Portage

Portage at Hugh's Room
Presented in Support by Ontario Creates
Sunday August 4, 2024
Show at 2pm, Doors at 1:30pm
$25 in Advance, $32.50 at the door 

Portage is a new “super-group” of fiddlers/multi-instrumentalists/ singers from across Canada bringing you old and new music in a collective artistic adventure. High energy fiddling from many traditions meets innovative arrangements combining vocals, guitar, cello, piano, bones, feet and more. The members of Portage are rooted in Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, Appalachia and the West Coast. Their music invigorates and inspires.

Featuring Anne Lederman, Erynn Marshall, Laura Risk, Christina Smith and Alanna Jenish (detailed bios below.)

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!

Anne Lederman (fiddle, voice, bones, jawharp, piano, accordion, mandolin) Originally from Manitoba, Anne is a member of the Canadian Fiddle Hall of Honour. She has been on the front lines of renewal of many traditions, especially Indigenous fiddling, Ontario trad, klezmer music, African-Canadian music and more. She was a founding member of Muddy York and The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, and currently plays solo, as part of Lederman/Bell, and with Njacko Backo of Cameroon. She has 6 CDs under her own name and over 50 with other artists. She has written a play about Indigenous fiddling in Manitoba, Spirit of the Narrows, performed dozens of times nationally and internationally. Anne founded organizations Worlds of Music Toronto and World Fiddle Day Toronto, while her research on Indigenous fiddling has been cited hundreds of times by other authors. In 2016 she received the Estelle Klein Award from Folk Music Ontario for her contributions to Canadian folk music.

 
Erynn Marshall (fiddle, voice) is an ‘old-time’ Appalachian fiddler who lives in Galax, Virginia and is known internationally for her traditional music. Erynn learned the nuances of this tradition from rare recordings and visiting 80-95 year-old southern fiddlers, while putting her own sound into the music she plays. Moreover, her original compositions are becoming common repertoire in fiddle circles. Erynn won 1st place fiddle at “Clifftop,” the major Appalachian Stringband Festival (the first woman to do so). She has recorded six albums and appeared in five films (Voices of Virginia, the Clifftop Experience I’ll Fly Away Home, Conversations with Old-Time Musicians,” plus the upcoming Never Met a Stranger). She is coordinator for Swannanoa Old-Time Week near Asheville, NC.

Laura Risk’s fiddling has been described by filmmaker Ken Burns as “a revelation and achingly beautiful,” while Living Tradition hails her “powerful, percussive style... bursting with energy and passion.” Originally from California, now living in Montreal, Laura performs and teaches Scottish and Québécois fiddling internationally and has over a dozen albums to her credit. Her distinctive sound and compelling interpretations of traditional tunes are intensely personal yet grounded in meticulous archival and ethnographic research. Laura has toured with Cordelia’s Dad, Triptych, Ensemble Galilei, and dancer Sandy Silva; served as musical director for ensembles Childsplay and Revels North; and produced seven albums, including three for fiddler Hanneke Cassel.

Christina Smith (cello, fiddle, viola da gamba, vocals) Since 1982, Christina has been collecting, researching, performing, teaching, and publishing on Newfoundland traditional music and is recognised in North America and Britain as one of its foremost exponents. She teaches both in the community and at Memorial University School of Music.  Christina tours internationally and records with the award winning groups Jean Hewson and Christina Smith and  Frank Maher and the Mahers Bahers. She is the founder and director of the STEP Fiddlers, a group of young musicians who have been performing and recording Newfoundland tunes since 1983.