What’s up: Ilya Osachuk, Mavis Gallant collection, ArtsJunktion reopening, Sum 41 and Folk Fest In the City

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/01/2025 (283 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ilya Osachuk in concert

• Gas Station Arts Centre, 445 River Ave.
• Friday, 8 p.m.
• Tickets 19.50 to $24.75 at gsac.ca

Winnipeg-born jazz bassist and composer Ilya Osachuk, currently based in New York, is returning to his hometown this Friday to perform music from his debut album The Answer.

The album, inspired by Osachuk’s experiences as a Ukrainian-Canadian growing up in the city, is grounded in the jazz tradition and features young phenoms Tyler Henderson and Kai Craig, as well as musicians Donald Vega and Billy Drummond.

Friday’s concert will be the first time Osachuk performs the entirety of his album in one sitting.

He will be joined by New York city trio Thomas Linger on piano, Craig on drums and his teacher and mentor Jon Gordon on the saxophone.

A reception will follow the show.

— AV Kitching

---

Mavis Gallant’s early writing collected

• McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park location (1120 Grant Ave.)
• Saturday, 7 p.m.
• Free

Before Mavis Gallant moved to Paris and became one of the best-known short-story writers of the 20th century, she cut her teeth at the Montreal Standard as a reporter from 1944 to 1950.

A new collection edited by former Winnipeggers Bill Richardson and Neil Besner, along with Marta Dvorak, compiles a selection of the 150 pieces Gallant wrote for the Standard. Montreal Standard Time: The Early Journalism of Mavis Gallant was published in October 2024 by Vehicule Press and launches Saturday at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location.

Richardson and Besner will be joined by writer Catherine Hunter, who will serve as host and moderator of the discussion about Gallant’s work, while actor Mariam Bernstein will do a reading of a selection of Gallant’s writing from Montreal Standard Time.

The event kicks off at 7 p.m., and will also be streamed on McNally Robinson’s YouTube channel.

— Ben Sigurdson

---

A crafty reopening celebration

• ArtsJunktion, 594 Main St.
• Sunday, 12 p.m.
• Free

Nearly one year after a fire shut the non-profit’s downtown headquarters down, ArtsJunktion is celebrating its grand reopening with a public celebration on Sunday.

The maker space — which hosts workshops, crafternoons and a well-stocked reclaimed art supply depot — has spent the last 10 months operating off-site, including pop-ups at the Millennium Library, the C2 Centre for Craft and at Bijou Park, the outdoor plaza operated by the Exchange District Biz each summer beside Old Market Square.

The reopening celebration kicks off at noon and is scheduled to run until 4 p.m., giving guests time to sit down and create or to reacquaint themselves with the revitalized space. There will be snacks, crafting and shopping, with music courtesy of DJ rampage.

— Ben Waldman

---

Sum 41 farewell tour

• Canada Life Centre, 300 Portage Ave.
• Monday, 6:50 p.m.
• Tickets $54-$119 at Ticketmaster

In 2001, a group of snot-nosed punks from Ajax, Ont. released a debut album audaciously titled All Killer No Filler.

Turns out, Sum 41 knew what it had. The album charted all over the world — including in the notoriously difficult to break through U.S. — and went platinum in Canada, America and the U.K.

And now, after 27 years, the band is calling it quits — but not without saying goodbye. Sum 41 is currently on its farewell headlining Tour Of The Setting Sum in support of its eighth and final outing, 2024’s Heaven :x: Hell — an ambitious double album featuring 10 spiky pop-punk tracks (Heaven) and 10 metal anthems (Hell). (Frontman Deryck Whibley also released a candid memoir last fall called Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell.)

Fellow Canadian punk outfits Gob and Pup are the support acts.

— Jen Zoratti

---

Cassidy Mann, Slow Leaves, Nic Dyson

• Folk Fest In the City Library Workshops
• Charleswood Library, 6-4910 Roblin Blvd.
• Saturday, 2 p.m.
• Free

People talk about Christmas in July —how about the Winnipeg Folk Festival in January?

For a certain contingent of Winnipeg, the four-day fest is every bit as important a holiday. (As Ian Ross once joked from the WFF main stage, “With all you here, who’s watching Wolseley?”)

The folk fest hosts also hosts many events through the off-season, including a new monthly acoustic concert series running January through April and co-hosted with the Winnipeg Public Library.

The series focuses on alumni of the festival’s Young Performers Program, such as Cassidy Mann, Slow Leaves (Grant Davidson) and Nic Dyson, who are featured in the series’ opening concert on Saturday.

Slow Leaves is one of the prairies’ most notable folk and indie acts.

The other two, earlier in their careers, enjoy a growing following as well — with Mann’s lightly electronic If It’s Not Forever EP earning hundreds of thousands of streams since its 2022 release.

—Conrad Sweatman