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Celebrate International Women’s Day with the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra

Thursday, March 9, 7:30 p.m.
West End Cultural Centre
Tickets $42 including fees at winnipegjazzorchestra.com

The women of the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra are celebrating International Women’s Day 2023 with an evening of music written, arranged or performed by women artists.

The evening’s program includes songs written or made famous by Joni Mitchell, Patty Darling, Maria Schneider, Ellen Rowe, Jule Styne, Barbra Streisand, Billie Holiday and Mary Lou Williams. It will also feature songs that were written or arranged by women with Manitoba roots, such as pianist/composer Michelle Grégoire, drummer/composer Tetyana Haraschuk, trombonist/arranger Karin Carlson and music educator/musician Alexis Silver.

Concert goers will hear a big band arrangement of Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, which was performed at the WJO’s inaugural International Women’s Day concert last year, as well as Grégoire’s The Bison Hunt, which was recorded for the WJO’s 2022 album Voices – A Musical Heritage.

Doors open at 7 p.m., show begins at 7:30 p.m. Note that the WECC requires the use of masks.

— Jen Zoratti

 

Local food and drink on the menu as Love Local MB event returns

Saturday, March 11, 5-9 p.m.
Victoria Inn, 1808 Wellington Ave.
Tickets $40 at wfp.to/lovelocalmb

After a two-year hiatus, Love Local MB is bringing back their ever-popular evening of beer, wine and food.

The 8th annual Food, Beer & Wine Event will showcase a wide range of local producers for guests to sample while shopping for your pantry, wine cellar, beer fridge and beyond.

Over three dozen local makers will be in attendance at Saturday’s 18+ event, which takes place at the Victoria Inn starting at 5 p.m. On the local drinks front will be boozy wares from Little Brown Jug, Shrugging Doctor Beverage Company, Capital K Distillery, Dead Horse Cider and Barn Hammer Brewing Co., among others. And there will be plenty of non-alcoholic bevvies available as well, including tea from BREWTeas, broth from Bones & Marrow, kombucha from Wolseley Kombucha and coffee from Other Brother Roasters.

Other local edible delights to be discovered include beef jerky, baked goods, all manner of spreads, sauces and condiments, ice pops, perogies and even roasted crickets (in a number of different flavours).

Tickets for Food, Beer & Wine Event are $40, and include a free welcome mocktail, sampling and live music. They’re available at wfp.to/lovelocalmb, where you can also see a complete list of vendors and shop online for locally produced fare (alternately, Love Local MB also has an in-person store at St. Vital Centre).

— Ben Sigurdson

 

Nagamo brings Balfour’s Juno buzz to city church

With Musica Intima, Dead of Winter and the University of Manitoba Singers
Wednesday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.
Crescent Fort Rouge United Church, 525 Wardlaw Ave.
Tickets: $30 at crescentfortrouge.ca and eventbrite.ca. Student tickets at the door will be $10.

Andrew Balfour’s Juno Award fate will have been decided by the time Vancouver chamber choir Musica Intima performs his nominated work Nagamo Wednesday evening at the Crescent Fort Rouge United Church.

Whether or not Nagamo is named classical album of the year (small ensemble) at the Junos in Edmonton this weekend for Balfour, it won’t lessen his achievement of fusing Elizabethan-era choral works by composers such as Henry Purcell, William Byrd and Thomas Tallis with Cree and Ojibwe languages.

Dead of Winter, the Winnipeg vocal ensemble that Balfour conducts as its artistic director, and the University of Manitoba Singers, directed by Elroy Friesen, will join Musica Intima in the Nagamo performance Wednesday.

Nagamo means “sings” in Cree, and Balfour, a member of the Fisher River First Nation who was part of the ’60s Scoop when he was born in 1967, got the inspiration for the work from the first interactions between Aboriginal Peoples in eastern North America with the first European settlers, a relationship that initially was one of mutual respect.

“Nagamo is a re-imagining of what (would have) happened if we had been able to maintain that relationship and shared our music and culture in an equal way,” he said in a February interview after the Juno nomination was announced.

— Alan Small

 

Lots of great music at the Times Change(d)

Various times
Ticket info at highandlonesomeclub.ca

When Jeff Beck died earlier this year, music fans the world over wailed like the master guitarist’s instrument. Ranked in the top five guitarists according to Rolling Stone, Beck is considered by many as one of the most highly respected intrumentalists in modern music, known for his work with the Yardbirds but also as a prolific soloist and collaborator. Just listen to him play for an hour or so, and your perception of what the guitar can do will shift forever. On Thurs. March 9, at 8:30 p.m., a who’s who of local artists — Murray Pulver, Mike Swickis, Barry G. Player, Marco Castillo, Tim Butler, and Ego Spank — will play Beck’s music in one of the city’s best venues.

But wait, there’s more. The Honeysliders — a sure bet for bluesy, woosy country music — take the stage Friday night, joined by Show Pony, a relatively new but quickly rising and ambitious local group that bills itself as “cowpunk desert rock country western pop.” I’d emphasize the punk, especially on the band’s recent single Hometown. To promote the single, the band travelled to where its members grew up, including Manitou, Morden and Morris. The song itself is a trip, too. (March 9, 9:30 p.m.).

On Saturday night, the pop savants of VVonder take the stage with the surf-rock revivalists The Catamounts, along with Neighbour Andy, a cool, slick and neat five-piece that’s always willing to lend a cup of sugary, surfy music, with clean vocals and solid harmonies. (March 10, 9:30 p.m.).

Round out your weekend with Big Dave McLean’s Sunday Night Jam (March 12, 8:30 p.m.). Your ears will thank you.

— Ben Waldman

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