James Gordon's Rather Exceptional Ensemble

Presented by Ontario Creates James Gordon and his Rather Exceptional Ensemble 
May 29 at Hugh's Room 296 Broadview 

Tickets $30 in advance, $35 at the door

The Rather Exceptional Ensemble includes David Woodhead, Anne Lindsay, Katherine Wheatley, Randall Coryell & Ian Bell 

James Gordon has been there. He’s done that. He has had a remarkably diverse and resilient career in the Canadian cultural sector. As a solo singer-songwriter and with the ground-breaking trio Tamarack, he’s recorded 40 albums and toured relentlessly around the world. He’s written for symphony orchestras, musical theatre, dance works, scored films, and for more than ten years was heard on CBC radio as songwriter-in-residence for the Basic Black and Ontario Morning programs. Between tours, James is a record producer, playwright, community activist, theatre director and just finished a two-term part-time "side hustle" as a Guelph City Councillor. These days he’s perhaps best known as the composer of the viral internet hit "Crybabies Caravan", about the so-called Freedom Convoy in Ottawa. It’s received more than 300,000 views and stimulated a lot of inspiring discussion.

David Woodhead:
Immersed in the world of independent music-making from the start, David Woodhead has had a truly wide-ranging and dynamic career, evolving a distinctive melodic and textural approach that he can mold to fit almost any situation.

You’ve probably seen David’s name listed on the backs of recordings in your collection and, yes, he's on some 300 projects and worked with many influential artists including Perth County Conspiracy, Stan Rogers, Oliver Schroer, Gil Scott-Heron, and David Sanborn. His live gigs have included working with Malagasy guitarist Donné Roberts (a recent Juno nominee), James Gordon, Tamarack, classical-folk fusion-eers Ensemble Polaris and veteran jazzers Manteca, as well as touring internationally with master songwriter James Keelaghan. 

His own music draws from the intimacy of the folk world, the harmonic sensibilites of jazz, and a sense of precision from classical arranging, with room for freedom in individual expression and improvisation. David's Confabulation ensemble has a somewhat exotic and rambunctious nature, while the more recent Oriana Quartet is focused on taking a folk-jazz chamber music approach.

Anne Lindsay
Anne Lindsay has established herself as one of the most engaging and versatile instrumentalists in Canada, adapting her unique violin/fiddle style to the eclectic sounds and musical languages of this country’s rich cultural texture. 

She is a multi-award winning exuberant fireplug of a session-player-to-the-stars (Led Zeppelin, The Chieftains, Blue Rodeo, James Taylor, Roger Daltrey) whose skills have graced many a stage around the world. Anne has played on hundreds of recordings and is a featured performer with the Jim Cuddy Band, The Skydiggers and John McDermott. She was the resident fiddler for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the stage production of The Lord of the Rings. She has also built a formidable career on her own as a musician, composer and vocalist, all showcased brilliantly on her new album, Soloworks. 

Katherine Wheatley:
Acoustic roots with catchy melodies, arresting vocals, great guitar playing, lyrics that get you and that you get - these are all things that have been written over and over again about Katherine Wheatley’s music. She sings truth, bravely, and in detail. Like Shawn Colvin, Edie Brickell and Joni Mitchell, Wheatley mines heartache and produces lyrical and melodic gold. And like one of her earliest influences, Gordon Lightfoot, she invokes nature to reflect the emotional intent of her songs.  

Katherine won the Duke Ellington Award for arranging, the Gordon Delamont Award for Composition and the CMPA award for songwriting at Humber College. Her song "Hallelujah" won a Golden Quill award and was selected, along with "Some Sweet Country" for the new Rise Again songbook (30th anniversary publication of Rise Up). Her solo show in Charlottetown was awarded "Performance of the Year” 2010 by the Guardian. She's been on Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe, TVO's Studio Two, CBC's Vicki Gabareau Show and CTV's Canada AM and has written music for film and television documentaries. 

Randall Coryell
Since the age of 16, Randall Coryell has played drums and percussion on stage, radio, LP, CD, video, TV, in theaters, bars, bar miztvahs, booze cans, and bordellos with the likes of Bo Diddley, Mel Brown, the Edmonton Symphony Orches­tra, White Noise, Prince Char­les and the City Beat, Alannah Myles, The Marigolds, James Gordon, Tom Coch­rane and Red Rider, Roy Buchanan, Paul Butterfield, Quartette, Glass Tiger, Gwen Swick, Prairie Oyster, and Vytek-Coryell-Bird.

Ian Bell
Ian Bell has performed across Canada and in the United States since the late 1970s On his own and with a number of different ensembles, he has appeared at numerous folk festivals (Winnipeg, Mariposa, Edmonton, Ottawa, Yellowknife, Owen Sound, Lunenberg , Montmagny, and others) and in concerts and dances in venues ranging from The Lincoln Center to the finest Ontario barns.

Ian was first smitten by the folk songs he heard at hootenannies he attended with his parents in the very early ‘60s, and later at the Mariposa Festivals of the early ‘70s. While in his twenties, Ian was lucky enough to be able to find ways to make music with a number of great players who were a generation (or two) senior to him. They included fiddlers Tommy McQueston, and Carl Grexton, stepdancer Alec Mulligan, fiddler/dance caller Jack Hayes, and later, Mennonite singer Onias Weber. Ian is forever grateful to them for their generosity of spirit and the links they forged in the long chain of traditional music.

 

296 Broadview is not yet a fully wheelchair accessible venue, with stairs between all levels. Our goal is to fix that, and we need your support to do so - please consider making a donation towards our goals to make HRL the best listening room in Toronto!