What’s up: Boy Golden, Frozen, Scott Nolan, R.H. Thomson, McKenzie Warriner

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This article was published 23/11/2023 (1034 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hey Jimmy gets moment at the Burt

Boy Golden

With Fontine and Kris Ulrich

Friday, Nov. 24, 8 p.m.

Burton Cummings Theatre

Tickets: $37-$47.25 at ticketmaster.ca and winnipegfolkfestival.ca

Boy Golden will become the latest Manitoba act to have risen from Winnipeg’s bar scene to headline at one of the city’s biggest stages Friday night.

The country-folk singer-songwriter plays the Burton Cummings Theatre, following fellow on-the-rise artists such as William Prince and the Bros. Landreth to be at the top of the bill at the former vaudeville venue.

It’ll be an official unveiling of Hey Jimmy, Boy Golden’s introspective second album, which came out shortly after a suprise appearance the Winnipeg Folk Festival in July. The success of the show — the crowd ate up KD and Lunch Meat and other Boy Golden offerings — convinced Liam Duncan, the mind behind the Boy Golden persona, as well as the festival, to give the Burt a shot.

The gamble has appeared to have paid off. While some general-admission standing spots and second-balcony seats remain for sale, according to Ticketmaster’s website, only a few singles are available in the Burt’s lower balcony area.

— Alan Small

Frozen with the WSO

Centennial Concert Hall

Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.

Kids tickets $25, adult tickets ranging from $25 to $89, depending on location

Frozen is a state of mind in Winnipeg, but it’s also one of the most beloved animated movies of all time, an inescapable juggernaut set in the wintry kingdom of Arendelle.

As part of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s ongoing Night at the Movies series, the film’s characters — Anna, Kristoff, Sven, Olaf, Elsa and more — will star on screen at the concert hall, with conductor Julian Pellicano leading some of the country’s best musicians through Christophe Beck’s icy and heartwarming score.

A fun introduction to classical music and to one of the city’s most important cultural institutions. Let’s go, and then let’s sing Let it Go together.

— Ben Waldman

Dream a little dream

Tonight, Nov. 23, 7.30pm

Eckhardt Hall, Winnipeg Art Gallery

Tickets and seat reservation: https://dreamplay.ca/node/412/

The second concert in the five-concert DreamPlay Small Concerts sees Scott Nolan performing his songs and stories with Glenn Buhr on piano.

Nolan will be playing a custom guitar designed and built by Manitoba luthier Allan Beardsell during the one-hour concert. He will perform 12 pieces, 10 of which are his own works, including Annabella Street, Ebb and Flow and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.

He will also be performing two poems, Hoping for Angels and Joy Will Find a Way, by Patrick O’Connell.

Admission is pay-what-you-can, and seats have to be reserved in advance.

The concerts are an initiative of the DreamPlay Productions team to support Winnipeg performing artists, with a focus on music, poetry and theatre.

— AV Kitching

An evening with R.H. Thomson

Tonight, Nov. 23, 7 p.m.

McNally Robinson Booksellers Grant Park location and streaming on YouTube

Free admission

In his new book, veteran Canadian actor R.H. Thomson (Anne With an E, The Message, Chloe) mines his family’s wartime past in an exploration of life, family, tragedy, literature and art.

By the Ghost Light: Wars, Memory, and Families, published in late October by Knopf Canada, explores his immediate and extended family’s history through two world wars, jumping off via correspondence to and from great uncles (five of whom were killed in combat), aunts and cousins. These letters provided valuable insight into his thoughtful, poignant and profound rumination on the state of the world — past and present — for Thomson’s book, which spun out of his 2001 play, The Lost Boys.

For the First World War Centenary, Thomson created The World Remembers, an ambitious project to chronicle the names of the millions killed in the war on all sides (including 66,000 Canadians), which is now installed at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. In doing so he developed a new understanding of the effects of war in the moment and afterwards, which contributed greatly to his first work of non-fiction.

Thomson launches By the Ghost Light tonight at McNally, where he will be joined in conversation by Brazilian-born Winnipeg actor and director Rodrigo Beilfuss, the artistic director of Shakespeare in the Ruins, before signing copies of the book.

— Ben Sigurdson

A musical victory lap

Sunday, Nov. 26, 7 p.m.

Eva Clare Hall, 65 Dafoe Rd.

Tickets $23, $11 for students at showpass.com

McKenzie Warriner, winner of this year’s Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, returns to her alma mater this weekend for a special concert celebrating her first-place finish in the annual voice contest.

The 46th Eckhardt-Gramatté competition took place in Brandon in April with six Canadian vocalists vying for the title, which comes with a cash prize and a cross-country tour.

Warriner is a University of Manitoba alum and a soprano known for her interpretations of music ranging from baroque to avant-garde. She has performed with the Saskatoon and Regina symphony orchestras and the Vancouver Opera. On Sunday, Warriner will be accompanied by Canadian pianist Danielle Guina.

Proceeds from the event will go toward the development of the school’s new Desautels Concert Hall.

— Eva Wasney

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