arts northumberland

Renowned jazz vocalist joins youth orchestra for ‘Home for the Holidays’

2009-11-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

La Jeunesse Youth Orchestra rings in the festive season with symphonic jazz, as vocalist Michael Danso joins the Orchestra for ‘Home for the Holidays’ on November 29.
Now in its eleventh season, Port Hope-based LJYO continues to grow, with 36 members this year along with nine adult coaches. Members this year come from as far as Oshawa, Lindsay and Castleton.
The holiday concert will include symphonic favourites such as Carol f the Bells, selections from The Nutcracker Suite, and six pieces specially arranged by woodwind coach David Tanner, featuring the full orchestra and internationally renowned jazz vocalist Danso.
Known around the world for his stage roles in Riverdance and Jesus Christ Superstar, Danso has also performed as a vocal soloist with many symphony orchestras.
“Danso’s remarkable voice combines the warmth and silky soulfulness of Nat King Cole with the panache of Sammy Davis Jr.,” wrote Andy Cooper in the Regina Leader Post.
“Danso’s gifts as a performer defy description, his vocal range is immense, his stage presence commanding,” says reviewer John Ware in Portfolio Magazine.
In ‘Home for the Holidays’, Danso will perform Baby It’s Cold Outside, Winter Wonderland, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and other seasonal classics.
“LJYO will undoubtedly be positively affected by this incredibly seasoned performer, who has appeared with orchestras all over the world,” says LJYO Music Director Michael Lyons.
‘Home for the Holidays’ takes place at 7 pm on November 29 at the Port Hope United Church. Tickets are $20, $15 for students, $50 for a family, available at 1-866-460-LJYO, at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope and at Victoria Hall in Cobourg.

Colborne artist wins Governor General’s Literary Award

2009-11-18T13:55:00.000-08:00

Colborne artist Jirina Marton has won a Governor General’s Award for Illustrated Children’s Literature, for the book Bella’s Tree.The awards were announced on November 17 in Montreal, and will be presented by Governor General Michaëlle Jean at Rideau Hall on November 26. Each award includes a prize of $25,000. In Bella’s Tree, “Jirina Marton’s illustrations invite the reader to a winter landscape full of textures and subtle, earthy colour palettes,” says a Canada Council news release. “The Van Gogh-like interior and its warm tones create a holiday season mood that evokes an emotional response.”
Marton has a distinguished career as an illustrator, and was a finalist for a Governor General’s award in 2007. She is also a member of the Colborne Art Gallery, where original oil pastel illustrations for Bella’s Tree are now available.
Born in Czechoslovakia, she began drawing at the age of three, but she recalls that her first artistic expression – on a freshly painted kitchen wall – earned her a spanking. She soon became wiser in her choice of drawing media.
After attending art school in Prague, she emigrated to France, worked in Paris, and eventually settled in Canada. Her illustrations now grace dozens of books, including Marja’s Skis, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in 2007, and The Bear Says North: Tales from Northern Lands, a Silver Birch Award selection in 2005.

Death In Venice – Haunting Delicacy.

2009-10-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

by Walter Luedtke

It has been argued that all you need for drama is one actor and four walls and Robert Latimer’s one-man turn as von Aschenbach at the Capitol delivered the proof. Latimer had already given a stellar impersonation of David Hare in Via Dolorosa three years ago and this performance was every bit its equal.

Death In Venice, Thomas Mann's 1911 novella about an elderly man's obsession with a boy, is a work of exquisite craftsmanship – ‘a tale of gentle sorrow and violent emotions, tortured intellectual rigor and guilty homo-erotic rapture’. Latimer’s subtle and achingly restrained performance, managed to do justice to the haunting delicacy of Mann’s language.

Latimer’ s craft was equal to the versatility demanded by a solo turn playing a fastidious German aesthete as well as assorted porters, tourists, and gondoliers. He produced the appropriate accents and gestures – sometimes violent, but mostly controlled with a slightly hunched back and arms tightly pressed to his sides.

And then came the heart-stopping “theatrical moment”, when Aschenbach is driven to burst out "I love you." and brings his hand to his lips as if to stop the words that have already escaped. Theatre pure!

One of the many things to be admired in Latimer’s work as an actor and director is the infinite care he brings to his task. On this occasion it was sleuthing and many trans-Atlantic phone calls to locate the play in manuscript form – it has not been published yet. The result is yet another Canadian premiere of an internationally acclaimed play in Port Hope.

Equally painstaking is his selection of the evocative music – this time resurrecting the voice of Joseph Schmidt, the famed German lyric tenor.

As with all First Stages presentations, Death in Venice was a staged “concert reading without the benefit of lengthy rehearsals and with a minimum of costumes or props, in this case two tables, two chairs, a coat rack.

A play reading experience has been compared to watching a radio play unfold, with the emphasis on the spoken word, that provides the spark to ignite the imagination of the audience.

Serious, professional world theatre, painstakingly presented to a devoted, yet still too small, audience - that is First Stages.

The Forsyth Report: The Road to Mecca at First Stages

2009-10-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

What a powerful play and what powerful performances.
When you consider that the play The Road to Mecca by South African playwright, actor, novelist and director Athol Fugard is about an old woman who is a friendless, somewhat odd – actually a lot odd - artist who lives alone in the home she calls Mecca and that the play is all about her art and its effect on the community in which she lives, it’s easy to wonder how this will work as a play reading when you can’t see the art. It’s the play Robert Latimer chose to start the 2009-10 First Stages Theatre Company season and believe me, it worked.
The character of Helen Martins, whose Mecca is a place of love, refuge and memories, is based on the life of the real Helen Martins of Nieu Bethesda, South Africa. The inside of her house was a kaleidoscope of coloured glass and outside in the garden were more than 200 strange sculptures of owls, biblical figures, buddhas and ancient gods and goddesses. The neighbours thought she was nuts and her stuff a blight, the local church minister tries to persuade her to move to a retirement residence and her friend, perhaps the only one she has and to whom she has sent a plaintive note suggesting suicide, drives hundreds of miles non-stop to find out what gives. The result is Fugard’s examination of what it means to be an artist, what it means to be older and what it means to be shunned. It’s an exploration of the question we also may face: should we be forced/persuaded to leave our home when we are perceived to be unable to take care of ourselves?
What a powerful play and what powerful performances by the three actors, directed, of course, by Robert. Maria Heidler played Miss Helen, Godric Latimer-Kim played her friend Elsa Barlow and the Reverend Marius Byleveld was played by Sven Van de Ven. All the action takes place in Miss Helen’s living room and every second was riveting. The entire audience was rooting for her and there wasn’t a person in the house who wasn’t ecstatic when Miss Helen reveals her true strength and decides to stay in her Mecca.
The real Helen Martins committed suicide in 1975 and today her home, known as The Owl House, has been proclaimed a national monument and is a Mecca for artists and tourists.
Don’t miss First stages next production: an adaptation of Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. It will be a not-to-be-missed experience performed and directed by Robert. It’s at the Capitol Theatre on Sunday October 18th at 3:00 p.m. The box office is 905.885.1071 or 1.800.434.5092.
See you there.
Selena Forsyth

The Ramblin Rose Report: Spirit of the Hills 3rd Annual Photography Show

2009-09-03T06:18:00.000-07:00

3 by 3 -- 3rd showing and 3 local winners reprise a winning event
Taking in the 3rd annual Photography Show at the Spirit of the Hills event timed to coincide with the Warkworth Long Lunch was a cool way to spend a sweltering Sunday in August.
The Warkworth streetscape gleamed with white canvas shade cover and long checkered tables as the lunch was served up yet again under a sun-drenched sky.
Some of the really interesting action took place in the 31 Main Street Offices of J. Bruce Taylor Accounting, however -- not a venue that would appear at first glance to lend itself lightly to fine art visuals. But J. Bruce Taylor is a smart cookie, so right along with the rest of Warkworth's main street, his storefront was open for viewing staffed by Spirit of the Hills regulars.
The 3rd place finalist, Bob Leahy, has long been a vibrant part of the local arts scene, producing and showing some stunning photos of the surrounding area: his offering for 2009 was sold before the show was over and off the wall like it had legs of its own. The Ten Horses depicted in his entry faced in every direction in a snowy landscape, somewhat symbolically for these times -- change comes to us from unexpected quarters, frequently in a flurry and at speed.
Jennifer Gibson took home the 2nd place honours for depicting "Essence" - a floral closeup writ large on a pristine background. It was a summery note in a panorama of chills: the humid scented air flowing through the display space could have been a surrounding greenhouse for her dewy, cool-toned work.
Winter scenes swept us away to a brisk, chilly February day once again with the winning entry, by Gerald (Jerry) Taylor. The ambient temperature dropped by ten degrees while we viewed this piece -- the biting, snow-laden wind seemed to drift right out of the image into the display area. Looking at this, one forgot entirely the damp and warm August day and came back to the present with a start, shivering a little in the sudden heat. The evocation of an often cold and lonely day on the farmstead, entitled "Bad Day for Chores" surely earned its ranking in this excellent show.
Warkworth and Spirit of the Hills have long been kind to the photographers among them. Such kindness is clearly reciprocated by the talent emerging locally. The town boasts a strong arts presence with many established, long time artists and artisans operating there, encouraging newcomers and wooing the summer crowds back to visit in the shoulder seasons, perchance to dream a seasonal cycle round.

The Ramblin Rose Report: Rhythm and Form, work by Claus Heinecke and gallery artists.

2009-09-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

Rhythm: in Art, Literature. a patterned repetition of a motif, formal element, etc., at regular or irregular intervals in the same or a modified form.

Form: Fine Arts.
a. the organization, placement, or relationship of basic elements, as lines and colors in a painting or volumes and voids in a sculpture, so as to produce a coherent image; the formal structure of a work of art. b. three-dimensional quality or volume, as of a represented object or anatomical part. c. an object, person, or part of the human body or the appearance of any of these, esp. as seen in nature: His work is characterized by the radical distortion of the human form.

Claus Heinecke's current exhibit at the Colborne Art Gallery features long, languid rhythms, coupled with sinuous forms like a single plant from a kelp forest still swaying in the aquamarine currents of its native home; short, graceful strokes curving compact and tidy like a songbird, enlarged to readily viewable size; rounded fullness of a gravid female torso carefully coaxed out of the wood in such a way as to allow the strong grain to delineate those parts of
the whole which most need to be emphasized.

The sculptures are delightful - warmly coloured, inviting touch, suggesting a silkiness that belies the splintery and knobbly native woods they are made from.

Paintings accompany them: uses of the same forms and rhythms, developing from a quickly sketched and deft study into a fleshed out and carefully executed portrait, and then into a rough 3D form, finally emerging completely into its finished three-dimensional presence

This exhibit depicts not just the final products of a creative force dedicated to the sensuous look and feel of well-executed art, but the process by which these reach that state of grace. An eminently satisfying show on many levels and well worth a second visit.

Summer display for 'Winter's' quilts

2009-08-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

by Peg McCarthy, Northumberland News
Art born of necessity is on display at the Art Gallery of Northumberland, in Victoria Hall.
Quilter Dorothy Winter has created new works for her current show in the Paul Kane Gallery, with one quilt in the main gallery that complements sculptural work by Frances Gage.
What was once a cheap source of bedding, quilts have evolved into an art form, said Ms. Winter, one which she calls "an original recycling success of pioneering" that re-uses scraps of material to create blankets and covers. A single quilt can take three months.
Never an artist or a sewer, said Ms. Winter, she worked at covering beds, then walls, in her eastern Ontario farmhouse in the 1970's.
"I became lost in admiration with the designs and colours of these little pieces," she said, adding quilters have never had sufficient appreciation of their stitched art.
Ms. Winter has always kept the stitching simple, but that said, her designs are intricate and each quilt has its own story to tell. Working entirely on her own, by choice, Ms. Winter has let the fabric lead her, and she's inspired by the material and the Ontario countryside.
"I greatly admire other people's work, but I try not to be influenced. I want something entirely from me."
And as fabric stores quietly disappear, Ms. Winter buys what catches her interest, and then lets the design flow from the bits and pieces, and hopes there is still enough available material to complete the quilt. Sometimes she's inspired by the everyday.
"My husband's ties constantly fell from the rack to the floor," she smiled, as she recalled asking men for their unused ties. "Before long, I had hundreds and I felt obliged to do something with them.
"A tie is a statement about a man - like the facts of a personality."
Sorted into colour and type of fabric, designs took form. In one quilt, they form a kind of colour wheel.
"There is so much symbolism in art - the circle is perfect, the square further away."
She works with opposing elements and sets them in a way to express balance, "in nature, in ourselves, the different aspects and pulls in our own nature - what we do to achieve tranquility."
It's serious work, but she admitted the "fudge factor is big". Trial and error, and her experience all have a part in each quilt. When one is completed, "it's at the stage where there's nothing I would change. When it just looks right and when anyone could look at it and feel they could do that," needle and thread are put down.
Dorothy Winter: Recent Quilts runs in the Paul Kane Gallery until Aug. 29. An opening reception is Saturday, Aug. 22, from 2 to 4 p.m. For more information, call 905-372-0333

Dorothy Winter – Recent Quilts

2009-08-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

Dorothy Winter – Recent Quilts in the Paul Kane Gallery August 1st - 29^th, opening reception, Saturday, August 22^nd.

Quilt maker Dorothy Winter has found new inspiration in men’s decorative ties. These wall-hung quilts are a fascinating study in pattern and a model of artistic recycling.

Frances Gage At The Art Gallery Of Northumberland

2009-08-05T03:41:00.000-07:00

Frances Gage: Unlikely Paradise, August 1st - 29th, Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg. Reception and book launch at 85th birthday celebration, Saturday, August 22, 2:00 to 4:00 pm. Frances Gage has lived in Cobourg for 10 years and in that time has become an integral part of the community. Prior to our arrival in our midst, Gage gained wide recognition as one of Canada's leading sculptors. The recently finished biography by Alan Butcher is being published this summer. This exhibition is an honor of this event. The launch of her biography “Unlikely Paradise” coincides with her 85th birthday.

Life Drawings of Winter, Upstairs Gallery, Port Hope.

2009-08-05T03:25:00.000-07:00

In the winter, ten accomplished artists gathered for weekly life drawing sessions with a variety of models.

These are some of the artists at the opening.

The drawings are in charcoal, graphite, ink and conte.

Cobourg sculptor celebrating 85th birthday with exhibit

2009-07-27T04:10:00.000-07:00

Peg McCarthy, Northumberland News--
A local sculptor is never without the tools of her trade.
"The only thing I can do is work with my hands," said Frances Gage, who turns 85 on Aug. 22. Ms. Gage is the subject of the new biography 'Unlikely Paradise - The Life of Frances Gage' by Alan D. Butcher, also a Cobourg resident.
"Just don't believe everything you read," smiled Ms. Gage. "We had to make it a good story."
A description of the biography says that much of her life, "was spent living and sculpting in appalling conditions, which too frequently saw happiness turn to ashes; a blossoming love affair withered and died; paradise became hell... her life seemed one of continual sacrifice.
"Only in the end could she look back, and in spite of everything, say with a wry smile that she had gained a somewhat unlikely paradise."
That current paradise contains her two indoor cats and a dog with attitude, in an old house on Ball's Lane, surrounded by flowers, birds, vines and a pond. Her studio is an old garage and it's filled to the brim. She said she could spend all her time working in her garden.
Born in 1924 in Windsor, Ont., Ms. Gage spent two years in the Royal Canadian Navy in the "secret service" before she entered the Ontario College of Art. Torn between music, medicine and art, she settled on the latter, and specialized in sculpture once she had her first taste of the three-dimensional discipline.
The artist followed that with two years in New York studying at the Student Art League - so poor that at times she survived on canned dog food - followed by an 18-month scholarship at the l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
From 1957 to '59, she worked in Tom Thomson's Toronto "shack" - basically a tool shed, but bathed in the atmosphere of the Group of Seven, and then built her Birch Avenue studio, financed in exchange for The Bear, a seven-foot tall concrete sculpture. Her real paradise was meant to be 25 acres she bought at Crosshill, where she lived from 1971-87. She moved to Cobourg in 1998.
Along the way, Ms. Gage has battled alcoholism, a disease that runs in her family. But in her wake are more than 500 pieces of sculpture, including a twice-life size sculpture and four walnut relief panels at Fanshawe College, in London, Ont.; a portrait relief of Dr. Bertram Collip for the University of Western Ontario; crests for the Metro bridges in Toronto; and 'Woman', a carerra marble sculpture for Women's College Hospital. Ms. Gage's work has been shown in Florence, Italy; Colorado City; Helsinki, Finland; and London, England.
Hers has been a life using the creative side of her brain, and then letting her hands, "do their own thing," with shape and material. She loves the marble she used for Woman, which came as a 3,000 pound lump from Italy.
"It blew my mind - it was naked in the hold of a ship."
Ms. Gage continues to work and just this spring, saw an installation of an abstract piece in Victoria Park.
"I'm still doing what I want to do, most of the time. The life I lived has been hard, lovely, depressing, elating, but I'm very fortunate to do what I want."
Ms. Gage's birthday and the book will be celebrated at an Art Gallery of Northumberland event on Saturday, Aug. 22, from 2 to 4 p.m., which coincides with an exhibit of her work. For more information, call the gallery at 905-372-0333.

Alf Blything remembered

2009-07-26T03:34:00.000-07:00

By Ted Amsden/Northumberland Today.
Family, friends and former business associates filled the nave of Cobourg's Calvary Baptist Church as well as the basement Thursday afternoon for the service honouring the late Alf Blything. It was a celebration presided over by Reverend Andrew Truter.
Blything died Monday, July 20 at age 74.
Born July 4, 1935 in Birkenhead, England, he was the youngest of seven children. He had two brothers and four sisters.
Blything served with the English army in Egypt for two years before returning to England to work in the accounting office of Unilever.
It was at this time he met Edna, his wife of 50 years. They live in England, in Port Sunlight, for another five years before emigrating to Canada in 1963.
They began their Canadian life in Sault Ste. Marie. Blything started out with Algoma Central Railway but he soon took exams to work in the federal government and began a long career with the Employment and Immigration department.
A brief stint in Parry Sound followed, then, in 1978, he and Edna moved to Cobourg where he work for the government until his retirement.
Blything was a very active community participant. He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce board, chair of the Art Gallery of Northumberland and part of the founding board of the Northumberland Community Futures Development Corporation.
He was a member of the Cobourg Rotary Club for over 30 years, and served as president in 1984.
After his r e t i re m e n t , Blything pursued his love of art with great enthusiasm and enjoyed much local acclaim for his intricately detailed drawings and lively paintings.
He was a member of the Cobourg Art Club and as well an energetic member of the Colborne Society of Artists.
Blything's niece Susan Freeman presented the family tribute at the funeral. She said her uncle embodied "the true meaning of the word public servant."
Among the many adjectives she used to describe his character, she mentioned "generous, adventurous, honest..., a man of faith; a spiritual man."
Blything was "the heart and centre of the family," Freeman said.
While the Blythings did not have children, he loved them and would goof around with them, build snowmen, sing carols, encourage their creativity, and employ his own nonsense poem to great effect many times: "Chuff, chuff. Woo woo. Second verse, same as the first".
Ernie Everingham, a fellow Rotarian and Blything's best friend, gave the eulogy.
What stood out repeatedly from his comments, and what was most evident in the slide show of photographs presented on a big screen before the service, was that around Blything, everyone smiled -- as did he in every photograph.
Blything was a bit of a jokester. He could easily ignore sticking to whatever the script of moment was when a twist of his inventive imagination would inspire something more humorous. Indeed, his best friend said, in best and most humorous sense, his "mind was strange".
"Pen in hand, he would sketch what he saw -- not what was there," Everingham said.
Blything was lover of celebration in the company of friends.
"He was caring, empathetic... generous with his time and his talents."
Truter revealed during his homily that Blything thought deeply about passages in the Bible and once came to him during a Rotary meeting with an insight that he hadn't thought of and because of this and other instances, he thought Blything, "had insight in matters spiritual that was most uncommon."

In Memoriam Alf Blything

2009-07-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

Known to many in the area, Alf Blything combined superior drafting skills with an eye for the unusual. His last exhibition at the AGN in 2006 was full of surprises and joy.

Alf Blything gave considerable time to develop a style that creates details with thought-provoking subject matter. Although he was a self-taught artist and continued to take workshops, his style remains his own.

His work possesses humour and tragedy - he has been called "the wizard of whimsy" - and reflects the artist's commitment to seeing things a little differently. His art has been selected for the annual Northumberland juried show on a regular basis.

He has a loyal following in Northumberland County where he was a well-known contributor to the local art scene, particularly in his association with the Colborne Art Gallery.

“Alf was a caring person and he cared especially for his fellow artists. He was always positive and supportive of their work. Our gallery meant a lot to him and we valued his leadership,” said Yoka Jeronimus, administrator of the Colborne Art Gallery.

"The landscape of Cobourg shifted with his not being around,“ said Dorette Carter, Curator/Director of the Art Gallery of Northumberland. “He had an energy about his art and living that you could feel whenever you were around him. He never lost his unique sense of humour which he applied to his incredibly detailed artwork. He was a gifted teacher who roused enthusiasm and commitment among his students.”

Rose Rambles into...Zed Woman and the City

2009-07-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

Two visits, 14 segments, heaven knows how many discrete pieces.
The first visit to this exhibit at the Colborne Art Gallery was overwhelming: the installation is frenetically busy, crowded with detail and media, a foaming-over bottle top with creative energy erupting everywhere you look.
The venue is small and the installation is large -- so the immediate feeling is one of being sucked into a whirlwind of found and developed art that starts at waist level and swoops ceilingward to tower over you, forcing you to look up and around. The effect is much as I imagine life in the centre of a manic, creative cityscape might feel.
And the city motif is pervasive: there are industrial steel bands curved, woven, photographed and shaped throughout; hanging paintings and photos of advertising; ceramic cityscapes twisted and bent into smaller sculptures that have a distinctly Dr. Suess-like feel; fabric office and apartment tower representations crowding the airspaces; wire frame figures both dancing in the air and seated in conference. The first time through, I found myself bewildered and intimidated by the sheer volume of pieces: only one or two items stuck out in my mind afterward.
One of the items that stuck was in the third ceramic sculpture: a toddler playing infant games with office towers and apartment complexes. The toddler wears nothing more than a thin metallic headband and a disturbingly adolescent
expression - her face is disconcertingly old on the pudgy, childish body. The detached, slightly sulky look of a bored teenager gazes at me over her shoulder while she creates havoc with several city blocks. Copper wire curls and curves ominously around her -- is she at one with the current of place and time, or is she the destroying goddess, capricious as a 2-year-old and deadly with irritable size and power?
The fibre and fabric segment of the installation was the other thing that stuck: a huge, wavering depiction of a downtown scene in many pieces, floating lightly in the air and billowing in the breeze like their real counterparts wavering behind heat waves rising off the pavements below.
Someone had said to me that the exhibit was a bit like walking into a graphic novel. That first visit was indeed much that way: graphic novels are not a venue; my age group has had a lot to do with, so at first glance, they seem alien and unknowable -- slightly repellant in their unfamiliarity and vexing in their unexpected density. Just like getting a literary work when the cover was screaming comic book, in fact.
A second visit was in order: the first provided too much to assimilate and far more to think about than I wanted in that particular week.
So the second visit was duly undertaken this afternoon, and this time, I brought along a friend who hadn't seen the work before. At best, my companion could explain a few things to me that I didn't understand about the exhibit, I thought - she's been to art school, which I have not done. At worst, she could drag my convulsing body across the street to the plain-vanilla-one-in-every-small-town-in-the-country restaurant and pour restorative liquids into me. Either way, I would
escape the surreal place inside the gallery with some of my wits intact.
My companion wasn't at all sure she liked the exhibit.
Neither am I. I Am fascinated, however. I don't like the Zed Woman figures depicting her birth, childhood, adolescence and womanhood much -- they are all disturbing in some way, their forms subtly out of true and distorted but shaped realistically enough in some spots that distortions are emphasized and feel a little threatening.
I do like the transformations of found objects and sundry bits and pieces into fanciful flora and fauna, and the photos on canvas -- especially the almost monochromatic ones. The collection piece I simply don't understand: I have never been able to grasp what is intentionally or accidentally communicated in such pieces, and therefore can spend hours puzzling over them, mentally playing with shape and form and heft and feel.
For me, the jury is still out: I am compelled to go back yet again.

John de Visser At The Art Gallery of Northumberland

2009-07-14T05:50:00.000-07:00

By Peg McCarthy, Northumberland News

Photo by Ted Amsden

A gift of 100 photographs to the Art Gallery of Northumberland has blossomed into a one-man show for a local and nationally-acclaimed photographer.

A selection of work by John de Visser currently hangs in the gallery, located on the third floor of Victoria Hall. Unframed, large, beautifully-composed, colour-saturated prints, made from transparencies and inter-negs, are a testament to the wholesomeness of Canada and the natural beauty of other parts of the globe.

The prints include Saskatchewan grain elevators, Muskoka cottages and lakes, race horses, and gardens, along with tranquil scenic shots of Holland and Europe.

"They came out rather well," said Mr. de Visser, 79, who is happy with the selection made by curator Dorette Carter.

He's heard good comments about the exhibit, which represents a tiny corner of his work.

The oldest of 10 children, Mr. de Visser came to Canada 57 years ago, having served his two years in the Dutch army. He worked as a bank teller, and a shipper at the Benjamin Moore paint factory. Visiting Niagara Falls with friends, he shot two frames on their roll of film and got it developed.

The owner of the photo shop asked who had taken those two frames, which he said were the best he'd ever seen of the falls, and talked de Visser into purchasing a camera. Without formal training, these were the humble beginnings of Mr. de Visser's thriving and productive career in photography.

At his wife's suggestion (to offset his mounting film and processing costs), he presented his work on Toronto to Maclean's magazine. It was not only snapped up for "a year's wage", but became a 16-page colour spread that won awards for the magazine and work for Mr. de Visser. It wasn't long before he packed in his day job.

"It was total luck, along with devotion and ambition," he said now.

Membership in the Toronto Camera Club honed his skills.

"I belonged to a small clique of photographers who got sent all over the place at a magazine's expense."

And photographers were allowed to maintain ownership of their images.

By the time Masterfile Photo Stock agency was created, Mr. de Visser had literally thousands of marketable images. He was their biggest seller and still markets through them. Now he's sitting on literally thousands and thousands of unorganized negatives and slides, which he hopes one day will be archived in Ottawa. With 65 books to his credit, most set in Canada, and a history of high-end magazine work, he can look back on his career and call the opportunities good chances to do a lot of interesting things.

Coffee table books on Muskoka are among his favourites, mostly for their financial rewards, but the book he remembers most is his first, which was made in collaboration with Farley Mowat. He calls it a lament for a way of life that no longer exists. Set in the old fishing villages on Newfoundland's south coast in the winter months, it chronicles in words and black and white photos the last leg of the life of the cod fishermen, struggling to make ends meet under the thumb of the plant owners.

'This Rock was in the Sea' has been printed three times and sold over 30,000 copies.

Never needing a studio and seldom using flash, most of Mr. de Visser's work was done out-of-doors. He prefers morning or evening shooting, but said with a tripod, he can make pictures using any kind of light. Recently, he succumbed to the digital format, but for most of his career used 35 mm and shot transparencies, the standard for magazine and coffee table book reproduction.

"I don't want to spend hours in front of a computer - in fact, I don't even own one."

Mr. de Visser will talk about his work on Saturday, July 18, at 7 p.m., in the Art Gallery of Northumberland. For more information, call 905-372-0003.

Port Hope Gallerist Aurelie Collings loves her work

2009-07-09T03:46:00.000-07:00

Peg Mccarthy/Northumberland News
From pediatric neuro-psychologist to gallery curator, Aurelie Collings has always been an art collector.
Her almost four-year-old A.K. Collings Gallery, on John Street, Port Hope, has held the work of emerging and established Canadian artists, and from the beginning, she wanted to "set the bar high" for her exhibits.
Ms. Collings' initial plan held a place for separate types of exhibits - for established and accessible artists; for emerging and maybe challenging artists; for those from farther afield - with none of the groups mutually exclusive.
Her passion is grounded promoting the artist and their show, which she considers a narrative story, their ongoing work, and the tastes of her patrons. She believes in showing work that isn't often available to the small town gallery. Ms. Collings is convinced that good art elevates everyone, and she says, "I'm not interested in having an art supermarket."
Hence Ms. Collings is not an art dealer by trade, but an art champion who wants to show each of her artists in the best possible light, in person, in her gallery - not just on the Internet - with receptions where artists need to articulate about what they do, how and why.
She also likes to pair showings, adding three-dimensional art to complement other art forms.
"A lot of artists are dubious at first, and the art world can be very cliquey, but (the collaborations) have been very successful.
"It really satisfies my creative urge. I'd be bored otherwise."
Situated close to Toronto, but encompassed by rural and small town Northumberland, Ms. Collings said she can't imagine any other community that rivals Port Hope. Admitting she might sell more work if she was in the city, the trade-off is the environment.
And with successful showings under her belt, she's gained confidence in her esthetic judgement and feels like she can take more chances. Every single show brings its own magic, she said.
Nervous ahead of time, industrious while hanging the work, then thrilled - "I always think every show is the most beautiful one yet" - and then depressed when it comes down, "It's just a roller-coaster," she laughed.
"I haven't had a single show that I wasn't completely committed to - I have a great sense of satisfaction."
The current economic climate has had an impact. Some of the large city galleries are struggling, said Ms. Collings, and some of her own patronage has disappeared for the time being, and she feels it's doubtful it will come back.
Ms. Collings also does art consulting for private and commercial clients, which helps the business, and means she can continue with most important project - her gallery.
Opening Sunday, July 5, is 'Home Court Advantage', featuring work by Melanie MacDonald. This emerging artist fits the mold for the type of person Ms. Collings likes to promote - a young person who has a strong workmanlike attitude and who has continued to produce since she first saw her four years ago.
"I like to see the thread of something the artist is exploring. Melanie is fantastic. She's really someone to watch."
The exhibit of hyper-real acrylic paintings has themes of both domesticity and board games, wrapped in a vintage '70s imagery that is familiar, off-kilter and highly realistic.
The A.K. Collings Gallery, 35 John St., Port Hope, is open Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m., and by appointment. Call 905-885-2001.

2009-06-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

At the Golden Beach At Show - seeking shade!

2009-06-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

At the Golden Beach Art Show.

2009-06-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

At the Golden Beach Show - Brenda Sullivan - potter.

Spirit Of The Hills Tries Art Show And Sale At Golden Beach Car Event

2009-06-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

During last weekend, we went to visit the art show and sale put on by Spirit of the Hills at the huge annual auto show at Golden Beach. The show was organized by Beth Rhind and was regarded by her as a bit of an experiment. The weather was a problem on Saturday with pouring rain, but on Sunday it was sunshine and very warm temperatures. All in all, 10 artists from the spirit of the Hills participated in the display attractively presented in a spacious tent.

We had a chance to talk to two of the artists. Perhaps their response could be regarded as typical of those who showed off their art at Golden Beach. "This is the first time that we have tried to be part of a car show, but in my experience, mixing art shows with other events does not work. I have been at the Shelter Valley Folk festival and jazz festivals and there the arts are a sideshow to the entertainment. Even arts shows and antiques shows don't mix. It's really tough to know your market place, but I still think that arts shows work best on their own.”

“Actually, we were hoping to see more Americans, because Americans tend to spend more.”

The other artist noted that "I have introduced myself to a half-dozen people who did not know me before and they may come to my studio. They took my card and I might just get a call. And you don't want to miss the opportunity either"

The candid responses of the two exhibitors are a good indication of the difficulties that visual local artists face in finding a market for their art. Our visual arts organizations are constantly on the lookout for suitable venues to showcase their ‘products’. And like Beth Rhind, they have to be ready to experiment. As one of the Spirit of the Hills artists put it, "you never know until you try it".

Brighton Arts Council Show And Sale

2009-06-23T14:25:00.001-07:00

So much to see!

Brighton Arts Council Show And Sale

2009-06-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

Ron Waddling and rabbit friend.

The Ramblin Rose Report: Many Artists At Brighton Arts Council Show and Sale

2009-06-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

With the skies opening up for the last day of spring rain Brighton Arts Council’s show and sale that was to be hosted at Proctor House was relocated to the King Edward Park Community Centre. BAC President Malcolm Schofield along with other members spent most of Friday getting the shows displays ready for the show.
A large representation of the over one hundred members of the BAC showed off their talents and artistic abilities. Painters are always a strong and colourful showing. With portraits and landscapes painters working in oils and acrylics inspired smiles and awe. The watercolours splashed colour on land and lane and washed away the grey skies outside.
The photographs and the prints show the local and the studied spaces with a well focused eye and an experienced hand. Fantastical fractals play graphically amongst traditional art of the hand. Decorative painters imbuing wood with traditional European images as animals grew out of carved wood to gather atop tables.
Janice Daniels and Kerry Burke demonstrated a fine hand at rug hooking and fibre spinning. Ron Waddling and his bunny friends set up a easel and posed and painted their cottontails off.
New faces and new talents were showing for the first time along with unique artistic crafts like decorative eggs and jewellery.
A barrel organ grinder entertained the artists and the adoring crowds of fans.
Brighton Arts Council welcomed the Brighton branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario and the Brighton Horticultural Society as they would have felt at home at Proctor House their enthusiasm might have inspired some new ideas.
Brighton Arts Council will participate in several shows over the summer in Brighton and around Northumberland. RGG

2009-06-11T02:54:00.000-07:00

“Zed Woman and the City”

2009-06-11T02:48:00.000-07:00

“Zed Woman and the City” opening Saturday, June 20th 2:00 – 4:00 pm at the Gallery The Colborne Art Gallery, an exhibition of work by Annie McDonald & gallery artists. The show will be on through August 2nd, 2009..

Zed Woman and the City – Annie McDonald

My interest is presenting sculpture in a theatrical environment, so that viewers will participate in developing narrative while moving through the exhibit. I search the everyday to find the mythic.

Zed Woman and the City is an exploration of one mythic figure's transformative powers; the show resembles walking into a graphic novel. Several mediums are employed to make the work, from stone and ceramics to fabrics and wire. The city is a trope to depict relationships of humanity with environment.

My interest is presenting sculpture in a theatrical environment, so that viewers will participate in developing narrative while moving through the exhibit. I search the everyday to find the mythic.

Just who is Zed Woman? She is the great composite of qualities in people I admire: my very personal super hero. Zed Woman first appeared in a small stone sculpture of a very large woman that was completed in 2004. She is at once huge, elegant and powerful. A subsequent ceramic wall piece entitled "Flight" (2008) featured a woman who seemed to be the same figure. I came up with a myth about a feral child who could and did effect change. I have attempted to make her visible. She embodies the spirit of invention, resourcefulness, will and optimism. She is the very best of each of us, and provides an invitation for viewers to find these ideals… these absolutes.

She was born in isolation to a mess of a place and makes changes to the city, beginning with what she finds there! She looks for openings and follows her heart before following the rules. She is the Arts and she is the Sciences. She is a Healer and inspires Community. She is at the end of the alphabet, a last chance and our best bet for the future!

Historic Molson’s Mill Celebrates its 8th Summer Program

2009-05-26T03:43:00.000-07:00

The Old Art School (Molson’s Mill) in Port Hope will once again be transformed into a spectacular music, art and drama program for children 6-13 this summer. Celebrating its 8th successful summer JTTA’s Summer Program has attracted over 1,000 children to its picturesque location along the Ganaraska River. Throughout July and August budding artists, actors and musicians flock to the mill to experience the widest range of arts interaction in Northumberland. Guitar strings are plucked, paintings are created, plays are performed and songs are composed under the guidance of Ontario College of Art and Design graduate Christine Benson, local musician and guitar instructor Mike Woods and York University acting graduate Sarah Foord all Port Hope natives. JTTA was founded in 2002 as a way to promote the importance of music, art and drama as staples in a child’s growth and development.
The Summer Program is housed inside a wonderful mill that in 1924 became part of a very colourful chapter in the history of Canadian art. From 1924-1941 it was the Ontario College of Art Summer School which was organized and taught by renowned Canadian artist J.W. Beatty. During that time it was a formative experience for young art students who have described their summers at the mill as “the best in their lives”.
This history combined with the exciting projects, performances and friendships formed provides children with an unprecedented experience in the arts. JTTA’s 2009 Summer Registration is now open. Please attend our Registration Day on Saturday, June 6 from 10:00-11:00. For more information please visit www.journeythroughthearts.com or email journeythroughthearts@bellnet.ca

The Forsyth Report - The Woolgatherer

2009-05-26T03:37:00.000-07:00

Hailed as “a truly hysterical play, in both the funny and the crazy sense of the word this award-winning "dram-edy" is set in South Philadelphia and revolves around Rose and Cliff, two half-crazy people searching for love in a world gone mad.”
Hypersensitive Rose is haunted by her past and obsessed by destruction. She has compassion for everything--from the chair she rescued from the curbside to the dead cactus she won't throw out, because, as she says hopefully, "You never know."
Rose works behind the candy counter of the five-and-dime, and dreams of true love and how she'll meet a man one day who doesn't smoke, drink, curse or make fun of her, a guy "with a smile you can hang onto," someone she can speak to "without words."
Instead, she encounters the fast-talking, wisecracking Cliff, a transcontinental truck driver waiting for his rig to be repaired, who wanders into her store looking for some wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am action. He’s a beer-swilling, wannabe parachute jumper who mocks Rose, her dilapidated apartment and her antiquated value system, even as he tries to seduce her.
Despite their seeming incompatibility this odd couple is drawn together by a mutual fear of commitment and by a longing for love. While Cliff is perplexed by Rose's oversensitivity and her love of poetry, he senses he can trust her. And while Rose is repelled by Cliff's vulgarity, she respects his desire for "life before death" and his way of laughing off the everyday tragedies.

I went to see The Woolgatherer at the Capitol Theatre and I can tell you that Lauren Page Russell and Beau Dixon are extraordinary in what must be very difficult parts to nail down. They nailed ‘em. I saw Lauren last year in “The Last Five Years” and Beau in “The Full Monty”. Casting them together in The Woolgatherer is inspired, as is Tim Russell’s direction. Tim is Lauren’s dad, an actor and the technical genius at the Capitol theatre whose directing skills are very exciting. Sincerely hope he does more.

Selena Forsyth.

Proust Up Close and Intimate.

2009-05-13T03:01:00.000-07:00

I just had time to peruse another exhibition I almost literally stumbled upon – ‘Cher Ami…Marcel Proust in the Mirror of his Correspondence’, an exhibition of the Munich Literaturhaus. The Paris Biblitheca Proustiana had lent their treasures and the Institut Francais and the Munich Proust Society had made sure that they were shown tobest effect.

Our reading group had completed ‘Recherche de Temps Perdue' in its entire entirety and were better for it. Early on, we had recognized that Proust was one of the giants of the last century. What we did not know –a blessing perhaps - was that Proust was a manic letter writer. His correspondence was mountenous and he himself decreed that it should be destroyed after his death. But it was not.

From his letters emerges an author who throughout his life was plagued by prejudices and illnesses and to whom fame came late. Therefore we find in the letters constant reference to his work on Recherche. But it is especially the personal relationships and the exuberant and finely crafted assurances of friendship that lend charm to Proust’s correspondence.

The Bibliotheka Proustiana has 80 of these letters, many as yet unpublished and untranslated. These are now shown to the public for the first time.. There are also many manuscripts, rare photographs, portraits and sketches, signed books and documents. Manuscripts and books by the recipients of the letters found among the family, the friends, the colleagues and critics – all are brought together. The show is unique in that all the items are original; but we could hear it in German in an audioguide. It might have been better if they had been printed.

We could see Proust in the context of his time in theme displays such as: parents, childhood, school years; society life; friendships; ’years of reading’; ‘on the way to the novel’; years of writing; and literary life. Period films and commentaries by contemporaries fill the gaps.

I saw photos of Proust at various stages of his life, the famous cork-lined room, and old friends, like the church at Combray, the ‘front’ at Balbec, the opulent restaurants in the Bois du Boulogne, and the fashionable women at the Opera, whom Proust could skewer, but gently, in a paragraph.

But everything was on a small scale, small original photographs, the letters in original size encased in glass vitrines in a fitfully lighted room. There was much stooping and peering and many a wiped brow - no air conditioning.

In contrast, I saw a show on the life and letters of Herrman Hesse at the Leopoldinum in Vienna. It was a light, larger than life exposition; photographs blown up to poster size, copies of letters enlarged with printed copies beside. It was Hermann Hesse all over you. But, perhaps the smaller darker format made you work a little more, concentrate. And just like reading Proust lui meme it’s good for you.

A Haus For Literatur

2009-05-13T02:41:00.000-07:00

Munich has a house for books and in it a great café for people who want to talk about them. The city is the publishing metropolis in Germany and even Europe. It is nor surprise then that the three floors of the Literaturhaus on the historic Salvatorplatz in the heart of Munich, have been a haven for all things literary.

This is how the Literaturhaus describes itself: A meeting place for book-sippers and page-nibblers, movie-talkers and flaneurs, penny-a-liners and foehn detectives, frugal feasters and starving artists, radar thinkers and daydreamers, portly poets and docile fools, in short: A retreat in the thicket of the city for all who keep an ear out for jingles or simply wish to wait a little longer for Godot.

The Literaturhaus is a hub for public events centered around the book: a meeting point for writers, publishers, book distributors and journalists, an important facility for training employees in the publishing industry, an electronic document pool for contemporary literature. For all who write and read, it is a lively forum that takes up current issues as often as it addresses the fundamental questions raised within the literary and media scenes.

The Ladies Looking After The Home For Old Men - Frans Hals

2009-05-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

An Afternoon With Frans Hals And The Boys From Haarlem.

2009-05-13T01:45:00.000-07:00

On my last day, I spent a delightful afternoon with Hals and his pals in Munich’s Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, a long name for a state-of-the-arts exhibition space in a brand new, upscale shopping complex downtown.

That this facility sits cheek-to jowl with the likes of Hugo Boss, Ermenegildo Zegna, and Giorgio Armani is only fitting. Far too often the visual art museums are – is banished too strong a term? – to leafy regions far from the shopping action.

The gallery building was designed by Herzog and de Meuron, Swiss architects whose work on the Modern Tate Gallery in London made their reputation as museum specialists.

The exhibition, worked out with the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, is a German-first showing of masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age. Haarlem artists played a decisive role in the floswing of 17th-century Dutch painting. More than 120 works by artists like Hendrick Goltzius, Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruysdael, Pieter Saenredam, Jan Steen and others tell how a free market in art emerged and how artists began to specialize: portraits, landscapes, cityscapes, marinescapes, still-lifes and genre painting are all present in this show.

The arts in Haarlem went through an upheaval in the period from 1610 to 1630. Artists had to seek out new markets after the Reformation, when the Catholic Church ceased to be a major patron. Instead, city governments and newly rich burghers became the buyers. New subjects grew popular: the city, its countryside, food and utensils became now worthy and saleable subjects. The burghers themselves, from every social class, appeared in portraits and scenes from daily life.
The star of the show, Frans Hals (ca. 1581-1666), grew up in Haarlem and revolutionized portraiture.

His artistic genius set the tone for the entire genre by perfectly expressing movement and the individuality of the sitters. Hals was particularly adept at capturing a fleeting expression of joy and mirth, as in his Merry Drinker.

But the centre pieces of the show are two large collective male and female portraits , the supervisors of a home for indigent old men. Hals here displays his mastery of the sure, swift brushstroke and of the colour black – Van Gogh thought he could detect 27 shades of black. Black predominates in the portraits because it was the favourite colour for Calvinist fashion.

Although the sitters gaze about with serious mien, the portraits burst with life and intimacy, authenticity and immediacy. A beguiling detail is a lady’s hand turned just so to show off her ruby ring - and the lace, the lace!.

There were many other worthy samples of the arts of Haarlem’s Golden Age. The show breathed the optimism, confidence and joi de vivre of this special era of Dutch history. Your editor could not stifle a pang of jealousy, because its neighbor Germany at the time went through the agonies of the Thirty Years War.

Yet, out in Munich’s afternoon sunshine, we reflected that the arts of each country will surely have a Golden Age. Just as Canada’s is sure to come – in time.
Just a note on the Canadian contribution to it all - the large, black, floppy hats were made with our beaver pelts.

William Blake At The Petit Palais

2009-05-06T22:13:00.001-07:00

William Blake’s Arrows of Desire.

2009-05-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

After the ‘shock of the new and already seedy’ at the Pompidou, the William Blake show at the Petit Palais brought me back into lap of the familiar fin-de-siecle Parisian museums. The Grand and Petit Palais sit across from each other, the remnants of a World Exhibition, replete with now comic symbolic sculpture and gilt cast iron. Ah, the Frenchness of it all.
May I say here that the exteriors of the Alte und Neue Pinakothek in Munich are modest – the art is inside.

The William Blake show, perhaps appropriately, was in the basement below the opulence of the Beaux-arts objets that may have graced the salons of Madame Verdurin and the Duchesse de Guermantes.

At no time in his life was Blake a success as an artist or a poet. The show is subtitled as ‘The Visionary Genius of English Romanticism’ but the handout is a litany of failure – 1785: Blake submits paintings to the Royal Academy six times; 1789: his epic poem Tiriel is never printed; 1793: sale of illuminated books from his home sells 3 copies; 1809: one-man show brings in 6 visitors; 1822: the Royal Academy grants him 25 pounds because he is in ‘great distress’; 1827 death in his two-room apartment in London. Fame came posthumously thirty years after.
This May happens to be the 200th anniversary of that unmitigated failure of a one-man show, which pushed the artist into the withdrawn state of his later years, and set him on the way to almost a century of oblivion.

As the life, so the show. Visitors, - a lot more now than six - peer at book illustrations hung crowded together in small rooms. There are so many peerers that one has to stand in line to get a glimpse and one fears to linger.

But this gazing into his visual world of archetypes, with its symmetrical compositions, its strongly flat designs, its figures turned into geometrical shapes, its use of a cartoon language, brings revelations of genius.

There are more than 130 works on display including many of his celebrated water colours and prints: the Pity, Hecate, Newton and also his his illuminated books: Songs of Innocence and Experience, America a Prophesy, Europe a Prophesy, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Jerusalem.

We looked and marveled and left humming “Jerusalem”.

Lots of Kandinsky

2009-05-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

After a winter that saw people staying up all night to visit Picasso and the Masters at the Grand Palais, the Andy Warhol show at the same site is such a hit that they are planning 24-hour opening to cope with the crowds. De Chirico is packing them in at the Paris City Modern Art Museum. The Pompidou Centre has scored a smash with a mega-show of Kandinsky. William Blake is drawing crowds at the Petit Palais.

Your editor only had two days in Paris and, for the first, he chose the retrospective exhibition of the Russian/German/French painter Vassily Kandinsky at the Pompidou. Just a word about this – at the time – ultra-modern structure: it is all glass and pipes, huge pipes, large pipes and small pipes. The show is on the top floor and can only be reached by a series of escalators, which convey the visitors high above the peaked roofs of Paris –unsettling for any one afraid of heights, like me.

The artist peers out from a giant photo over the vast hall, welcoming visitors with an impassive gaze to the largest retrospective in two decades years of this nomadic Russian painter's vibrant, ecstatic and groundbreaking art.

The more than 90 works on display here trace Kandinsky's course through three wars, three marriages and three countries - Russia, Germany and France, where he died in exile at the end of World War II.

The powerful colours and fast-moving forms hanging on stark white walls of the Centre Pompidou belie the prim bearing of the son of a 19th century well-to-do Moscow merchant whose artistic journey into abstraction helped pioneer a new kind of painting.
The exhibition is itself an exceptional venture, drawing from the three largest public Kandinsky collections, owned by the Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim Museum of New York and the Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus of Munich.

The exhibition, already shown in Munich and travelling to New York in September, features figurative works starting in 1903 to his final painting, in 1942, Delicate Tensions, on loan from a private collection, with pale colours that reflect the ebbing of life. Together, they show that despite the visual fantasy there was nothing fanciful about this former law student's art work. Rather it evolved like a mathematical formula fed by inspiration.

In 1911, he and German painter Franz Marc created Blaue Reiter, or Blue Rider, an avant-garde movement which linked painting with music but was forced to an end as World War I erupted. However, horses, already featured in Kandinsky's earlier works, became significant if mysterious figures, sometimes used to depict flashes of movement.

Kandinsky didn't paint much during the First World War years, but in 1921 he was asked to join the staff of the forward-looking Bauhaus art school in Germany, and the chance to teach turned his creative asked lights up again. His theories about pure form and color became student exercises; this was when he started painting his signature hard-edged abstracts: bright, lighthearted, with their own internal logic. Black lines, now severely clear-cut, are a skeleton for vividly colored shapes on a pale background. New motifs appear: jagged saw teeth, rainbows, triangles, circles. Though none of these canvases have subjects, pictograms float through them — sometimes recognizable boats, creating structure with their masts and spars.
The writing on the walls told me that for Kandinsky, who actually studied the cells of mice for his art, "there is an infinitely large world and an infinitely small one.” After working with geometric shapes, he looked to "transcend geometry" with other forms.

In some paintings in his German years, often square, there seems to be neither a top nor a bottom.

Kandinsky died in France in 1944 at age 78. The Centre Pompidou acquired many of his works through Kandinsky's widow and third wife Nina.

Although there was no standing in line, the show was well attended, particularly by serious and rapt young Parisians and on the way down the escalators was worse than the way up.

The Forsyth Report: Three Tall Women

2009-05-02T21:15:00.000-07:00

I had not read Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women”. I did read the reviews on the Internet of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play and they all used superlatives to describe both Albee’s work and the actors who performed it. It was difficult though to imagine how it worked. Three actors playing A, B and C, the same woman at different stages of her life, and usually all three on stage at the same time. And then there was an actor who plays her son who doesn’t have a name either.

You’ll have to trust me that it all comes together very quickly. It’s one of those cases of “you had to be there”. And if you weren’t you missed yet another stunning production from First Stages Theatre Company and its fearless leader Robert Latimer. The actors – Corinne Conley, Jillian Cook, Godric Latimer-Kim (Robert’s daughter) and Sean Tasson as the son – were to have been directed by Maria Heidler who fell ill and Robert had to take over at noon on the day of the performance. The results of his nerve-racking, 11th - hour experience were spellbinding.

A is a very old woman in her 90s. She is thin, autocratic, proud, and wealthy. She also has a mild case of Alzheimer's disease.

B is A's 52 year-old version, to whom she is the hired caretaker. She is markedly cynical about life. Although she doesn't enjoy working for A, she learns much from her.

C is B's 26 year-old version. She is present on behalf of A's law firm because A has neglected paperwork, payment, and such. She has all of youth's common self-assurance.

The son comes to see his dying mother after many years of rarely visiting. His character speaks not one word but doesn’t need to.

Albee has admitted in interviews that the play was directly inspired by his mother, a ‘domineering, Amazonian woman’. He was raised by conservative New England foster parents who disapproved of his homosexuality; like the son in his play, he left home at eighteen. Albee admitted to the Economist that the play ‘‘was a kind of exorcism. And I didn’t end up any more fond of the woman after I finished it than when I started it.’’ He has described the writing of the play as "an exorcism."

Major treat at the Capitol Theatre. It was yet another First Stages afternoon to remember.

Robert’s next – and last of the season – play is Neil Simon’s “The Dinner Party”. And what a cast: Founder of First Stages Diana Reis, Jo-Anne Kirwin Cark, Amy Sellors, Thom Currie, Robert Latimer and his Artistic Associate Costin Manu who will also direct.

It’s on Sunday May 10th, at 3:00. Call the Capitol Theatre at 905.885.1071 for tickets. This is one dinner party invitation you will be glad you accepted.

Selena Forsyth

IKEA Plagiarism Gets Respect At the Pinakothek Der Moderne

2009-04-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Swedish retailer Ikea's approach to design not only revolutionized the way many Canadians live, it earned its own exhibition at Die Neue Sammlung - The International Design Museum in Munich.
With around 70.000 objects in its collections of industrial design, graphic design and the arts and crafts the Neue Sammlung is today one of the world's leading museums of 20th century applied art, and indeed the largest of industrial design. It is now the first museum to devote a major exhibition of Ikea objects.
Walking through the display is a bit like browsing through the Ikea Toronto store. But at the museum, the focus is not on kitchens, beds or children's furniture, but on design classics: chairs by Gerrit Rietveld and Michael Thonet, the famous String shelves and Bauhaus pieces by Marcel Breuer.
While other design exhibitions tout big names, this one - under the title "Democratic Design" - has a different claim to fame, summed up in a quote from a 1979 Ikea catalogue: "The aesthetic form is here for all. And not just for the museum!"
Corinna Roesner, one of the curators of the exhibition, has been quoted as saying that the combination of the museum's permanent design exhibition and Ikea pieces was particularly interesting, because visitors could recognize where many of the ideas came from for furniture pieces they are familiar with.
Since the end of the 1980s, the museum collected pieces from Ikea. The International Design Museum Munich, which presented the show in collaboration with Ikea. Half of the items in the exhibition come from the Neue Sammlung collection and the other half from the Ikea museum or private lenders."
It is one of the few design shows where a large number of visitors can say that they, too, own a design original. For most, it's the "Billy" shelves in white. They have been sold 28 million times since Ikea opened in 1948.
What came across to me, who has never owned a piece of Ikea, was that for many it was the realization of the age-old dream that beautiful things should be for everyone. This was goal of the German Bauhaus and the British Arts and Crafts designers. But it remained elusive; ‘design’ was always expensive.
But also, when the original design and the Ikea version stand side by side, it is obvious how boldly the blue-yellow furniture makers stole, cloned, and developed further the most beautiful concepts in the history of design. “Billy”, the shelf, is almost an exact copy of a prototype by Bruno Paul from 1908.
At any rate there could be no better advertising for Ikea and for the power of early 20th century European design carried around the world in this age of globalization.
For more information, click on http://www.die-neue-sammlung.de.

The Orphic Navel Of the World

2009-04-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

I was going to try it, but I saw the huge line-up in front of the “Berghain” nightclub in Berlin. And then of course I am 70 years old and the bouncers would not have let me in.
I really wanted to try it, because Berghain is the doyen of Berlin’s famous/notorious techno clubs.
This is how the experience was described to me: when one enters the cavernous hall that was formerly the power plant of Berlin’s Ostbahnhof railway station, it is always a shock and the techno music is cataclysmic. This cathedral of ecstasy, lit by blinding search and strobe lights, is transfigured into something vague and vast. There is a warren of bars, darkened alcoves for rest and lust, and in the middle from a lofty pulpit the charismatic DJ commands the writhing masses below.
One author has written, “Berghain opens its own space/time continuum”. One comes and goes to other discos, but here one stays. The rest of the world vanishes. In Berghain one is ‘out of area’.
Reading and writing these sentences, I am reminded of bacchic/orphic cults of antiquity, but this is modern about art and lust. It is about the arousal current crop of the children of our own civilization, the skillful manipulation of the reflexes of the brain stem with sound and light. And it is said to work magic.
But recently, the aesthetes and ‘Schoengeister’ have fastened on Berlin nightlife. Books are being written and the rusty industrial structures and symbol-laden no-man’s-lands are now the stuff of cultural and cultured discourse. The message sent by the cultural establishment is that techno is the glue cementing the weekly celebrations of Berlin’s idle and susceptible youth, offering the miraculous experiences of inclusiveness on and of the shedding of social roles, even a complete change of identities.
Now the more daring of the older hip professionals and the rasher cadres of the older bourgeoisie are advancing on the on what was used to a dirty and lust-driven refuge of the ‘others’. Ecstasy becomes art and the caves of forbidden or at least risky gratification are becoming a theme park of milder thrills. But globalization is unstoppable and soon bus tours will visit ‘the best club in the world’. Berghain is on the way of becoming another Moulin Rouge.
At least, that’s what I was told.

The “Off Theatre” Scene

2009-04-29T21:48:00.000-07:00

Germany is famous for lush subsidies for its civic and state theatres and opera companies, but in Berlin, the “off” or free theatres flourish.

“We are free in our courage and our risks, but not free in our responsibility in our art,” said the young lady on the other side of the Maxim Gorki Theatre. According to her, the free theatre scene has become ever more professional, international and short-lived.

Many artists who work here, have left the relatively secure, subsidized “official” theatres to be free of hierarchical structures, to pursue favourite projects and to work in a collective of like-minded, committed professionals. For that they will face insecurity and no small financial hardships. “I’d rather live on pogey than to be artistically unhappy. Freedom has its price!” declared the young lady.

Actually, the “off” scene started with a bit of seed money from the Feds and the city in the late 90s – since dried up. The money brought many ‘free” artists to Berlin from other centres and the ‘Off’ scene functions “on a miserable, but possible level”.

It turned out, that we could not see the scheduled show about the closing of a mine in former East Germany, with its shattering of the lives of its workers, - a typical sample of Maxim Gorki’s socialist realism. The reason was a Russian bomb buried since World War II – apparently there are still 3,000 of these relics – near Berlin’s most prestigious museums.

The police cordoned off all of the entire ‘Mitte’ district and I was able to parade down the centre of Unter Den Linden all by myself without any traffic.

However, the bomb was defused and I returned during the “Long Night” for a wildly unconventional staging of Kleist’s classic ‘Amphitryon’, outrageous by Soulpepper standards.

A Three Opera House Metropolis.

2009-04-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

I also attended the “Staatsoper Unter Den Linden” during the ‘Long Night of Opera and Theatre’. As was to be expected there was a good deal of good-natured pushing and shoving to get to the seats. Nothing very regal about any of it, although the house was built by King Frederick The Great in 1742, only few steps from his palace, the Stadtschloss. It was one of the must-haves of royalty to own an opera company at court.

The Staatsoper is a picture book house: much stucco and gilding, a splendid chandelier, red velvet seats and and elegantly curved balconies. I am told that the audience prizes a special evening out, not least to “see and be seen” during the intermission. When I at last had my glass of bubbly and had a moment to look about the lobby, the ‘crème’ of Berlin society was not in evidence, but rather surprisingly young and lively and opera sprouts, who opted for coke and lager.

I forewent the chance to visit the “Komische Oper”, also Unter den Linden. The original building fell victim to the bombs. It was also rebuilt by the Communists. The house reflects the splendour and tastes of its Berlin’s version of the “belle epoche’ in the 1890s. The Komische Oper attracts a younger public with its daring stagings of opera classics. In fact, I experienced one such version of Don Giovanni, where the cast spent more time lying about the stage than on their feet. Chacun a son gout!

The Deutsche Oper in the city’s West End was conceived in 1912 as the bourgeois riposte to the aristo Staatsoper – lots of Wagner being the antidote. It also fell victim to the bombs and was rebuilt in 1962 with conscious democrat intent. Whereas in the Staatsoper and the Komische Oper only the expensive seats see all of the stage (I never have!), all 1,800 seats in the Deutsche Oper have.

Actually, there is a fourth house, the Neukoellner Oper, located on the third floor above a movie theatre and a bowling alley on –appropriately – Karl Marxstrasse. There seriously underpaid artists offer programs considered by insiders to be more exciting than those of the operatic ‘supertankers’.

The Berlin Entertainment Scene – Beyond The Golden ‘20s

2009-04-28T22:49:00.001-07:00

I started the ‘Long Night’ in the Admiralspalast only one of the countless venues in the formerly Communist “Mitte” district of Berlin, offering musicals, ‘revues’, variety shows and cabarets, satire and music. Somebody counted and came up with 1,500 events each day. Although the “Golden Years’ of the ‘20s, captured in the musical “Cabaret” are long gone, I have to take the word of my informant that entertainment is alive and well and that the events are comparatively cheaper than in Paris, London or New York.

Flashing my WATERSHED magazine card, I wangled a few words with a harried assistant to the manager of the Admiralspalast. He told me that, “artists of all kinds flock to Berlin. I want to play Berlin. That’s what I hear over and over again.” As far as the public goes, “they want something daring.”

The Admiralspalast goes back to the fabled 20s, languished under the Nazis and the Communists and was re-opened in2006 with a notable ‘Three Penny Opera’. The term “palace” is taking things a little far, but there are three theatres with 3,400 seats, offering everything from high culture, to techno clubs and musicals. “Shrill, disrespectful and anarchic that’s what we want to be,” said the assistant.

The Master of Ceremonies for the evening was a piano virtuoso-cum-comedian who introduced an Icelandic operate tenor, an outrageous improve group worked their sketches around hints from the audience and the stars of the revival of the Broadway hit “the Producers”.

On the same street is the Friedrichstadtpalast, Europe’s largest variety show venue and next door is "Distel” – The Thistle – Germany’s most famous political cabaret. Founded in 1953, it survived the Communists and the fall of the wall. With a complement of 20 it is the country’s premier cabaret ensemble. Typically, the current show is called ‘Beyond Angela” – Merkel, that is, Germany’s Chancellor. It is supposed to be bitingly hilarious.

I did not find not find out, because it I was standing at the rear of a huge crush; it was 11:00 pm; it had been a long night and I missed it. Just as I missed another dozen shrill and naughty shows that make up Germany’s cabaret scene.

A Tour of the Arts, All in One Night

2009-04-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

One of the highlights of your editor’s current tour of the European theatre scene is this stellar event.

More than a decade ago, Berlin launched what would become a cultural sensation: the Long Night of Museums, in which the city’s museums stay open late twice a year. The nights have been such a rousing success that the plan has been copied in 120 cities.

Now the German capital’s performing-arts world is giving the concept a go. On Saturday, April 25, from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., 50 of Berlin’s stages will present a dizzying array of artistic fare during the First Long Night of Opera and Theater.

Starting from the event’s hub and headquarters on eastern Berlin’s Bebelplatz, shuttle buses will take visitors along seven different “theater routes” every 10 or 15 minutes — just in time for performances in disciplines ranging from classical theater and opera to dance, readings and cabaret. All venues are accessible with a single 15-euro ticket (15 euros if bought the day of the festival), and most shows are half an hour to an hour long.

Highlights include big-band numbers from the Berlin production of “The Producers” at the Art Deco venue Admiralspalast, and the Kabarett-Theater Distel’s “Beyond Angela,” a show that challenges Angela Merkel, the current German chancellor, in song and satire. On a more serious note are scenes from Goethe’s “Faust,” presented at the Deutsches Theater, and excerpts from Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain” on stage at the critically acclaimed Maxim Gorki Theater.

Much of the lineup is in German, but there’s plenty for those who don’t understand the language: The English Theater in Berlin presents a selection from English-language plays, including Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women,” and dancers from the State Ballet Berlin perform a set of new works.

Opera fans can hear samples of “The Magic Flute,” at the State Opera Unter den Linden, or, just up the street, arias and intermezzi from Verdi’s oeuvre, sung “salon style” at the Komische Opera. There’s even a night of Brazilian dance at the popular Hebbel am Ufer.

Those who want to keep the spirit going after midnight should head back to the event’s official after-party at the Admiralspalast and take a spin in a dance hall that dates back to 1910.

“We’re excited to see what happens,” said Gabriele Miketta, an event spokesperson. “Even regular theatergoers have been surprised about Berlin theaters they didn’t know about yet and now want to visit.”

The Forsyth Report: A must-see play is coming to the Capitol Theatre: The Woolgatherer, by William Mastrosimone.

2009-04-15T02:14:00.000-07:00

You already know what a huge fan I am of the Russell family: Director Val, director/actor/all round Capitol Theatre magician Tim and their actor daughter Lauren. On May 1, 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9 two of them will be bring you a play that will glue you to your seat. Tim is directing Lauren and Beau Andrew Dixon in what is hailed as “a truly hysterical play, in both the funny and the crazy sense of the word. Set in South Philadelphia, this award-winning "dram-edy" revolves around Rose and Cliff, two half-crazy people searching for love in a world gone mad.”
Hypersensitive Rose is haunted by her past and obsessed by destruction. She has compassion for everything--from the chair she rescued from the curbside to the dead cactus she won't throw out, because, as she says hopefully, "You never know."
Rose works behind the candy counter of the five-and-dime, and dreams of true love and how she'll meet a man one day who doesn't smoke, drink, curse or make fun of her, a guy "with a smile you can hang onto," someone she can speak to "without words."
Instead, she encounters the fast-talking, wise-cracking Cliff, a transcontinental truck driver waiting for his rig to be repaired, who wanders into her store looking for some wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am action. He’s a beer-swilling, wannabe parachute jumper who mocks Rose, her dilapidated apartment and her antiquated value system, even as he tries to seduce her.
Despite their seeming incompatibility this odd couple is drawn together by a mutual fear of commitment and by a longing for love. While Cliff is perplexed by Rose's anachronistic oversensitivity and her love of poetry, he senses he can trust her. And while Rose is repelled by Cliff's vulgarity, she respects his desire for "life before death" and his way of laughing off the everyday tragedies.
It’s a must see and you’ll wish it wouldn’t end. Call the Capitol box office for $25 tickets – 905.885.1071. Show times are 8:00 pm with a matinee at 2:00 on the 3rd.
Cheers.........Selena

The Forsyth Review: St. Lawrence String Quartet

2009-04-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

St. Lawrence String Quartet

There have been some pretty impressive musicians on the Friends of Music line-up this season: pianist Jamie Parker, soprano Monica Whicher and Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia. And of course the Stars of Tomorrow concert that is an annual treat. But I must say that my personal favourite was the final concert of the season last Sunday at the Cameco Capitol Arts Centre when we heard the dynamic St. Lawrence String Quartet. They were, quite simply, wonderful and I obviously wasn’t the only person to think so; there was a standing O at the end of the first half!

The four young musicians – Lesley Robertson on viola, Christopher Costanza on cello and Geoff Nuttall and Scott St. John on violin – seem to be joined at the musical, emotional and physical hip; their communication skills are remarkable. It was a strong program that required some pretty impressive finger-work and not once did they falter. The first piece was Haydn’s String Quartet in E flat Major, four movements comprising a minuet and slow movement and two fast movements, all of which covered a wide emotional range.

Next was a personal favourite: Mendelssohn’s String quartet in F minor. This was Mendelssohn last quartet and indeed his last complete work; it is thought to have been written as a result of the untimely death of his beloved sister Fanny. The range of emotion, from intense anguish to complete serenity, is remarkable and in the hands of SLSQ was spine-tingling.

After the intermission it was Dvorák’s String Quartet No. 13 in G major. This work was a departure from the norm for viola player Dvorák. As the excellent notes in the concert program said “The theme is not flowing; instead it consists of short, fragmented motifs treated like building blocks that can be variously combined.”

Meeting the performers after the concert at the much-anticipated Friends of Music reception was a real treat. Lesley had her two-year old daughter with her – Kira had stayed in the Green room with her aunt while mum was on stage – who was a delight.

All in all it was a wonderful time and the perfect concert to end the season for Friends of Music. The first concert of the next season, the 35^th, is on October 2^nd featuring Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà followed by Messiah on December 5^th. For all the info on the season go to the website: www.porthopefriendsofmusic.ca.

Selena Forsyth

First Stages - Duet for One

2009-03-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

Producer/director Robert Latimer and First Stages Theater Company never cease to amaze me. Each time I go to a performance I think it can’t get any better than that. Well it does and it did last Sunday when David Gardner and Karen Sweet read Duet for One. It’s a play written by British actor and playwright Tom Kempinski. It has won accolades and awards everywhere and that is not at all surprising. It received the London Critic’s Award when it was first performed in 1980 and the following year it opened on Broadway with Anne Bancroft and Max von Sydow to rave reviews. It was made into a movie in 1986 and is now revived in London at the National Theatre. It’s not surprising that it keeps on and on being a huge hit: it is an amazing experience.

Stephanie Abrahams is a young woman violinist who has made her mark in the professional world of classical music and is married to a very successful composer. In the midst of her success she is stricken with Multiple Sclerosis and when we meet her is in a wheelchair. She no longer plays the violin. We meet her on her fist visit to a psychiatrist, Dr. Alfred Feldmann. They begin a doctor/patient relationship that is at times tender, at times funny, at times desperate and at times fraught with despair, anger, angst and the examination of her suicidal thoughts.

The two actors who play the roles are simply astonishing. We have now met David Gardner seven times in First Stages readings. He is 82 years old and an actor of enormous talent and presence. I cannot imagine anyone else playing Dr. Feldmann. We are so privileged to have him here again. It was an honour.

I last saw Karen Sweet in the Capitol theatre production of Educating Rita. I thought she was the best I’d ever seen play that role. Not surprising that her reading of Stephanie the violinist was inspired; in this, her first First Stages appearance, she was brilliant and the perfect partner for David.

The next First Stages play reading is on April 19^th at 3:00 pm at the Capitol. It’s Edward Albee’s Three Tall women of which The New York Times said “A play so good it can only exist on the stage. A perfect illustration of why theatre is an indispensible art.”

Please get your ticket now and pass this info on to your friends. Call the Capitol at 905.885.1071 for tickets and check the First Stages website for more details: www.firststagestheatre.com.

Selena Forsyth

Friends of Music – Stars of Tomorrow

2009-03-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

Stars of Tomorrow, hosted by Iain Scott, is an annual operatic treat presented by Friends of Music. His unique and entertaining perspective on opera makes Iain one of Canada’s most popular opera educators. He has been a regular guest on CBC radio’s Saturday Afternoon at the Opera and the Met’s Opera Quiz from New York. He has a company called Opera–IS which gives opera ‘tours’ and opera courses. He is much in demand and has brought many new converts to the genre. Not surprising. At the concert on March 14th at St. Peters Church in Cobourg he had the audience and the three opera singers in the palm of his hand.

The way it works is three final-year students from the Opera Program at the University of Toronto Opera School are chosen to come to Cobourg each year. They are considered by the school to be opera’s Stars of Tomorrow. This year the Stars were soprano Andrea Cerswell, baritone Andrew Love and lyric tenor Patrick Jang. Accompanied by pianist Andrea Grant, a member of the University’s Opera Division staff, they performed works by Rossini, Donizetti, Massenet, Bizet, Mozart, Lehár, Britten and Gilbert & Sullivan.

Iain, in his inimitable and very funny fashion, introduced each piece, telling the story in modern lingo. The three singers, perhaps a little nervous in the first half, were obviously as entranced by Iain as was the audience. He also seemed to put them at their ease and by intermission they were in top form and it was obvious why they had been chosen.

The reception after the concert was also fun and an opportunity to find out from the students a little of who they are and the avenues they hope to pursue.

Iain will bring three more students next year, sometime in the Spring. Friends of Music never knows who or when until the last minute. That’s because they have to wait for the school to decide who the ‘Stars of Tomorrow’ will be and when they will be ready to perform. Whoever they are they will be a delight, just as they have been every year.

The 2009/2010 Port Hope Friends Of Music Season

2009-02-26T12:29:00.000-08:00

LA PIETÀ
CAPITOL THEATRE
Friday October 02, 2009, 8:00 PM.
Angèle Dubeau’s ensemble, La Pietà, has played in Canada’s most prestigious venues. They are known for their exceptional virtuosity, impeccable precision, and rich interpretations, as well as the contagious happiness that enlivens their stage presence. Their program, entitled Myths and Legends,” will provide a glimpse of extraordinary creatures performing legendary acts.

ARADIA ENSEMBLE
PORT HOPE UNITED CHURCH
Saturday DECEMBER 5, 2009, 8:00 PM
Aradia is one of the most exciting period instrument ensembles to emerge in recent years. Under Kevin Mallon, hailed as “Canada’s Crown Prince of Period Performance” (Wholenote), their concerts incorporate old-world artistry and modern-day relevance. They have performed across Canada and abroad, at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival and Festival of Sacred Music; the New Zealand International Chamber Music Festival; the Festival nel Chiostro in Italy, the Haydn Festispiele Eisenstadt in Austria, and the Esterhazy Festival in Hungary. They will perform the great English oratorio, Messiah.

THE TORONTO CONSORT
CAPITOL THEATRE
Saturday FEBRUARY 6, 2010, 8:00 PM
The Toronto Consort, Canada’s leading chamber ensemble, specializes in the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. They perform throughout Canada, the US, Great Britain and Europe, have collaborated with many leading early music specialists, and appeared with the Toronto Symphony under Andrew Davis, and the Montreal Symphony under Charles Dutoit. Their program, Da Vinci Codex, will provide a multimedia exploration of Italian music from the time of Leonardo.

LIZT ALFONSO DANCE CUBA
CAPITOL THEATRE
Sunday MARCH 14, 2010 4:00 PM.
Praised for their “amazing unanimity” (New York Times) and “sheer technical finesse” (Chicago Sun-Times), Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba’s beautiful and technically superb dancers, accompanied by remarkable musicians, will present a fusion of flamenco and classical ballet, added to the hot passion of Afro-Cuban dance with a touch of jazz, in an altogether exciting, riveting, and highly sensual performance.

AUGUSTIN HADELICH & IAN PARKER
CAPITOL THEATRE
Sunday MARCH 28, 2010, 3:00 PM
Among the new generation of violinists, Augustin Hadelich has established himself as an eloquent and unique voice. He has performed with the Alabama Symphony, Hamburg Camerata, IRIS Chamber Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra in Budapest, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony, and the Tokyo Symphony, and given recitals in Tokyo, Osaka, La Jolla Music Society, and the Kennedy Center in Washington.

An enthusiastic recitalist, Ian Parker has performed across the US, Europe, Israel, and Canada. He was First Prize winner at the 2001 CBC National Radio Competition, and has also won the Grand Prize at the Canadian National Music Festival, the Corpus Christie International Competition, and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition. Heard regularly on CBC Radio, he has also performed live on WQXR in New York.

The Forsyth Review – ‘Talking Heads’ Wonderful Theatre

2009-02-18T11:44:00.000-08:00

The sixties played a big part in the development of my sense of humour. When I came to Canada in 1967 people wondered which planet I was from when I talked about Beyond the Fringe, The Goon Show, That Was The Week That Was (TW3 to the In Crowd) and Monty Python. Those shows were barely on this side of the pond and most people hadn’t heard of them. Alan Bennett, born in Leeds, England in 1934, was one of the Beyond the Fringe crazy people, along with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller, and he went on to be a hugely successful playwright with plays like The Madness of King George (four Oscars) and Talking Heads I & II on his list of major successes.
When I saw that First Stages Theatre Company was going to do Talking Heads, which consists of four of short plays, at the Capitol Theatre I counted the days. Last Sunday the day came and I wish I could find enough superlatives to describe to you how absolutely marvelous the four plays and the four actors who read them were.
First was A Chip in the Sugar read by First Stages Artistic Director/Producer/Magic Man Robert Latimer. Robert read the parts of Graham, his 72 year-old somewhat forgetful mother with whom he has lived all his life and his mother’s new gentleman caller. Robert was absolutely incredible and had us laughing and crying and thanking our lucky stars that we have him and First Stages.
Second was Her Big Chance read by Alex Dallas. Alex is from England and came here with the hugely successful female comedy troupe Sensible Footwear that toured Canada and the US for 18 years. What a treat she was as Lesley, an out of work actress who auditions for a part in a dubious film with dubious producers and directors. She has to strip to her undies for the audition and to her all-together for the filming. She also takes great advantage of the casting couch both before and after she gets the part.
Next was Andrea Risk reading Bed Among the Lentils. Andrea was quite wonderful as Susan, the wife of a vicar, who likes a tipple quite frequently, probably doesn’t believe in God and embarks on a very sweet affair with an Indian gentleman who owns an off-license in Leeds where she goes sometimes on Sunday evenings to buy her booze while her husband is in church conducting evensong.
And finally, Robert’s co-director for these plays, Maria Heidler, plays Miss Fozzard in Miss Fozzard Finds her Feet. Miss Fozzard has given up her job in a department store to care for her brother who has had a stroke. Her chiropodist, to whom she has gone for many years, decides to retire and recommends another to her. She goes reluctantly and embarks on a relationship with the new chiropodist that is extremely unconventional. On all kinds of levels! There are many twists and turns involving her brother — she hires a care-giver for him and goes back to work — and her co-workers, who find out about her chiropody appointments. Maria’s ability to read all the parts with a different voice each time was a tour de force and had the audience at the Capitol Theatre totally enthralled.
Those of you who missed this memorable afternoon missed an opportunity to laugh out loud a lot, to experience the talent of four remarkable performers and to be part of what has become a Port Hope institution: First Stages Theatre Company. I urge you to get your tickets now for the next performance: Duet for One by Tom Kempinski. It’s an extremely moving story about a concert violinist who is stricken with Multiple Sclerosis and has to retire from the stage. Her MS also threatens her marriage. It will be an amazing afternoon with actors Karen Sweet and David Gardner playing the roles, directed, of course, by our own Robert Latimer. It’s on March 22nd at 3:00 pm at the Capitol. The box office is 905.885.1071 or 1.800.434.5092. I sincerely hope to see you there.

The Forsyth Review: La Jeunesse Youth Orchestra is Home for the Holidays.

2008-12-11T07:33:00.000-08:00

At the La Jeunesse Youth Orchestra season finale in May I was a bit worried. The orchestra seemed as close to perfect as it could get. The program was extremely difficult but those kids played it brilliantly without a missed note and got a standing O. So why worried? Because a whole bunch of them were leaving to go to University - way more than at the end of any other season that I could remember - and I didn’t think that there was any way that the board would be able to come up with enough new kids to fill the gaps, both physically and musically. Wrong! I don’t know how to spell aye yaye yaye but you get my drift.
I went to the first concert of the season – Home for the Holidays – at Port Hope United Church, along with an almost full house, and I can tell you that the latest version of LJYO is astonishing. What Music Director Michael Lyons and Director of Strings Laurie Mitchell have accomplished in the couple of months they have had with these kids is nothing short of a miracle.
They looked marvelous – every single one of them, males and females, wearing a red Christmas tie – and they played as if they had been playing together for years. From the very first note of the opener, March of the Toys, they were off and conquering the hearts and souls of every person in the audience.
Playing pieces from Vaughan Williams to Tchaikovsky to Holst to Leroy Anderson this new batch of kids was an absolute delight and had the audience on its collective feet at the end with applause that was deafening. As you may have gathered I cannot find enough superlatives for La Jeunesse Youth Orchestra. Every single one them should be mightily proud.
The next concert is In the Spotlight on February 15th, 2009 and will be in the concert hall at Victoria Hall in Cobourg. It starts at 3:00 and I suggest you get there early in order to get a seat.
You can purchase tickets on the website:www.ljyo.ca, at 1.866.460.5596, at the Victoria Hall box office and at Cameco Capitol Arts Centre box office.
At intermission I met a couple who just recently moved to Port Hope. They were totally bowled over by LJYO and had every intention of making a donation and going to all the concerts. Me too. See you there.
Selena Forsyth

Jamie Parker At ‘Friends of Music’ – The Nimblest Fingers In The Business

2008-10-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

The guest artist for the first concert in the 34th Friends of Music season was Canadian pianist Jamie Parker and what a treat he was. Not only does he have the nimblest fingers in the business, but he is also a very funny man. His introduction to each piece included something to make us smile, if not laugh out loud. Linda Catlin Smith is a composer born in 1957. When Jamie introduced Nocturne, a piece written by her in 1997, he said that he liked to sometimes play pieces that were not “written by dead white guys”. But of course he played several pieces written by composers who come into that category: Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, Beethoven amongst them, and those ten nimble fingers created absolute magic.
Jamie Parker, one of the illustrious Parker family of pianists, which includes Jon Kimura and Ian Parker, is one of the best-known Canadian pianists; his achievements are both lengthy and impressive. He is the recipient of some of the most sought-after classical music prizes, including JUNO Awards for recordings in the Classical Album of the Year category.
He has performed with all the major Canadian symphonies and has enthralled audiences in North America and Europe. He is also a member of the premier Canadian chamber group the Gryphon Trio, which opened the Friends of Music 30th season in 2004. Jamie’s brothers Jon and Ian have also played for Friends of Music.
The reception following the concert, which was held at Cameco Capitol Arts Centre, was in The Studio upstairs. Just as well because practically the entire audience came to meet Jamie, enjoy some fabulous cheeses and wine, and reconnect with old friends from last season. And Jamie was more than gracious with the many fans that wanted to say hello.
The Friends of Music season promises some fascinating performances, not the least of which will be Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan. A Gamelan is a traditional instrumental ensemble that has been a fundamental part of Indonesian musical life for centuries. The instruments in a gamelan are composed of sets of tuned bronze gongs, gong-chimes, metallophones, drums, one or more flutes, bowed and plucked string instruments. Evergreen Club is Canada's only ensemble of its kind. I can’t wait for this one.
Info on the Friends of Music season can be found on their website: porthopefriendsofmusic.ca. Tickets are $35 and $15 for students.

The Forsyth Review – The Year Of Magical Thinking - Magnificent!

2008-10-30T05:48:00.000-07:00

Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking was a book written by writer/screenwriter Joan Didion. It was a bout the sudden death of her husband, journalist, novelist, playwright John Gregory Dunne, to whom she was married for 40 years. He died in December of 1993, shortly after they got home from visiting their daughter, their only child, in the hospital in New York. She was gravely ill. They were at the dinner table and he suddenly collapsed and died. The daughter recovered. Briefly.
The Didion book, which came out a year later, was a huge success but I didn’t read it. I had been through my own year of magical thinking after my husband died and didn’t want to be reminded. To add to Joan Didion’s pain, her daughter died just as the book came out. I didn’t want to have to think about that either.
So it was with some hesitation that I went, a couple of weeks ago, to the Capitol Theatre to hear a play reading presented by Robert Latimer’s First Stages Theatre Company. Joan Didion had turned her award-winning book into a one-woman play; she had included the life and death of her daughter. Latimer, producer, director, actor and tour de force had acquired the rights to the book and had hired remarkable Canadian actor Patricia Yeatman to play Joan Didion. I cannot tell you how happy I am that a dear friend had persuaded me to go. The play and Yeatman were magnificent. Joan Didion has created a timeless document that everyone who has ever lost a loved one should see/hear/read.
And as for Patricia Yeatman, there are no words to describe how absolutely amazing she was. She was Joan Didion. Robert’s direction was brilliant; the experience was extremely powerful and one I cherish. It is amazing that we get the caliber of performances that we do in this small town. All thanks go to Robert Latimer and the First Stages Theatre Company. What a treat.
Selena Forsyth.

The Forsyth Review: “Souvenir” Play Reading Funny, Poignant

2008-09-18T05:58:00.000-07:00

I first heard of Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944) on Clyde Gilmour’s CBC program called Gilmour’s Albums. (It was on every Sunday for four decades and when he died it died with him. A huge loss on both counts.) Clyde told the story of Florence at least once a year and played a cut from one of her albums, which included a recording from her last concert, which was at Carnegie Hall.
Florence was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, had music lessons as a child and wanted to further her education in the field. Her father said no but she was determined.
She eloped to Philadelphia with Dr. Frank Thornton Jenkins, a marriage that ended in divorce in 1902. She supported herself as a music teacher and pianist until her father died in 1909 and left her his estate. Finally she was able to pursue a career as a singer. She moved to New York where she would host and fund elaborate recitals in the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. She was the performer. In 1928 her mother died leaving her an inheritance that gave her total freedom to do nothing but sing. The problem was that Florence had little sense of pitch and rhythm, in fact she was barely capable of sustaining a note. She, however, was unaware of this and thought that the people who came to hear her sing came because she was so good. (She thought she had perfect pitch.) In fact they came because her concerts were hilarious. The Carnegie Hall concert was completely sold out; scalpers outside had no problems selling tickets at a huge profit. Poor Florence. She died a month later.
Britain’s Stephen Temperley has written a two person play called Souvenir which tells the story of Florence. On Sunday September 14th it was performed at Cameco Capitol Arts Centre, the first in the 10th season of First Stages theatre Company play readings. It was incredible.
FSTC producer and artistic director Robert Latimer played Cosme McMoon, Florence’s piano accompanist, and Diane Fabian played Florence. They were both brilliant.
Robert, pianist, singer, actor, director, producer and all round wonderful person was remarkable in his role. Cosme, a pianist and composer who had a hard time making a living in New York, was hired to accompany Florence and prepare her for her recitals. She insisted he be brutally honest with her. Of course he was not. They formed a remarkable friendship and, despite his frustrations, he genuinely cared for her, enduring the embarrassment of performing with her at her salons and the final wretchedness of Carnegie Hall.
To be able to sing as badly as Diane had to in the role of Florence takes a great deal of talent, a talent which was evident at the very end when she sings Ave Maria in the way that Florence heard herself sing in her head. Diane was superb both vocally (She had the entire Capitol audience in stitches for prolonged periods as she sang her way through complicated arias. I’m not sure how even Robert kept his face straight!) and as her portrayal of this sweet woman of whom a New York critic said “She was exceedingly happy in her work. It is a pity so few artists are…and that happiness was communicated, as if by magic, to her listeners.”
First Stages has done it again. And the next reading promises to be equally as impressive, albeit totally different. The Year of Magical Thinking, the powerful memoir she wrote after her husband and daughter died, has been adapted by author Joan Didion. Patricia Yeatman will star in this one woman play, directed by Robert. A not to be missed reading. Tickets at the box office, Cameco Capitol Arts Centre, 905.885.1071 or 800.434.5092.
Selena Forsyth

The Forsyth Review - Anne of Green Gables A Treat

2008-08-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

If you are not familiar with the story of Anne of Green Gables, or its author Lucy Maud Montgomery, then I would suggest you leave the planet you are on and join us. Anne is huge and has created an enviable tourist business in Prince Edward Island where both Maud, as she was known by friends and family, and the fictional Anne were born. The attraction is such that, even as you read this, there will be bus loads of people arriving in Leaskdale, near Uxbridge, where Maud moved in 1911 with her Presbyterian minister husband.

Maud born in Clifton P.E.I., was best known for her series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. It was an immediate success. The central character, Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following.r. The novels became the basis for the highly acclaimed 1985 CBC television miniseries, Anne of Green Gables and several other television movies and programs, including Road to Avonlea, which ran in Canada and the U.S. from 1990-1996. There is an official website. You could buy the eight volume, slip-cased set of paperbacks published by Random House for $32.50 on line or there is a study guide published by Scholastic Paperbacks.

And here it is at the Capitol Theatre and what a treat it is. I must admit that I’m not a huge fan of musicals so went with some trepidation. Trepidation immediately dissipated as the wonderful cast took me to P.E.I. and the world of little orphan Annie. The adaptation, originally commissioned for the Charlottetown Festival, is by the unique and irrepressible Don Harron (AKA Charlie Farquason) and the music by Norman Campbell, both legends in their fields.

This production runs until August 24th. I suggest you call the Capitol now – 905.885.1071/1.800.434.5092 – because the theatre was almost full when I was there and the musical had barely started its run. It’s also the final production in the Capitol’s Summer Festival Plays and shouldn’t be missed.

Selena Forsyth.

The Forsyth Review: Westben – What A Wonderful Thing!

2008-07-08T03:07:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful thing is Westben. I went last week to see (hear?) Die Fledermaus, that quirky, funny and entirely delightful operetta by Johan Strauss, Junior. Featuring the UBC Opera Ensemble, with stage director Nancy Hermiston and music director and pianist Richard Epp it was a pleasurable afternoon in an idyllic setting. If you haven’t been to Westben in Campbellford, you are missing a treat. And they have many treats in store this summer. All their concerts are in a huge barn. The seats are comfortable, the acoustics are remarkably good given the location and the view from the barn is breathtaking.
Coming up is a night of classical guitar on July 8th, Voice Master Classes on July 9 and 10 and a “Schubertiad” on July 12th from 5:00 pm to 10:00 p.m. There are many concerts by pianist Brian Finley and soprano Donna Bennett, co-founders of the Westben Arts Festival Theatre.
Among other delights will be Michael Burgess on July 19th and the New Zealand String Quartet on July 20th. To get the full season’s programming – and there are things to see, hear and participate in until next spring - go to the website www.westben.on.ca You will find there is something for everyone and more than one event you will not want to miss.
We are extremely lucky to have this wonderful resource with so much imaginative programming.
Selena Forsyth

LOCAL WRITER WINS NATIONAL AWARD IN TWO CATEGORIES

2008-07-03T03:02:00.000-07:00

Eric E. Wright of Little Lake Road in Salem was a double winner for his first novel, a thriller titled The Lightning File.
Wright has six published books to his credit including Through a Country Window, the widely appreciated story of his and his wife’s move from the city to a country home.
The Lightning File won as best Mystery/Suspense novel. Wright’s book, in a highly readable style, highlights gaps in Canada’s security system that invite the attention of potential terrorists. The story follows the investigations of journalist Josh Radley as he seeks to unravel an Arabic file containing the key to a four-pronged plot targeting American interests from Canadian soil.
The Lightning File also won as best Independently Published Fiction book. Kudos to Hidden Brook Press of Brighton for publishing a book of such obvious quality.
Mississauga, Ontario - The Word Guild's black-tie gala at World Vision headquarters in Mississauga marked the twentieth annual awards ceremony recognizing the best writing by Canadian Christian authors. Thirty-eight winners from across Canada in 31 categories received enthusiastic applause from an audience of approximately 250 people. Herbie Kuhn, the in-house announcer for the Toronto Raptors, skillfully emceed the evening and Canadian singer/songwriter Jacob Moon provided musical entertainment.
“I am overwhelmed to receive this double award,” Wright said. “Readers have told me that they found The Lightning File a pulse-racing thriller that is hard to put down. They also appreciate that it is set in Northumberland and Toronto.”
Wright’s book is available at most area bookstores, from www.countrywindow.ca or the publisher, www.hiddenbrookpress.com/bookshbp.htm.

Valdy Reprise at Shelter Valley Folk Festival: Volunteers Thrilled

2008-07-02T05:08:00.000-07:00

Canadian folk music icon, Valdy, is returning to the Shelter Valley Folk Festival. With his trademark warmth and humour, Valdy will emcee the Festival’s main stage on Saturday night, August 30th. The next day, he’ll close the Festival with his own charismatic performance.
Valdy has been hailed a national treasure and Canada’s most distinguished troubadour. With almost 40 years’ experience as a touring artist, this seasoned road-dog is a first-class performer who has sold almost half a million copies of his 14 albums, won two Juno Awards and seven nominations, and has four Gold albums to his credit. The Toronto Star calls him “one of the country's purest and most credible storytellers” and The Saskatoon Star Phoenix dubs him “a master of country, folk, rock and blues.”
Born Paul Valdemar Horsdal in Ottawa in 1945 to an activist mother and a photographer father, Valdy grew up in the inner city. Now he lives in a lakefront home on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, with his wife Kathleen (artist, sculptor, writer), two cats and three dogs. His songs tell the stories of all that came in between. Of his songwriting style, Valdy says, "I cut my teeth on Henry Mancini; he taught me about melody. Combine that with a fine groove, and the rest is window dressing." Humble words from a man who has written unforgetable anthems like Play Me a Rock and Roll Song, which relates the bitter-sweet memory of finding himself, a relaxed and amiable story-teller, facing a rambunctious audience at the Aldergrove Rock Festival circa 1968.
Valdy was on tour in northern BC with Artistic Director Aengus Finnan in 2003 when Finnan first asked if Valdy might perform at a festival that was “in the works.” True to his word, Valdy arrived to play the first Shelter Valley Folk Festival on Labour Day Weekend, 2004, where volunteers were still putting the finishing touches on the hand-hewn mainstage as the first audience members came through the gate.
Finnan recalls that Valdy “had a sage smirk that day, seeing it all come together down to the wire. He had heard about the Festival when it was just an idea and saw it in its infancy. It will be our great honour to have him close year five and commemorate how far we’ve come.”
The announcement that Valdy is on this year’s roster is a thrill for Festival volunteers, many of whom are die-hard fans. Over the years, Festival volunteers attend so many different performances that they develop discerning tastes. For them, Valdy stands out. “Valdy’s return is something to celebrate!” exclaims the Festival’s Ticket Distribution Crew Chief and music enthusiast Gary Eisenhammer. “Through his energy, music and genuine personality, Valdy embodies the values that we at Shelter Valley want to promote.”
Reminiscing on Valdy’s performance at the the first Festival, Village Coordinator Barbara Buntin recollects the connection between performer and audience. “Being around Valdy is like reuniting with a long lost member of your family. He’s so warm and welcoming.” She continues, “The entire time he was on stage, the audience was capivated.”
In fact, Valdy has captivated audiences across Europe, North America and Oceana, and is often invited to perform at the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas. Valdy tours close to two hundred days each year, performing in theatres, community halls, school auditoriums and a string of festivals and clubs. He plays all across Canada every year and continues in his passionate role as musical ambassador.
The Shelter Valley Folk Festival is a Registered Federal Charity that presents a Labour Day Weekend family festival (August 29 - 31, 2008), and a new community outreach initiative called “Artists in the Schools.” Currently in its fifth year, the Festival celebrates music, juried art, wellness, sustainable living and harvest food in what the Toronto Star describes as a “gentle, humanistic, environmentally attuned and abundantly caring” manner. Tickets for the Festival are available at 48 King Street West in Cobourg, online at www.sheltervalley.com or through the Ticket Hotline: 1-866-612-SVFF or 905-355-1244. New volunteers and financial donors are always welcome.

The Forsyth Review: Rockin’ In The Aisles To 'The Buddy Holly Story'

2008-06-26T05:56:00.000-07:00

The ages of the 200 plus audience members at the Capitol Theatre last Saturday afternoon ranged between about 16 and 80. At approximately 4:15 pm just about all of them were on their feet and rockin’ in the aisles. They were also clapping their hearts out while giving a standing O for the cast of Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story.

Whether you are a rock and roll fan or not there is no way that you could resist enjoying this show. Believe me, the Star Spangled Banner, sung by the Statue of Liberty playing an accordion with back-up singers, was worth the price of admission. It was hilarious.
Charles Hardin (Buddy) Holly is considered to be one of the two originators of Rock and Roll – the other was Chuck Berry. Buddy was born in September 1936 and by the age of 17 was already on the way to becoming a huge star. I doubt there is anyone out there who isn’t familiar with songs like That’ll be the Day, Peggy Sue, Why do Fools Fall in Love, Chantilly Lace, Maybe Baby, La Bamba and Johnny be Good, whether you heard Buddy sing them or some other artist. They are Rock and Roll classics and the cast of this show at the Capitol Theatre do all of them great justice.
The first act is the story of Buddy’s rise to fame, his partnerships with The Crickets, the songs they made famous and his marriage to Maria Santiago. The second is his last concert, performed at Clear Lake Iowa, on the evening of February 2nd, 1959. He was performing with, among others, J. R. Richardson (The Big Bopper) and Richie Valens. Tired of riding in the bus to each engagement, Buddy had chartered a plane to the next gig, taking the Big Bopper and Richie with him. The plane crashed and all aboard was killed. It was a tragic day for Rock and Roll.
The actors/singers/musicians in this show are fabulous. Not only do they all seem to have good voices and a terrific sense of timing but several also play instruments: there are two guitars – one of course Buddy’s – two pianos, drums, double bass, trumpet, trombone, saxophone and, of course, the accordion. It was a real treat and I recommend it.
There are a couple of bits that require audience participation, including a prize for the person who finds …….. Oops. Better not give it away!
The show runs until July 12th. 905.885.1071 or 1.800.434.5092 will get you all the info you need.
Selena Forsyth.

Shelter Valley Folk Festival Launches ‘Artists in the Schools’ Programme

2008-06-26T05:31:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday students from three local schools experienced history in the making as the Shelter Valley Folk Festival launched an “Artists in the Schools” outreach program. As a Federal Charity, part of the Shelter Valley Folk Festival’s mandate is to increase public appreciation of the arts. The school performance was the first of an annual Outreach program designed to provide cultural workshops and performances for Northumberland area schools.

Thursday’s hour-long show featured the zany antics of children’s performer, Magoo, and was held at Grant Sine Public School, located in the upper-east end of Cobourg. Also attending were students from St. Joseph’s Elementary and Northumberland Montessori School. Packed with dynamic creative energy and tons of fun, the event brought together three unique school systems as part of the Festival organization’s philosophy of promoting inclusivity and a sense of community.
With songs ranging from “the Dinosaur Dance” to “A River runs through Udora”, Magoo had children and teachers alike singing and playing along. With enthusiasm, fortitude and zeal he leapt between playing guitar, mandolin, and donning a dinosaur costume.

Kevin Dunn, Principal of Grant Sine Public School commented that “The program was thoroughly entertaining and educational. It was great to have all three schools systems included, transcending institutional boundaries. Magoo was Great!”

“We are thrilled as a Charity to begin to deliver this type of programming for our community. The United Way’s Community Matters report identified many schools and communities who could benefit from this type of service and we are honoured to be able to provide it” stated Aengus Finnan, Executive and Artistic Director of the Shelter Valley Folk Festival.

The Shelter Valley Folk Festival is a registered Federal Charity that presents a Labour Day Weekend family festival (August 29 - 31, 2008), and Community Outreach Initiatives. Currently in its fifth year, the festival organization celebrates Music, Juried Art, Wellness, Sustainable Living and Harvest Food in what the Toronto Star describes as a “gentle, humanistic, environmentally attuned and abundantly caring” manner. Tickets for the Festival are available at 48 King St West, Cobourg, online at www.sheltervalley.com or through the Ticket Hotline: 1-866-612-SVFF or locally at 905-355-1244. New volunteers and financial donors are always welcome.

The Decker Art Review - Judith Kreps Hawkins “Overlapping”

2008-06-22T10:44:00.000-07:00

June 21 – August 3, 2008, The Colborne Art Gallery

Implicit in the objet trouvé is the history of that object, and encoded in its condition is a comment on our society’s view of it. In creating her sculptures, Judith Kreps Hawkins’s clever, playful imagination uses both of these aspects to amusing, and sometimes startling effect. She has a good sense of the “objet juste” that sets off interesting reverberations with other elements in that work, and even with other works in the exhibition itself.
In the sculpture “Maple”, you see a book standing upright, and can look straight through it along a gaping jagged-edge hole running cover-to-cover. The book is gilded, as are the constructed moths that nibble at the edges of the hole, pinned into place like specimens. The moths’ wings are constructed from a maple tree’s winged seeds.
Our books - these artifacts representing an era in societal evolution - are old and out of date, literally moth-eaten. This piece also reiterates a theme that ties together a number of pieces in the exhibition - the natural world’s overtaking of discarded man-made artifacts.
In “Dreck” we see a weathered chair draped in the remnants of decomposing detritus. In “One Sunny Afternoon” the deteriorating skeletal remains of an umbrella are caught in a return trip to nature, transformed by their own decay and disuse.
Ms Kreps Hawkins sculptures show a good variety of mood, message, and medium. At their strongest these works have a sharp focus and do what good art does - stimulates questions rather than providing pat answers.
This exhibition is accompanied by a display of recent pieces by other Colborne Art Gallery artists, making the Gallery a worthwhile summer destination.
The Colborne Art Gallery,

Apr-Dec, open Thursday to Sunday, noon – 5 pm

905-355-1798

Paper Chase - Enthusiasts Pursue The Ancient Art Of Making Washi In Port Hope

2008-06-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

JOELLE KOVACH, The Peterborough Examiner

Three of Japan's top craftsmen in the almost-forgotten art of traditional hand-made paper were in Port Hope this week, giving a public demonstration of age-old paper-making techniques. About 60 people were gathered at the Port Hope Public Library on Wednesday afternoon to see the three master craftsmen make sheets of sturdy, cream-colored paper.

Hiroshi Tamura, 37, Shinji Hayashi, 39, and Hiroaki Imai, 35, live in rural Japan and make a paper called washi. The term comes from two Japanese words: wa means Japanese and shi means paper.
Washi-making is a dying art. Fewer and fewer Japanese know how to make it, these days. The paper-making demonstration in Port Hope was part of The World Washi Summit, a series of lectures and exhibits of art such as watercolour paintings on washi.
The summit took place at 35 galleries and lecture halls in and around Toronto. It started June 7, and ends Sunday. The demonstration in Port Hope came about because a gallery-owner there - Aurelie Collings -asked that the Japanese come and show their skills.
Collings owns A. K. Collings Gallery, a fine-art gallery on John Street in Port Hope. Collings was approached by the organizer of the summit because she is interested in fine art works constructed of paper. Collings was keen to participate in the summit by having an exhibition at her gallery of prints, watercolours and etchings created on washi.
But she also wanted to have the Japanese craftsmen come to Port Hope and demonstrate. She asked the organizer, and it was agreed: the master paper-makers would come to Port Hope. They went to Toronto first, though, as part of the summit. They had two sold-out demos there this week; at each one, there were more than 100 people. Then they gave their demonstration at the Port Hope Public Library to a sold-out crowd of about 60 people.
The World Washi Summit was dreamed up and organized by Nancy Jacobi, the owner of a store that sells Japanese paper in Toronto. Jacobi's store is called The Japanese Paper Place, and it's located on Queen Street West. She says she's the top distributor of Japanese paper anywhere in the world; she offers a larger selection of Japanese papers than any store in Japan. She knows the craftsmen; she sells their paper in her store. And she organized the summit because she wants to alert artists to the possibilities of using washi in their art. She says washi is exceptionally strong and yet lightweight. It's absorbent, somewhat fuzzy to the touch and slightly translucent when held up to light.

"It's so beautiful," she says.

Beautiful, and yet most people don't know anything about it. Washi is lost in a marketplace where less expensive, commercially-produced papers are available. Even in Japan, she says, people have so much paper to choose from that they overlook washi. "The world doesn't notice it," Jacobi says. "And that's because the world is crammed with paper."

On the other hand, washi has a rich history. It has been made in Japan for about 1,400 years. Traditionally it's cream-colored, although it can be dyed, or patterns can be applied with wooden blocks. Over the years, washi has often been used for origami, fans and kites. These days, you might also see it used to repair antique books, as a paper for watercolour painting or used for calligraphy or wedding invitations.

Washi enjoyed its heyday in the 19th century, when about 80,000 families in Japan knew how to make it. But today, Jacobi says, there are only about 300 Japanese artisans who make it. Of those, there is a group of about 50 who are considered masters. And that group includes the three here now. Jacobi called it a world summit because she invited artists from around the world to come and discuss washi. They came to Toronto from the United States, Mexico and South Africa.

In Port Hope today, the crowd is mostly made up of artists from the area. Several are from Port Hope, but others come from Kingston, Ottawa and Toronto. Dorothy McCord is here from Peterborough. She teaches courses in paper conservation at Fleming College. She knows all about the washi - she's told her students about it before. "But I've never seen it made," she says, smiling. "I was prepared to go to Toronto to see this, but then it came to Port Hope."

When participants arrive in a conference room at the Port Hope Public Library, they are met by the master craftsmen. They're in their 30s and slim, with athletic builds. "Oh, I thought we'd see wizened old Japanese men," one surprised woman remarks when she arrives. Not that the craftsmen understood the comment; none of the three speaks English. Today they are accompanied by Paul Denhoed, an apprentice washi-maker who grew up in Don Mills and moved to Japan six years ago to teach English and also learn washi-making.

Denhoed, 38, speaks fluent Japanese. He's here with his Japanese wife, Maki; they met in Japan, and they live outside of Tokyo. He'll be the translator today. And he'll also talk about the process of making paper as he understands it. The demonstration's going to be outside, in the back yard of the library. It's sunny weather, and organizers have decided it would be pleasant to be outdoors. But first, we remain inside the conference room for a half-hour while Denhoed gives a brief explanation - with a slideshow -- of the initial steps in paper-making. He says washi is made from the green bark of a mulberry bush that is cultivated in Japanese fields especially for paper-making. The bushes are made up of straight, leafy shoots that resemble bamboo. They grow to be as tall as five metres. The shoots are chopped down, and the outer black bark is removed. That's when an inner layer of tender green bark is revealed: that's the bark used in paper-making. That green bark is stripped from the woody core of the mulberry shoots. Then the strands of green bark are boiled in water to remove the lignin, an organic polymer that keeps the plant rigid and woody. Now the boiled strands of bark are limp and resemble noodles. Craftsmen tease apart the fibres with their fingers. At this point, you need one more ingredient to make paper: the gooey, organic extract from the hibiscus root.

Denhoed says craftsmen take the root of a Japanese hibiscus - which looks a lot like ginger root - and crush it beneath a heavy wood block. Then the crushed roots are soaked in water and strained so a gooey hibiscus extract is left. This is mixed with the mulberry fibre and the water to create a cloudy slime that's used in making paper.
Now it's time to go outside. For today's demonstration, the craftsmen have brought some of the basic tools needed for paper-making. The first tool is a square wooden vat measuring roughly three feet by four feet and a foot deep. This vat is filled with the slimy mixture of fibre, water and hibiscus goo. The next tool is a rectangular wooden frame. It resembles a sturdy picture frame, and measures about two feet by one foot. Instead of putting a picture inside this frame, you put a screen made of fine bamboo slats. The frame has a series of hinges that allow it to open so you can easily place the screen inside or remove it. The craftsmen dip the frame in the vat and swirl the slime vigorously across the screen, to and fro, as though panning for gold.

As the slime is shaken back and forth across the screen, some fibres cling to the bamboo and form a thin layer. This is why the hibiscus extract is crucial: because it's gooey, it holds a bit of water in the screen long enough to allow the a few fibres to cling to the screen and not wash through the slats. As fibres begin clinging to the bamboo screen, they form a thin layer. Dip the frame in the slime a few more times, shake briskly to remove the water, and you're left with a thin sheet of wet paper.
Next, the frame is removed from the vat and flipped open. The bamboo screen is removed from the frame. And then the screen is placed on a table and peeled away from the wet sheet of paper. While the master craftsmen make look easy, it isn't.

For one thing, the wooden frame is large, awkward and heavy. When the pulpy slime is scooped into the frame, it weighs around 10 pounds. And you're not just dipping it into the slime and lifting, either. You must shake the slime across the screen in a brisk, rhythmic fashion. If you're sluggish for even a second while you toss the slime back and forth, the fibres will cling to the screen in large clumps and the sheet of paper is ruined. Paper production is tough manual labour. With Denhoed translating for them, the craftsmen say back pain is chronic as they lift heavy wood frames all day. If they don't pause to stretch occasionally, they're wracked with back pain.

As the sheets of paper are being made today, they're stacked one on top of the last. Denhoed says the wet sheets of paper can be peeled apart later and placed in a single layer on a wooden board in the sun to dry. Production of a single sheet of wet paper only takes about 30 seconds. But it will take about another three hours for the paper to dry. At that point, you have a usable sheet of paper. Each of the three craftsmen takes his turn showing how he makes paper. They all have their own style of shaking the slime around on the screen. One shakes as fast as lightning. The other makes the slime rise like a miniature tidal wave inside the frame. The third swirls the slime around in little eddies.

"There are some similarities, but each paper-maker has his own shake," Denhoed explains to the crowd. Denhoed doesn't show his shake today -- he leaves it to the masters. But he will probably develop his own personal style in time.

His mentor is one of today's master paper-makers: he's working alongside seven other people in the studio of Hiroaki Imai, 35. The studio is in the rural village of Oguni, Niigata, roughly a two-hour train ride north of Tokyo. For six weeks, Denhoed has been living and working there; he says he's a rare westerner to be making paper in a master's studio. For as long as he works at this studio, he says, he'll commute to see his wife, just outside Tokyo, once a month.

That's the work ethic that papermaking demands, Jacobi says. These masters work from 7 a. m. until 7 p. m. daily. She says they are obsessed with washi - they make washi, think about it and talk about it constantly. Maybe that's what happens when you're making a valiant effort to keep a traditional craft alive.

Over the years, Denhoed says, people stopped passing washi-making techniques down from one generation to the next because after the Industrial Revolution, it wasn't so easy to make a living as a washi-maker. Commercially-made paper took over, and the demand for washi never really recovered.
Artists at the demonstration today say they were inspired by washi. Several say they're going to try to use it in their work, now that they know more about it.
Judith Kreps Hawkins is an artist from Port Hope who often creates drawings on paper.
She also occasionally makes hand-made paper. She says seeing these craftsmen demonstrate traditional techniques really inspired her. She was also impressed to see the finished, dried sheets of washi made by these craftsmen, which Jacobi had for sale at A. K. Collings Gallery after the demonstration.
"You get ideas like little butterflies flitting though your head," Kreps Hawkins says. "Just thinking about all these traditional papers reminds me that I'll never tire of working with paper and fibres."

The Forsyth Review: Educating Rita – Superb Acting, Perfect Set

2008-06-12T05:21:00.000-07:00

I was a bit worried about going to see Educating Rita at the Cameco Capitol Arts Centre. The movie is one of my favourites of all time – I have my own copy - and Michael Caine and Julie Walters are absolutely perfect in the roles. They both earned Oscar nominations – Best Actor and Best Actress – in 1983 for their outstanding performances in his extremely funny, charming, bittersweet comedy. I simply could not imagine anyone else playing them. Well now I can. Terry Belleville as Frank and Karen Sweet as Rita would likely get their own Oscar nominations if they were to translate their performances to film.
Educating Rita is about Frank, a cynical professor who drinks far too much whisky, and Rita, a naïve hairdresser married to a man who wants her to stop taking the pill and have babies. But Rita, who pretends to her husband that she has stopped the pill, has a wonderful and almost desperate thirst for knowledge. She signs up with the Open University and gets Frank, of all people, to introduce her to culture. Frank, whose wife has left him and he now lives with an ex student, soon discovers that Rita has a lot more common sense that the so-called educated class within which he moves. He begins to fall in love with Rita for her zest for life, her wonderful, almost childlike qualities and her blossoming intelligence. But Rita’s life changes as a result of her education and the two very different worlds of Frank and Rita collide. But mercifully they merge, to produce a wonderfully entertaining comedy, the modern day Pygmalion.
Educating Rita was written by Willy Russell who also wrote the magnificent Shirley Valentine. He was born in Liverpool in 1947. He became a hairdresser on leaving school, and then undertook a variety of jobs, also writing songs that were performed in local folk clubs. He also wrote songs and sketches for local radio programs. At 20 years of age, he returned to college and became a teacher after which he began to become interested in writing drama. His first play, Keep your Eyes Down, was produced in 1971, and he became well known after his musical about the Beatles, John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, ran for eight weeks at Liverpool Everyman Theatre. It was transferred to the West End and won the Evening Standard and London Theatre Critic Award for best musical in 1974. He went on to bigger and better things, including Educating Rita, a two-person play set entirely in Frank’s office.
The version at the Capitol Theatre is too good to miss. The acting is superb, the set is perfect and you will have a truly wonderful time. It runs until June 14th and a call to the Capitol theatre Box Office will give you all the details: 905.885.1071.
Selena Forsyth

The History of Victoria Hall: Drama, Danger, Rebirth

2008-05-29T05:00:00.001-07:00

Photo by Peg McCarthy

June 18^th, at 7:30 pm
Cobourg’s splendid Victoria Hall was opened by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, in September, 1860. In preparation for the 150^th anniversary of the opening, to be celebrated in 2010, the Victoria Hall Volunteers, The Cobourg and District Historical Society, and the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, Cobourg Branch, are presenting a multi-media event.
The event will take place in the Concert Hall. It will be an entertaining walk down Victoria Hall’s memory lane, featuring photographic displays, memorabilia, tours of the building and images through the years. Gabrielle Blaschuk, Chair of The Cobourg and District Archives will open the evening discussing the early years of the Hall. The building was sited to take advantage of the crook in King Street which ensures that the distinctive cupola of the Victoria Hall clock tower can be seen from both West and East as one approaches the centre of town.
Peter John Stokes, restoration architect and heritage consultant, will highlight the evening by discussing the restoration of Victoria Hall in the 1970s. Stokes is well known for his involvement in the construction of Upper Canada Village in the late 1960s, and the many heritage restoration projects and feasibility studies he has conducted across Canada. These have included The Grange at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Kings Landing in New Brunswick, and the Heritage District Plan for Walton Street, Port Hope. He wrote Early Architecture of the town and township of Niagara, and Old Niagara on the Lake, a primer on the design, restoration and architectural details of the province’s historic houses and buildings. He was appointed as the restoration architect for Victoria Hall in 1972, working with a visionary and determined restoration committee led by Lenah Field Fisher, Deputy-Reeve of Cobourg at the time, and John Taylor, Director of the Art Gallery of Northumberland. Stokes, a retired architect, now living in Port Hope, led the first two phases of the restoration of Victoria Hall. He will speak on the challenges faced by the team of engineers, architects and contractors in bringing the building back its former glory.

This evening is a unique partnership of three organizations with a shared interest in conserving Cobourg’s historic past. Victoria Hall is a Cobourg landmark, and continues to be the vibrant heart of the town, designed originally as a combination, multi-use building housing municipal offices, court house, opera house and a meeting place for the local Masons. It continues as such today, as home to the town’s Council Chambers, municipal staff, the Northumberland Art Gallery, and a myriad of community based activities including plays, concerts, lectures and weddings.
Peter Stokes will be introduced by Marion Hagen, the first President of the Victoria Hall Volunteers, a group formed in 1975 to support the ongoing restoration of Victoria Hall through fund-raising and educational events. The Volunteers meet on the fourth Monday of each month, and welcome new members. Funds raised at this event will be directed to the enhancement of Victoria Hall.
Complimentary refreshments will be served and there will also be a cash bar. All are welcome. Tickets $15 can be purchased in advance at the Victoria Hall Box Office, or at the door.

Schubert And Strudel At Westben

2008-05-22T02:49:00.000-07:00

by Paul Dalby, The Independent
Eat, Drink and Merry might as well be the unofficial motto of this year’s summer season at the Westben Arts festival near Campbellford.
A star feature of the 2008 program at Northumberland County’s premier music festival is called “Schubertiad” (July 12). which gives new meaning to the idea of dine and dash.
It offers the audience a chance to hear the music of Franz Schubert just the way he played it back in Vienna in the early 1800s – large helpings of the young master’s great music served up with side orders of authentic Austrian food and washed down with a glass of wine.
“Schubert used to have friends over to play, sing, and eat good food and that’s what we were looking for,” Donna Bennett, co-founder of Westben “Chef Marcus at The Poppy Market in Campbellford is Swiss and he knows all about Austrian dishes.”
Ms. Bennett said that to keep the local emphasis, wine for the Schubertiad will be provided by the county’s newest winery, Oak Heights near Warkworth.
The Schubertiad will run for a total of five hours from 5 until 10 p.m. The first intermission will bring forth Abendrot, an Austrian specialty of traditional fruit and nut bread, two cheeses, cold cuts and grapes ($7 per person).
The second intermission serves up Nachspeise (dessert), which in this case is bite-sized pieces of Sacher torte, Linzer cookies and Apfel Strudel with coffee and Schlagsahne (cream) ($5 per person).
Faced with these tasty platters, it’s worth remembering that Schubert’s nickname was the Little Mushroom, referring not only to his height (a mere 5 feet) but also his rotund shape from overindulging Vienna’s rich foods.
Taking the audience’s collective minds off the food table will be three recitals – The Chamber Music featuring Johannes Jansonius (violin), Kent Teeple (viola), Brian Manker (cello), Ed Tait (double bass), Angela Park (piano) and Westben artistic director Brian Finley (piano).
The second segment on The Songs teams Donna Bennett with tenor Mark DuBois, Brian Finley (piano), John Burge and members of the Dubois Vocal Master Class.
The third recital, Music for Solo Piano, belongs to the incomparable Andre Laplante.
According to Ms. Bennett, the Schubertiad is just one way that Westben will try to involve the audiences in its summer concerts. Another new strategy is the introduction of pre-concert chats with artists and musical experts.
The concept had been tried before as an extra ticket attraction to the main concert but had only limited success. This year the pre-concert chats are included in the price of a regular ticket.
“We really want people to know what’s going on,” said Ms. Bennett. “The chats are not just for first timers, I think everybody will take away something from them.”
The 40-minute pre-concert chats all take place on Sundays, immediately before the regular 2 p.m. matinee concert.
First of the free chats on July 6 is given by Nancy Hermiston unraveling the fanciful intrigue of Die Fledermaus, this year’s offering by the young talent of the University of British Columbia’s Opera School.
The second talk will be given on July 13 by Brian Manker principal cellist from the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, who gives the performer’s take on Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata. Manker is in concert with Donna Bennett and Andre Laplante (piano) in a chamber music matinee.
Third of the pre-concert chats on July 20 comes from Tim McGee, U. of T. past director of historical performance ensembles now living in Norwood, who brings to life the Mendelssohn’s lifelong love affair with the help of the New Zealand String Quartet

Your Guide To Regional Art Shows and Sales

2008-05-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

COBOURG LIONS’ ART SHOW & SALE

JUNE 28, 29, 30 : 10 am – 6 pm, & JULY 1: 10 am – 5 pm.

There will be 100 artists exhibiting their work at the Victoria Waterfront Park, Cobourg, Ontario. As well there will be entertainment and the Rotary Club Craft Festival. Admission Free.

CLOYNE STUDIO TOUR and SALE

JULY 11, 12, 13, from 10 am.- 5 pm.

The STUDIO TOUR will take place on Little Pond Road off Highway 41 at 1074 & 1049 Little Pond Road, Cloyne, ON.

You are invited to visit the studio/galleries of Carla Miedema and Ursula Ossenberg , and see their impressive new paintings, pen & ink drawings, and other art works. This is a great opportunity for visitors to see the artists’ studios and artists at work. Enjoy the beautiful countryside on your drive to their studios.

Ursula Ossenberg does original oil paintings of the beautiful area around Cloyne. Her favourite subjects are wild flowers, rocky shores, and forest trails.

Nature artist, Carla Miedema, enjoys painting, in acrylic & mixed media on canvas, the rugged landscape and wild flowers around her home in Cloyne. Her intricate drawings of children, homes, and wildflowers are depicted on handmade papers and various other papers.
Admission is FREE.
INFORMATION: Carla (613)336-8860, Ursula (613)336-0063.

BON ECHO ART EXHIBITION & SALE

JULY 25 : 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
JULY 26: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
JULY 27: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Exhibition Theme: Original Art of“Canadian Nature, Wildlife or Countryside”

The Friends of Bon Echo Provincial Park invite you to the annual Bon Echo Art Exhibition and Sale taking place at Bon Echo Provincial Park, Hwy. # 41, Cloyne, ON. This is a juried art exhibition and sale, which takes place in a central location in beautiful Bon Echo Provincial Park. About 50 artists will have their work on display and for sale. Make a day of it and enjoy art & demonstrations, BBQ, snake show, and music.
All profits made by the Friends of Bon Echo Park go back into preserving the natural and cultural heritage of the Park. Included, with admission to the Park, is admission to the Bon Echo Art Exhibition &Sale. INFORMATION: (613)0830, (613)333-2329

CLOYNE SHOWCASE 2008 , ART & CRAFT SALE
Friday, AUG. 8: 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.,
Saturday, AUG. 9: 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.,
Sunday, AUG. 10: 10 am.- 4 pm.

You are invited to the annual Showcase of arts and crafts, sponsored by the North Addington Guild, held at the North Addington Education Centre, Cloyne, ON, Highway # 41. Over 75 exhibitors will be displaying and selling a huge variety of Arts and Crafts, such as wood working, sewing, jewellery, paintings, soaps, quilting, just to name a few.
Food and refreshments, provided by the Mazinaw Lake Swim Committee, is also available. All profits from this venture go directly back to the swim program.
All profits made by the Guild are donated to enrich the arts programs at North Addington Education Centre, Cloyne, ON. Admission is FREE. INFORMATION: (613)336-0063

KAWARTHA FINE ART FESTIVAL
Saturday, AUG. 30 : 10am – 6 pm. Sunday, AUG. 31: 10 am – 5 pm. In the Agricultural Building, Fenelon Falls.
Exhibition & sale of fine art. Admission is free and there are door prizes.

BRIGHTON LIONS ART SHOW & SALE
Friday OPENING, Sept. 26: 7 -9 pm,
Sat., Sept 27: 10am-5:30pm, Sun., Sept. 28: 10am-4:30pm.

As part of the Brighton APPLEFEST festivities the Brighton Lions are having a fabulous art exhibition with artists coming from around Ontario to exhibit and sell their art work. This worthwhile event will take place at the East Northumberland Secondary School, Dundas St., Brighton, ON. Admission is FREE.

Opening Ron Bolt's Retrospective At The A.K. Collings Gallery

2008-05-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

Ron Bolt and John Satterberg

Passim: First Stages Season Ends With Poignant, Funny Canadiana

2008-05-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

The First Stages Theatre season ended with another memorable one-man show Sunshine and Shadows, James B. Douglas’ funny and poignant portrayal of Canada's foremost humourist and author, Stephen Leacock. Douglas used Leacock's own words to convey the humour, wisdom and tragedy of one of our most revered literary figures. A veteran of stage, screen and television, Douglas has played over 150 major roles in Britain, Canada and the United States and his immense theatre experience once more produced a well-honed, nuanced performance.
Luring some of Canada’s best known actors to the Capitol, artistic director Robert Latimer’s FST has garnered a loyal audience and brought splendid ‘serious’ theatre to our area. Latimer is busy securing the rights for another season’s plays. “It's becoming a rather complicated and very expensive procedure. For example, one of the plays I've scheduled for next season requires permission from the playwright himself! The cost of getting the rights from the publishers has now gone up by as much as 200% !! Of course both major publishers for plays are in New York and although our dollar is still at parity it still costs more in Canada... like so many things,” sighs Latimer.
Next season will be First Stages 10th Anniversary and it will open on September 14^th with Stephen Temperley's Souvenir – aka. "Murder on the High C's!" A fantasia on the life of the infamous and wealthy society eccentric Florence Foster Jenkins who suffered under the delusion that she was a great coloratura soprano when she was in fact incapable of producing two consecutive notes in tune. Her story is told through the eyes of her accompanist Cosme McMoon. A musical odd-couple for the ages! It will star Diane Fabian as the legendary Florence Foster Jenkins.
Latimer’s move to a Sunday afternoon matinee format at the Capitol has worked well. Unfortunately, many of Cobourg’s and Port Hopes eateries close on Sundays, and the post matinee dinner crowd must seek sustenance far afield.

The Forsyth Review - LaJeunesse Youth Orchestra Season Finale Bittersweet

2008-05-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

LJYO Music Director Michael Lyons bids farewell to Concertmaster David Shewchuck.

Sadly, the La Jeunesse Youth Orchestra season is over. Their signature finale, Sonic Bloom, is always bitter sweet for fans of the orchestra and you can count me in as one of the biggest.

LJYO’s Symphonic Welcome to Springtime was a very exciting concert that began with a very difficult piece that they played flawlessly - Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance – and ended with an even more difficult piece also played flawlessly and with great passion: España by Emmanuel Chabrier. It, and a couple of other pieces in between, received much deserved standing ovations.

This concert was also bittersweet for another reason. Actually six other reasons: flutist Alicia Stroobach, clarinetist Carina Canonico, trombonist Ian McKeown, Cellist Emily Karpazis and violinists Garrett Shannon (who has been with the orchestra for nine seasons) and David Shewchuck, Concertmaster, are graduating from the orchestra and moving on to new ventures elsewhere. Their contributions to the orchestra have been huge and they will be missed. But I have no doubt that those who take their places will very quickly become indispensible just like their predecessors.

Perhaps you have a child or grandchild who would like to play with LJYO. Orchestra members aged 10 to 22 are selected by audition which will be held June 12-14 and Jane Cook would love to hear from you; 905.797.2138. The season runs from September to May with rehearsals on Saturday mornings from 10:00 to 1:00 with sectional rehearsals during the week.

And if you would like to have a ton of fun, good food and some fiddling LJYO would love to have you at their Céilidh where you will be entertained by Canadian Junior fiddle champion Eric Provencher and step dancers. There will also be square dancing and a silent auction. Something for everybody on June 19^th at “We’re in the Hayfield Now’ Daylily Gardens in Orono. Tickets are $25 or $60 per family and you can get more info at 1.866.460.5596.

You can also go to www.ljyo.ca and find all there is to know about this remarkable youth orchestra led by two musical magicians: Music Director Michael Lyons and Laurie Mitchell, Director of Strings. They will indubitably produce more magic next season and I for one cannot wait. Selena Forsyth

The Forsyth Review - 'The Last Five Years' Remarkable

2008-05-14T03:18:00.000-07:00

There is a remarkable play/musical on at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope. There are only two people in it – local actors Lauren Page Russell and Michael Lombo. The Last Five Years is remarkable on several counts not the least of which is that it is very complex musically and the two actors are definitely up to the task.
The story chronicles a young couple's five-year romance in a new and exciting way: struggling actress Cathy Hiatt’s story starts at the end of their relationship; rising novelist Jamie Wellerstein’s begins on the day they met. Funny and uplifting, the show captures some of the most heartbreaking and universally felt moments of any romance.
The Last Five Years is by Jason Robert Brown who was born in 1970 in Tarrytown, NY. He studied at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. His first musical, Songs for a New World, directed by Daisy Prince, played Off-Broadway at the WPA Theatre in fall 1995, and has since been seen in more than 50 productions around the US.
Brown is the Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist of Parade, a musical written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which starred Canada’s Brent Carver and premiered at Lincoln Center Theatre in 1998. It won the Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for Best New Musical. His critically acclaimed works have been produced consistently ever since, including The Last Five Years, which was nominated for a slew of awards for the author, the production and the actors when it opened off-Broadway in 2002. This from the New York Times:
“Pulses with dangerous, irresistible giddiness... Mr. Brown is a leading member of a new generation of composers who embody high hopes for the American musical... Mr. Brown confirms his sparkling facility as a composer, fluidly mixing diverse styles. They range from waltzes to rhythm and blues, from Sondheimesque urbanity to a clever 'Chorus Line'-like audition piece for Cathy…”.
I loved The last Five Years. It’s poignant, funny, dramatic, sad and moving and also brought back memories. Anyone who has ever been in love, been dumped or done the dumping will relate to some or all of the lyrics in some or all of the songs and there are 16 of them, all sung to a live orchestra in the ‘pit’: Susan tanner on piano, Richard Homme on electric bass, John Tapscott on acoustic guitar, Tamara Mitchell on violin and Matt Mitchell and Peter Harris on cello.
Lauren and Michael are, quite simply, magnificent and superbly directed by Val Russell.
Selena Forsyth.

The Forsyth Review - Anne-Julie Caron and Brian Finley Memorable

2008-05-04T03:36:00.000-07:00

The Friends of Music concert on Saturday April 19th at Cameco Capitol Arts Centre was an extraordinary experience. Anne-Julie Caron and Brian Finley gave a performance that was memorable; very long feathers must go into the hats of the Friends of Music programming committee members who came up with the idea.
Anne-Julie Caron is recognized as a remarkable percussionist whose flawless playing is both profound and dreamlike. Her clear phrasing and evocative playing demonstrate the expressiveness of the marimba and captivate audiences. And for those of us who had never heard the marimba before it was extremely captivating and, I must say, nothing like I expected.
Internationally, Brian Finley is recognized as an accomplished pianist, composer, director and impresario. Locally, Brian and his wife, soprano Donna Bennett, are best known as joint founders of the Westben Arts Festival Theatre in Campbellford.
Brian has been guest pianist with orchestras in Dallas, Calgary, Washington, London, England, and at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto. He has also appeared in more than ten international competitions including the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow.
In 2002, Brian was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in recognition of his work, not only locally but also nationally.
Brian and Anne Julie performed together at Westben several years ago and have remained friends. Their compatibility is also evident in their playing together. The piano and the marimba seem meant for each other!
And what is a marimba? It is thought to have been created by the Zulus of South Africa. They arranged wooden slats over suspended gourds, producing mellow tones with mallets. They called it a marimba, believed to have been the name of a mythical goddess in Zulu folklore.
African slaves brought the marimba to Central America in the 1600's. Squash plants continued to play a role; chayote squash membranes attached to resonators gave early Mexican marimbas a characteristic nasal tone.
By about 1910 gourds were replaced by hollowed wooden or metal tubes which were much easier to tune. Rosewood now comprises the key-top which resembles a piano keyboard. The instrument is part of the percussion family producing a remarkably mellow sound. It was once popular with dance bands, its vivacity and exuberance so suitable to South American rhythms; it is now welcomed into the percussion sections of symphony orchestras.

It was a wonderful concert and a very fitting finale to the fabulous Friends of Music 2007-2008 season. Next season promises to be equally exciting. Check the website for all the details: www.porthopefriendsofmusic.ca.

2008-05-04T03:24:00.000-07:00

Cobourg Art Club Show

The Decker Arts Review – AGN Board Members Attendance Embarrassing

2008-05-04T03:16:00.000-07:00

When I left the opening reception, I was tempted to apologize on behalf of the County.

Rebecca Last’s Rice Lake exhibition at the Art Gallery of Northumberland opened on April 26th. When I walked in a few minutes after 2 pm the main room was empty, and over the course of the two-hour reception attendance didn’t improve much. The artist’s friends from Toronto outnumbered a small group of local art lovers two to one.

I’ve never met AGN board members socially - and I’m not likely to if they continue to avoid these opening receptions like the plague. Unless they were incognito, disguised as empty seats, I don’t think one of them put in an appearance.

It’s one thing for the citizens of the County to stay away in droves, but another matter altogether when the majority of the AGN Board cannot find the time to attend the Gallery’s opening receptions.

It’s an embarrassment to the citizens who support the Gallery and to Dorette Carter, the Gallery’s outstanding curator.
R. Decker

2008-05-04T03:12:00.000-07:00

AGN Curator Dorette Carter and artist Rebecca Last

The Decker Art Reviews - Rebecca Last: Rice Lake. - dynamic and lively and constantly interesting

2008-05-04T03:06:00.000-07:00

April 26 – May 24,, The Art Gallery of Northumberland

You’d think that 26 paintings of the same lake from the same vantage point would make for a monotonous art exhibition. Not so of Rebecca Last’s Rice Lake exhibition at the Art Gallery of Northumberland from April 26 - May 24.

These paintings capture the lake in a wide variety of climatic moods, and showcase Ms Last’s skill in the use of light and shadow and subtle tonal variations, making these works dynamic and lively and constantly interesting. They abstract the sense of power and force, not of the lake, but of the weather on this petulant body of water.

Study #54 is a turbulent, moody piece, suggesting a confluence of dark forces, a battle of good versus evil, tranquility and turbulence balanced on a knife edge. Study #50 is equally dynamic and dramatic in its clash of forces, showing weather so violent it blurs sky and water and land - and blurs the line between representational and abstract art.

These pieces are all numbered “studies”: The artist knows full well that she is trying to capture some tangible yet ephemeral moment that is the collision of her inner state and the lake conditions.

But in the most successful of these works she achieves the near-impossible, capturing a mood, an instant of time, that quintessential moment of change that, while uniquely itself, also contains traces of its predecessor and hints of its antecedent.

Young violinist marks nine years in Orchestra with ‘Sonic Bloom’ concert

2008-04-24T01:41:00.000-07:00

The “Sonic Bloom” concert is always a special occasion for the members of La Jeunesse Youth Orchestra, but this season’s finale is extra special for Garrett Shannon.
The eighteen-year-old violinist from Cobourg has played with Port Hope-based LJYO for all nine years of the Orchestra’s existence, but he is heading off to Durham College to study chemical engineering next year, so “Sonic Bloom” represents his last full concert with the group.
At least five other members are also graduating and moving on. Flutist Alicia Stroobach of Cobourg, trombonist Ian McKeown of Cobourg, clarinettist Carina Canonico of Courtice, violinist David Shewchuk of Bowmanville, and cellist Emily Karpazis of Oakwood, are all planning college or university studies that will take them away from LJYO next year.
The departure of several leading players each spring makes recruitment a perennial challenge, so the Orchestra holds auditions in June and again in September.
Garrett Shannon can still remember his first audition. He was in grade 5 when he first heard that a new group was starting an orchestra in the area. “I was worried that I wasn’t good enough, because I heard they would be playing some really difficult pieces,” he recalls, “but they encouraged me to give it a try.” He auditioned, and he was accepted.
Since that time, he says, every season has had many high points. “Rehearsals are fun because of the social aspects,” he says, adding that “I never would have gotten to know many of my friends if I hadn’t joined the Orchestra.”
LJYO also goes on several field trips each year, to perform and to hear other orchestras perform. These trips offer lots of opportunities to get to know other students.
On concert day, “it’s all business -- but at the same time it’s really fun to hear all the pieces played right through,” Garrett says.
This year’s “Sonic Bloom” concert includes a typically ambitious programme. Major works on the bill include Carl Maria von Weber’s “Oberon Concerto”, “Espana” by Emmanuel Chabrier, and “Night on Bald Mountain” by Modest Mussorgsky.
Garrett notes that all three are challenging pieces to play, but each is enjoyable to listen to in its own way. In particular, he says, “Night on Bald Mountain” is a favourite of Orchestra members.
The “Sonic Bloom” concert is Sunday May 4 at 3 pm, at the Port Hope United Church. Tickets are $15, $12 for seniors or students, or $40 for a family of four, available at 1-866-460-5596, online at www.ljyo.ca, and at the box offices of Victoria Hall in Cobourg and Capitol Theatre in Port Hope.

The Sixth Annual Toronto Art Expo, March 6-9,

2008-03-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

With over 350 artists and a range of media that omits only performance art, the Sixth Annual Toronto Art Expo was must-see viewing for anyone interested in the artistic activity of working artists who for the most part are not yet represented by galleries.
The Art Expo was a rewarding experience for patrons, if not for artists, since attendance was dismally low on the Friday and Saturday due to the blizzard.
Naturally, in an exhibition of this size and breadth it is impossible to avoid disappointments, and there were a fair number of booths that I walked by as quickly as common courtesy allowed. But there were many pleasant surprises and a lot of interesting work on display.
Colborne Art Gallery artists Pat Stanley made her first appearance at the Expo and Alice Vander Vennen her fourth. Recent work by Anne Barkley, Seung-Yun Im, Andrew King, and Suzanne Metz were also deserving of long looks. A number of pieces in Marjolyn van der Hart’s memory series were quite strong – and happily well removed from the oh-so pretty pictures she was painting two years ago.
The range of prices is as broad as the range of styles, and you are sure to find a nice work that suits almost any budget – at next year’s show, March 19-22, 2009.

R. Decker

The Forsyth Review - Rod Straker Retrospective

2008-03-20T06:13:00.000-07:00

Sandra Mathews and artist Rod Straker

There’s a wonderful exhibition at the Upstairs Gallery in Port Hope. The featured artist is Rod Straker whose collection is called “Retrospective”; beautiful paintings, including seascapes, landscapes and flora, in oils, acrylics and watercolours.
Rod’s paintings are all in the rear gallery. In the front gallery are the works of other wonderful Northumberland artists who work in various media: Graeme Coxon, Joan Hayes, Anne Plaxton, Elizabeth Vercoe and Eric Winter.
Like all the exhibits at this satellite gallery, and the Art Gallery of Northumberland gallery in Victoria Hall, it’s not to be missed. Hours at the Upstairs Gallery are Thursday to Saturday 1:00 to 5:00 and Sunday 1:00 to 4:00. The number there is 905.885.2115 and it’s on the second floor at 38 Walton Street, Port Hope. The Group Show ends on April 13^th.

The Forsyth Review - I have never experienced anything quite like it.

2008-03-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

Actors Jillian Cook, Mark Ellis and Julian Mulock with First Stages
Director Robert Latimer after The Retreat from Moscow reading.

It was the worst snow storm of the season the day before, so Director Robert Latimer and the actors – Jillian Cook, Julian Mulock and Mark Ellis – did not even meet until noon on the day of the 3:00 p.m. performance at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope. They ran through the play once and then it was ‘curtain’ time. The performance I’m talking about was the First Stages Theatre Company reading of the William Nicholson play The Retreat from Moscow.
How well do we know the people we marry? Is it wrong to decide it’s time to be honest? Is love enough to save a family? In The Retreat from Moscow, William Nicholson, the celebrated author of Shadowlands, tells the powerful story of a husband who decides to be truthful in his marriage, and of the wife and son whose lives will never be the same again.
Edward and Alice have been married for thirty-three years. He is a teacher at a boys’ school, perfectly at home with his daily crossword and lately engrossed in reading about Napoleon’s costly invasion of Moscow. She is an observant Catholic, exacting and opinionated, and has been collecting poems about lost love for a new anthology. Jamie, their diffident thirty-two year old son, is visiting for the weekend when Edward announces he has met another woman. With intensity, empathy and great humour The Retreat from Moscow examines the fallout of a shattered marriage.
The reviews after the play’s debut on Broadway were superb. Not surprising. The play is magnificently crafted and these three actors gave a performance in Port Hope that was truly memorable.
The next First Stages play reading will be Moonlight and Magnolias on Sunday April 6th at 3:00 pm at the Capitol theatre. These performances are truly some of the best theatre you will experience. I highly recommend you buy a ticket for the next play and for a special presentation to end the season: Sunshine & Shadows; an Evening with Stephen Leacock. That’s on May 11^th and will be something a little different: a fully staged production. This will be the end of Robert Latimer’s second season as artistic director/producer for First Stages. He is a remarkable talent.ckets are $25 at the Cameco Capitol Centre for the Arts box office: 905.885.1071 or 1.800.434.5092.

The Forsyth Review -Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra Another Friends Of Music Success

2008-03-19T02:21:00.000-07:00

Tafelmusik violinist and Director Christopher Verrette (right) chats with Friends of Music patrons at the reception after the concert.

To say that this Friends of Music concert at Port Hope United Church was a success is an understatement. Audience members, estimated to be almost 400, were thrilled by the virtuosity of the Tafelmusik orchestra members and with the program: Veracini, Handel, Bach and Boccherini. The Bach was to be a concerto for three violins but due to the illness of one member we heard a concerto for two violins. It was, quite simply, exquisite.
Hailed as “one of the world’s top baroque orchestras” by Gramophone Magazine, Tafelmusik was founded in 1979. Under the inspired leadership of Music Director and Concertmaster Jeanne Lamon since 1981, Tafelmusik has achieved international recognition for its concerts and recordings. All members of the orchestra are specialists in historical performance practice and perform on original instruments or modern replicas faithful in design and construction to the originals.
Tafelmusik’s success has taken it around the world, with regular tours across North America, Europe, and Asia. In October, the orchestra returned to Asia for the first time in nine years, with stops in Macau, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Seoul. A February U.S. tour took them to New York, Virginia and California (Los Angeles’ renowned Disney Hall).
Listening to these remarkable musicians playing their original instruments, in some cases replicas of originals, is an experience not to be missed. For this concert the orchestra was led by Christopher Verrette, a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. His direction is unique – and totally fascinating - in that he conducts the musicians with his bow and his body language.
If you missed this concert there are CDs available, including Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Once occupied entirely with baroque-era composers, Tafelmusik is getting adventurous. Jeanne Lamon, Tafelmusik’s director, say: “… as time goes on, the creative opportunities just seem to expand exponentially. We spent the first years mastering baroque and classical repertoire, and now we are using that wonderful music more and more as a springboard.”
It was an incredible concert. Yet another Friends of Music success.

Celebrating a Decade of Colborne Gallery Artists

2008-03-16T15:51:00.000-07:00

By R. Decker

March 15 – April 27, 2008, The Colborne Art Gallery
This group exhibition at the Colborne Gallery is indeed a cause for celebration. The works of about thirty past and present Colborne Gallery artists are presented for our appreciation with a minimum of fuss but with considerable cumulative impact.
With such a wide variety of media on display - oil and acrylic paintings, sculpture, assemblage, glassworks, jewellery - the exhibition has something to appeal to almost any visitor’s taste.
Two bronze sculptures by Frances Gage – especially “Torso of a Dancer” – catch the eye as soon as you enter the Gallery. And two dark mysterious prints by Betsy Downie, “Vespers V” and “Vespers VI”, offer an alluring glow that mystifies and mesmerizes as they draw you further into the room.
The exhibition is full of surprises and rewards: Two abstract paintings by Pat Stanley, the Gallery’s newest member, two of six completed works in Wilhemina Kennedy’s new Water Series, and Melanie Browne’s “Red Painting with Bowl”, with its subtle play with dimensionality and scale.
Not to be missed, this fine exhibition of art is dedicated to the memory of Ruth Coleman Harding.
The Colborne Art Gallery
Jan-Mar, open Saturday & Sunday, noon – 4 pm
Apr-Dec, open Thursday to Sunday, noon – 5 pm

51 King Street East, Colborne ON, 905-355-1798

Randy Smoke, Alderville Artist Draws An International Following To A New Gallery

2008-03-06T01:39:00.000-08:00

by Eoin Callan, The Independent

Some art belongs to a time and place. It is born of a moment, marking a turning point when historical forces coalesce. The paintings of Randy P. Smoke appear to have arrived at such a juncture.
The artist born and raised on the Alderville First Nation is producing a growing body of work that speaks to the ongoing cultural revival of communities emerging from a period when their heritage was suppressed or distorted.
The paintings and sculpture are attracting an international following and bringing an unexpectedly large number of visitors to a new gallery in the heart of Alderville built by Randy and his partner Alexis, who makes jewelry, candles and jams and other crafts.
The Anishnaabe artist says his paintings are meant to show people as they are and as they were. The oils and acrylic works depict First Nations people as mothers and fathers “who loved, made love, raised children” and function as an alternative to the “stereotypical historical garbage”, he says.
The works tend to blend historical scenes and living traditions, often drawing on modern faces. Members of the Alderville First Nation and dancers on the pow-wow circuit will likely recognize in many of the paintings friends and neighbours – as well as Randy himself, who can be quite shy and humble.
The artist says the key to his work is a desire to “show the beauty of this culture”. “I have a passion for First Nations culture.” “I aim to show the positives and not so much the negatives,” he says, adding: “That is kind of what I’m basing all the work I’m doing on”.

The artist says the focus on First Nations’ traditions serve as a form of outreach, but began as a process of self-education.

Ten years ago Randy was a residential contractor who had reached the end of his road, burnt out and physically wrecked from too many hard knocks. Art was a refuge. “I thought to myself: ‘I’d like to try art. I’ve always been told I’m pretty good at it’.” He found his mentor in the late Norman Greene of Hastings.“I give him all the credit for my start. He was phenomenal,” says Randy.

He says most of the paintings depict “a time in my life when I was learning something from somebody.” He started out with classical subjects and scenes, but quickly combined his paintings with a new-found interest in traditional culture and ceremonies that had been taboo or explicitly forbidden when he was growing up, especially in the heavily-settled areas of southern Ontario.

The artistic and cultural pursuits became firmly entwined when he won a place at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which has launched a generation of successful artists. “They accept 18 students a year and I was one of the students accepted,” says Randy. “It is a small school but they bring in the best teachers in the world.”

Although Randy returned directly to Alderville – which has always been his home – the time at the institute helped him gain an international audience and earn notable fans, including a former president of the United States. Showings of his work at the Canadian Aboriginal Festival and Pow Wow in Toronto each autumn also helped word about his work spread.

Randy says his life-like style explains part of his paintings’ appeal.“People ar e looking for high-realism, almost to the point of classic realism, of fine art.” “The collectors started finding me,” he says, adding: “I’ve sold some paintings for $20,000 and $30,000.” The success helped encourage him to build the gallery, which opened in December. Despite launching in the dead of winter, it has already proven a huge success. “It has just been non-stop. It is way beyond anything I expected,” he says. Randy says most find their way to the gallery on Route 45 by word of mouth, including nationalities ranging from Americans to Russians. Yet to see a summer season, the gallery can quickly fill on the weekends with dozens of visitors, enticing many passersby to stop on the main route through the territory.

“The community already benefits from it. I employ six people,” he says. He plans to add more space before the summer to make room for a café and smoke shop to accommodate those that want to linger. “People won’t leave. They just sit and visit,” he says. Like many businesses in the territory, the gallery also sells hand rolled cigarettes and bags of tobacco that are sold tax free, in accordance with the rights of First Nations. The owner says it is important territories do not surrender their “inherent right to use natural products as a form of barter”. Randy is supportive of those on nearby territories waging high-profile campaigns to assert their rights. But says a big part of his personal mission is to accentuate similarities rather than differences.
He adds that he was drawn to examine his own culture more closely while “trying to seek out answers. Why so many people didn’t like us? Why they called us names?” The questions would be relevant in many communities across the country, but are particularly so in Alderville, which is a stones throw from Roseneath.
The two communities have lived side-by-side for the better part of the last century, but often led entirely separate existences, punctuated by spells of hostility. Randy says the once infamous tension between the two communities has eased and given way to a greater recognition of the shared heritage. “What makes First Nations the best people in the world to be among is that when push comes to shove they are there for you”. “It is like the old Canadian heritage spirit. If a farmers’ barn burned down everybody would rally round and help him rebuild it. It is what being Canadian is about,” he says.

Pictures from the LYO

2008-03-03T16:39:00.001-08:00

The Forsyth Review – LaJeunesse Youth Orchestra Soloists Receive Standing Ovations

2008-03-02T12:03:00.000-08:00

At the end of last season I was truly worried about La Jeunesse Youth Orchestra. So many of the lead musicians were leaving to go to University and I was worried that Music Director Michael Lyons and Director of Strings Laurie Mitchell would never be able to find enough kids to replace them, never mind of the same calibre. Oh ye of little faith! Not only did they find the kids they needed to fill the gaps but the orchestra is, as usual, awesome.
Last Sunday LJYO performed its annual In the Spotlight presentation which showcases soloists and individual sections of the orchestra. It was, as usual, at the Port Hope United Church which was as full as I’ve ever seen it. Those kids outdid themselves, despite far less rehearsal time than usual because of the bad weather.
The soloists were Carina Canonico on clarinet, Emily Karpazis on recorder and concertmaster David Shewchuk. They all three received standing ovations and if you weren’t there I can only tell you that that was because their performances were outstanding.
As usual with LJYO performances family, friends and neighbours of these young people come to see and hear them perform. This was certainly true of David Shewchuk whose family was out in force. Sadly for LJYO and us, this is David’s last year with the orchestra before he goes off to university to study music. He has been a violinist with the orchestra for seven years and is concertmaster this year. He is also a huge talent and will be much missed by LJYO.
The program last week included Sibelius, Bach, Saint-Saëns, Schumann and Dvořák. It also included the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean and Tango of the Lemons, a composition by bass clarinetist and LJYO coach David Tanner.
I always find LJYO concerts to be inspiring and am constantly amazed at the level of talent. Michael Lyons and Laurie Mitchell do such a good job – Laurie’s Prelude Strings, 12 small people who are learning to play the violin - played two pieces and were a delightful portent of talent to come when they join the big kids.
If you have never been to an LJYO concert you are missing a very big treat so be sure to catch the next one: Sonic Bloom on May 4^th. They are also planning a special benefit concert with fiddle champion Eric Provencher on June 19^th at the beautiful Day Lily Gardens near Orono.
And of course the search for new musicians to replace those leaving each year is constant. Auditions for a place in the orchestra will be held June 12-14.
For more information about concerts, to enroll your child in the auditions or to find out how you can volunteer or help financially go to the website: www.ljyo.ca or call 1.866.460.5596.

Selena Forsyth