about to show fans a new side of herself.

This coming Tuesday, Eliana Cuevas releases “Melancolía” the wistful and deeply moving  first single from her forthcoming album Espejo, due April 30.

With its intimate production values, minimalist accompaniment and unadorned vocals, “Melancolía” is a significant departure from much of the material on Cuevas’ three previous award-winning collections, and it exemplifies the artistic maturity that has come to her with marriage and motherhood.  The song was born from the uncertainty and despair Cuevas was feeling as the Venezuelan-born chanteuse, who came to Canada as a university student, struggled with the bureaucracy of trying to reunite her far-flung family members.  And Cuevas’ plaintive vocals prove more than expressive enough to communicate her heartbreak.  Read the rest of this entry »

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March 8 – International Women’s Day! – at St. James Hall
Doors at 7pm
Show at 8pm
Tickets $20 ($16 Rogue Folk members)
Available at Highlife and Rufus’ Guitar Shop
Or at www.roguefolk.bc.ca

It seems appropriate that Joanna Chapman-Smith should launch her new album in her “second home” of Vancouver on International Women’s Day.

Love Me Deeply is an album about finding one’s voice, finding empowerment, and finding oneself again in the aftermath of a damaging relationship.

It’s the glorious upshot of a devastating fall four years ago, when Joanna literally lost her voice.

Embroiled in the existential crisis that grips any singer who suddenly can’t sing, the Independent Music Award-winner and nominee for the 2012 Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award began reflecting on the power of the voice in our lives: how it conveys our emotions and articulates who we are in the world and in relation to others. And how, when we lose it, it’s a sign that we’ve lost something of ourselves.

That’s where Joanna was at when she started writing the album. The timing coincided with the end of a relationship, so the songs weave the theme of a voice lost and found with the theme of love lost and found.

Love Me Deeply is also a showcase for Joanna’s restored and strengthened vocals – more pure-sounding, mellifluous and versatile than ever before – and an elegant and sophisticated opus on how our voices make us who we are. Read the rest of this entry »

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 Won second Latin Grammy and second Socan award this fall

 Second leg of the Ruido En El Sistema launch tour:

 Feb. 7 – The Old Town Hall, Aylmer, ON

Feb. 8 – Hillfield Strathallan College, Hamilton, ON

Feb. 9 – Gibson Centre, Alliston, ON
Feb. 12 – Cabaret La Basoche, Gatineau, QC
Feb. 13 – Northern College, Kirkland Lake, ON
Feb. 14 – The Burlington Performing Arts Centre, Burlington, ON
Feb. 15 &16 – Centennial Hall, London, ON with Orchestra London
March 12 – The Bassment, Saskatoon, SK

March 13 – The Lyric Theatre, Swift Current, SK
March 14 – The Geomatic Attic, Lethbridge, AB
March 15 – Festival Place, Sherwood Park, AB
March 16 – Local 522, Calgary, AB
March 17 – Communitea Café, Canmore, AB
March 18 – Royal Canadian Legion, Jasper, AB
March 19 – Red Brick Arts Centre, Edson, AB
March 21 – The Royal, Nelson, BC
March 23 – Cowichan Theatre, Duncan, BC

            After an autumn that saw him pick up his second Latin Grammy Award, launch his new album in front of more than 700 people at Toronto’s Koerner Hall, and sell out his debut performance in Bogota, Colombia, Alex Cuba is hitting the road once again for the second leg of his Ruido En El Sistema / Static in the System launch tour.

Read the rest of this entry »