PrettyInScarlett

After my hectic July and more relaxed August, M and I saw out the summer with a trip to Folkfest yesterday (Day 3). Initially tempted to attend by Basia Bulat's inclusion on the Ravenlaw stage, we had a fun and relaxing day in the sun. I now know more about banjos than I did on Friday, thanks to the afternoon workshops; we also saw the end of the Song Maps workshop.  The Moon stage - The Little Stevies As a Folkfest first timer, I can't comment on the new site vs old site, but there is certainly plenty of room at Hog's Back Park. Our only real complaint features the main CUPE/SCFP stage area. Whilst the rest of the site had a great laidback, fun vibe, the CUPE/SCFP stage was much more anonymous and less laid-back. The division of the main stage audience area into (presumably) VIP/seating and general was quite weird. Whilst the Moon stage  - smaller acts from other stages doing short inbetweeny sets - is a great idea, the CUPE/SCFP stage just wasn't inviting. The...

Rain-drenched early crowd Second day of JazzFest complete with full waterproofs and wellies. A few hardly souls, myself included, headed to Confederation Park to see, in theory, the Laila Biali Trio . Another new one for me, but the JazzFest profile promised pop-oriented jazz from the pianist-songwriter plus George Koller and Larnell Lewis on bass and drums respectively. Sadly, Biali was held up at Ottawa Airport by the adverse weather, so the impromptu Koller-Lewis duo performed a set for the bedraggled attendees - at this point there was not so much a crowd as people in a field! The show also included a demonstration on dismantling Koller's new bass, which was very interesting! By the time Elvis Costello & The Imposters took to the stage the downpour had abated and more people had arrived. As a taster of things to come, the set started with Pump It Up and went on to include gems such as Watching The Detectives, Red Shoes and Alison, as detailed below (from Elvis Costell...

Something of a late April/May bonanza for shows - now that spring is here (mostly - in between the rainy days) there seem to be events galore! First up, an interesting and unusual evening. M and I received complimentary tickets to see Chamber Music of Healey Willan from Chamber Players of Canada , 23rd April. Neither of us were familiar with his works, but there's a first time for everything. I particularly liked the evening's premiere, which was a Willan piece for cello and piano completed by Matthew Larkin. Very very interesting, but sadly far too short! The trio in B minor was pretty good too. The first half programme (Fugue in G minor, Introduction/Allegro, Romance for Violin & Piano, Sanata in E minor for Violin & Piano), didn't engage us quite as much, though. The Chamber Players series also includes Angela Hewitt on May 7th. From one festival to another. The Prairie Scene (co-promoted by the National Arts Centre) is a showcase of music, visual arts/media, th...

Something of a departure from our recent outings to see Finnish band Apocalyptica on 11 th March. After somewhat 're' discovering the band via this route , we were quite excited by the time Friday came. To detail the evening in reverse, Apocalyptica's show was superb, with a range of songs both old and new/transcriptions and originals. I particularly liked the more introspective mid-set performance of Beautiful (with drummer Mikko Sirén on a 4 th cello) and Sacra. As far as I recall and compared to setlists from other shows (none available for 11 th March), the setlist (compiled here from setlist . fm ) was as follows: On the Rooftop With Quasimodo 2010 Grace Master of Puppets ( Metallica cover) End Of Me (with Tipe Johnson) I'm Not Jesus (with Tipe Johnson) One ( Metallica cover) Refuse/Resist ( Sepultura cover) Beautiful ( Mikko Sirén left the drumset to play Cello for this song) Sacra Bittersweet Last Hope Bring Them to Light Seek & Destroy ( Me...