Elizabeth Shepherd – “C’est le temps”
Montréal-based musician Elizabeth Shepherd has visited the West Coast several times recently performing songs from her latest album, MONtréal, The album has been nominated for a JUNO award in the Vocal Jazz category. JUNO Week 2020, hosted in Saskatoon, SK, will be broadcast live from the SaskTel Centre on Sunday, March 15 on CBC, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music, the CBC Listen app and globally at cbcmusic.ca/junos.
Andrea Superstein – “Nouveau”
North Vancouver musician Andrea Superstein often performs with Elizabeth Shepherd including shows in the Lions Bay House Concerts series. Centennial Theatre hosts a Play, Pie & Pint featuring Superstein on Wednesday, Feb. 5 at noon. “She began her career in musical theatre, where she was introduced to the jazz standards of the Great American Songbook. She also took a shining to the sweet harmonies of 50’s doo wop, the ethos of the 60’s folk movement, and the driving rhythms of early soul. These are the key elements that make up her unique approach to songwriting and performance.”
Parasite
Bong Joon-ho’s critically acclaimed film, Parasite, gets its North Shore premiere at Park & Tilford Cineplex this week in the lead-up to the Academy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 9, where the South Korean film is nominated for Best Director, Best International Feature Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, and Best Film Editing.
Grant Lawrence and Friends
There are only a few tickets still available for Grant Lawrence and Friends live at Kay Meek Arts Centre on Friday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m. The show, billed as An Evening of West Vancouver Stories and Songs, features “longtime West Vancouver resident Barney Bentall, along with his son Dustin Bentall; Grant’s wife, three-time Juno Award nominee Jill Barber; young West Vancouver pop songwriter Dante Hadden; the Eagle Song Dancers from the Squamish Nation; Wylie-Jane Stiver and John Stiver from Bowen Island; and the Parkgate Singers, featuring Grant’s 76-year-old mom Jean Lawrence.” The night may include fun facts about Desolation Sound and maybe even Fugazi but every show is different. Sort of like a West Coast version of a Prairie Home Companion circus with broadcaster/writer/musician/raconteur Lawrence as ringmaster.
cbc.ca/player/play/1559604291695
Agnès Varda – Viva Varda!
The Cinematheque is hosting Viva Varda! a massive retrospective of the work of the late French filmmaker Agnes Varda. On Thursday, Feb. 20 at 8:10 p.m. The film centre is screening her 1993 documentary The Young Girls Turn 25 (Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans). “For the twenty-fifth anniversary of husband Jacques Demy’s musical The Young Girls of Rochefort, Agnès Varda travelled to the coastal town of Rochefort to document the public festivities marking the occasion and recount the film’s on-location making. Varda’s nostalgic tribute includes new and vintage interviews; behind-the-scenes footage she shot during the original production; and the recollections of locals with treasured memories of their encounter with movie glamour. Star Catherine Deneuve and composer Michel Legrand are among the principals of Demy’s film who journeyed to Rochefort for the anniversary. Others — including Demy himself, who died in 1990; and Deneuve’s co-star and older sister Françoise Dorléac, who died, at age 25, in a car accident some weeks after Rochefort’s 1967 release — didn’t live to see the day.”
mubi.com/films/the-young-girls-turn-25
Andy Shauf – “Neon Skyline”
Singer/songwriter Andy Shauf’s new album, The Neon Skyline, is out now on ANTI- Records. He plays the Commodore Ballroom on Feb. 26.
Acts of Resistance at the Museum of Vancouver
The Museum of Vancouver’s exhibition Acts of Resistance, opening Feb. 7 and running through July 3, showcases the artwork of seven Indigenous artist activists from the Pacific Northwest, whose designs flew from the Iron Workers Memorial bridge on July 3, 2018 to protest the Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline project. MOV says, “Will George, a Tsleil-Waututh grassroots leader not only designed one of the featured banners, but also rappelled from the Second Narrows bridge as part of the seven-person aerial blockade to prevent an oil tanker from leaving terminal. In this exhibition, Will George will share his firsthand experience as a member of the aerial blockade in a video created in collaboration with multi-media artist Ronnie Dean Harris, whose artwork also flew in the path of tanker traffic.” Featured artists include: Brandon Gabriel, Will George, Ronnie Dean Harris, Ocean Hyland, Jackie Fawn Mendez, Marissa Nahanee and Ed Archie Noisecat.
Marissa Nahanee from Raven Institute on Vimeo.
My Friend Fela
Vancity Theatre celebrates Black History Month with a screening of Joel Zito Araújo’s new documentary, My Friend Fela on Feb. 17 at 8:10 p.m. The film “explores the life of legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti from the perspective of his long-time friend Carlos Moore.” Fela’s son Femi Kuti will be performing with his band Positive Force at the Commodore on July 1. "Music can not be for enjoyment," says Fela. "Music has to be for revolution."
Sarah Davachi
Canadian-expat musician Sarah Davachi, now based in southern California, is the second guest on a new podcast, Modern Composition L.A. Host Frosty visits her home studio in Glendale “to explore the artist’s intimate relationship with musical instruments and how Los Angeles has helped shape the contours of her creative practice. Davachi unveils “Composition of Flowers,” a new work to cap off the episode.”
moderncomposition.la/002-Sarah-Davachi
The Beatles - “Strawberry Fields Forever”
John Lennon’s iconic, psychedelic 1965 Rolls-Royce Phantom V is on display in the main lobby of the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria through mid-March.
