April is coming in like a lion. Oh, wait, that’s March. Anyway, this weekend is a really busy time for the Flin Flon-Creighton-Denare Beach arts and culture audience, and for participants in arts and culture activities.
On Thursday, April 6 and Friday, April 7, the final Home Routes performers of the 2016-17 season will be in Flin Flon.
Daniel Gervais, Canada’s Grand Master Fiddle Champion of 2016, will be here, accompanied by Clinton Pelletier on guitar. Daniel hails from Edmonton and is the only Albertan to ever win the Canadian Grand Master Fiddle Championship. He has done so twice, first in 2011 and again last year.
Daniel has been playing violin since he was five years old and has mastered the gamut of fiddle styles as well as classical violin. He has completed a Masters of Music degree in classical violin from the University of Alberta and while there he was awarded a prestigious research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
He represented Alberta as a Cultural Ambassador to the Olympic Games in London in 2012 and had the opportunity there to showcase his music to the world. He also had the opportunity to showcase his talent last year at Carnegie Hall in New York City, though really, who hasn’t? (Just kidding - it is a big deal even though the Flin Flon Community Choir has performed there - twice!)
He has toured with French-Canadian dance group Zephyr and performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, DC, Mondial des cultures in Drummondville, Québec and at Festival Interfolk in France.
Daniel also works as a sessional instructor at McEwan University, Edmonton in the Jazz and Popular Music program and has tons of experience teaching students of all ages and abilities with various organizations such as the National Arts Centre’s MusicAlive! Program, the Pelletier Guitar and Music Camp in Saskatchewan and the Frontier Fiddlers camp in Manitoba.
Clinton Pelletier is one of the premier guitarists in western Canada. He learned to play from his father and has honed his skills by gigging with Daniel and through his other job as the owner of a music school, Planet Music. The two won Instrumental Album of the Year at the Western Canada Music Awards for their album, Hot Club Edmonton, a cheeky take, one presumes, on Hot Club de Paris.
Daniel has six albums to his credit and will be returning to Edmonton right after this tour to release his latest CD of old time dance music with a dance party complete with a square dance caller, so anyone who has family in Edmonton should give them a call and tell them to check out this amazing event on Friday, April 21 and Saturday, April 22.
Our shows here will be Thursday, April 6 at 189 Merton Blvd, email [email protected] to secure a seat or Friday, April 7 at Johnny’s Social Club with tickets at Northern Rainbow’s End. All the funds go to the musicians.
The Flin Flon Writers Guild, Flin Flon Toastmasters Club and the Flin Flon Public Library are co-sponsors of the 16th Annual Poetry Reading in celebration of National Poetry Month, which also takes place on Friday, April 7, at the library.
This will be an amazing event featuring the talent of our local authors and so worth attending. I know that our dear Harry Hobbs will be at the Home Routes Concert on Thursday evening as he never misses so all you literary souls might follow his example! The Poetry Reading is a free event.
Don’t forget, in the midst of this happening weekend, Sharing Dance Canada rehearsals begin on Saturday April 8 at Ruth Betts School, in the gym at 3 pm. The rehearsals will teach dancers of every performance level and ability the choreography to share in the national dance day on June 8. Parents, join your children and dance like no-one’s watching!
