More than words

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This article was published 10/02/2024 (763 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Love is life’s sweetest reward, according to the theme from the old television series The Love Boat.

Prairie Theatre Exchange aims to share in some of the romantic bounty on Wednesday with a one-night-only Valentine’s Day concert that will showcase the musical skills of some of the most talented performers in Winnipeg’s theatre community.

These Eyes: Manitoba Love Stories. Canadian Love Songs, will also tell stories from the heart — whether they are the stirring beginnings of relationships to the lifetimes shared between couples who have remained close — which were submitted by members of the audience.

“Over the course of the evening we’re going to read those love stories and then play a song that kind of complements the story,” says Paul De Gurse, who is the musical director of a quintet that is rehearsing some of the most famous love songs from the canon of Canadian music.

“It’s a concert for sure, but a concert with a narrative attached to it.”

That includes These Eyes, the 1968 Guess Who hit penned by Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman that is the inspiration for the PTE in Concert performance.

These Eyes is often at the heart of a conversation when city music aficionados discuss famous Winnipeg tunes and De Gurse says there’s a reason the song continues to resonate with fans.

”(These Eyes) is a beautiful song. It’s got two distinct sections, the moody verse and the triumphant chorus. They both give so much to lean into,” De Gurse says. “Can’t do a show with Canadian love songs in Winnipeg with getting the Guess Who in there.

“Is there pressure to perform it? Absolutely — there’s always going to be pressure performing a Guess Who song in Winnipeg, but I really stand by the version we’re doing.”

Wednesday’s show includes the readings of 14 stories and 12 songs made famous by artists such as Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Alanis Morissette and Avril Lavigne.

De Gurse is the musical director and pianist for Outside Joke, the city theatre company that blends music and improv that most recently performed Christmas Carol: Bigger Dickens Energy in December in partnership with the PTE.

Those collaborations led PTE artistic director Thomas Morgan Jones and managing director Lisa Li to ask De Gurse to reach into his soul and his musical catalogue for an evening of love, Canadian style.

He’ll be at the keyboard for These Eyes too, and joining him will be vocalists Julia Davis, who portrayed Ariel in the Rainbow Stage production of Under the Sea last summer and Jerilyn Bulaong, who is part of the production team for Ma-Buhay, coming to Rainbow in 2024.

“They both have crystal-clear voices. They soar, they fill the space, they sing in harmony so beautifully,” De Gurse says.

Duncan Cox, an actor (Rent, Afterlight), multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, and cellist Patricia Vanuci, a graduate student at the University of Manitoba’s Desautels School of Music, round out the group.

“I feel very lucky I get to create music with so many wonderful artists,” De Gurse says. “It’s what every artist dreams of, finding positive collaborators. I’m lucky to have found them.”

alan.small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall