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| Classical JUNOs performers |
Something of a musical melange weekend but an excellent set of events! Eschewing some of the bands and artists we knew, we chose less familiar sounds for our JUNOfest experience. First up was the Classical JUNOs in Concert event at the National Arts Centre, featuring both nominated performers and composers. The mix of contemporary music was brilliantly played by Christina Petrowska Quilico, Susan Hoeppner, Heather Schmidt and the New Orford String Quartet. Quilico amazed the almost 100-strong audience with her performance of Derek Charke's Sepia Fragments in a reduction for piano; I found this piece a really captivating mix of earthly and ethereal elements. Quilico's second performance was of Ann Southam's Glass Houses No. 5, an hypnotic piece which sounded both fiendishly difficult to play but also very clean and unembellished. Susan Hoeppner's excellent performance of Eldin Burton's Sonatina for Flute and Piano got the popular vote, however my favourite of the afternoon was Heather Schmidt's performance of her own piece, Silver Tides. A letter from the heart that wouldn't, to me, have sounded out of place in a (good) pop concert. Sadly at the time of writing I can't find a recording of this piece to link, but all of Schmidt's compositions and recordings are listed on her site, as well as other sound samples here.
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| The Strain |
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| I Spell It Nature |
Friday evening's JUNOfest event was chosen on the strength of I Spell It Nature's support slot at Karkwa's show in December. The first band were Wakefield band The Strain, who were entertaining and have a lot of potential, but seemed not to have quite found their sound. I Spell It Nature followed: on 2nd listen their set was very polished and to me, quite the most 'different' band of the evening. Their album A Story Of... found its way into my bag and now that JUNOfest is finished I'll be able to listen to it! We stayed for the first few songs from The Love Machine but weren't impressed.
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| EKO! |
Back to The Lounge on Saturday for The Deep Dark Woods and supports. This one really was chosen on the strength of Facebook, Spectrasonic's website and Ottawa Xpress. We were really impressed with Gatineau group EKO!. They had banter and good tunes, a great Saturday night band! EKO! and Harlan Pepper were the 2 best bands of the night, fitting together really well. Harlan Pepper's influences are very obvious, but nonetheless their energetic folk-rock sound and polished stage presence (not to mention two cardboard cows) puts them clearly in the watch-this-space category.
Given The Deep Dark Woods hype, we expected more than we heard. Maybe it was just their particular style, or their very late stage slot, or the mumbling into the mic between tracks, but they didn't seem to engage with us (though their fans in the crowd were very excited).
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| Harlan Pepper |
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