Music

In a few short years, Tanika Charles has transformed from a talented emerging artist into a commanding performer and band leader, now a staple of the Canadian soul scene. Following in the footsteps of impactful musicians like Sharon Jones and Mavis Staples, the Edmonton native takes an honest approach to writing music that not only touches on heartbreak and vulnerability, but also on resiliency and the spirit of overcoming adversity.  Her art is inherently autobiographical. If Tanika’s singing it, she’s lived it.

Praised as “one of the big hitters of 2017" (Craig Charles, BBC Radio 6 Music) and as “the most buzzed-about soul singer in Toronto” (CBC Music), this Polaris Prize-nominated artist has spent the last decade lighting up stages near and far – from Pop Montreal to the TD Toronto Jazz Festival.  Charles and her band The Wonderfuls create infectious rhythms and hooks, reeling in listeners with unbridled instrumentation and vocal prowess.

Tanika’s first full-length album, “Soul Run,” was released in 2016 (with international distribution in 2017).  The overarching sound is classic soul and heavy drums, without the need for retro crutches. “Soul Run” received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with Now Magazine giving it an NNNN rating and Exclaim! declaring it an 8/10.  It also earned a JUNO nomination for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year.

Tanika has also appeared on television, both as a reoccurring guest on CBC Kids and as a lounge singer on Global TV’s Bomb Girls drama series. Her music has been featured on HBO’s Less Than Kind, ABC’s Rookie Blue, The CW’s Seed and CTV’s Saving Hope. In 2017, she made her theatrical debut in the touring production “Freedom Singer”.

“Dueling Pianos” celebrates the beautiful relationship between a father and a son, nurtured through the pain and joy of reaching for and attaining excellence.  The father is Eddie Bullen, the well-known Toronto pianist, composer, arranger and producer (Thunder Dome Sounds) who, in the 1970s, immigrated to Canada from his native Grenada, and whose own father imparted a deep knowledge of music and musicians. The son is Quincy Bullen, an accomplished pianist, composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist (drums, bass, guitar, keys) and singer.

As the musicians interlace their story with the classic sounds of jazz, classical music, calypso, reggae and the blues, “Dueling Pianos” shows how Eddie prepared his son to embrace his historical and musical roots.  You’ll be treated to masterful renditions of iconic works like Oscar Peterson’s “Hymn to Freedom” and John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”.  And you’ll be reminded that music has a central place in our lives, inspiring us in countless ways.

As CBC Montreal journalist Ainslie MacLellan explained last February, “The father-son relationship not only forms the backbone of Eddie and Quincy's on-stage banter, but also drives their style of performance — part duet, part duel.  They face each other, each behind a grand piano, staring intently to try and follow the other’s moves.

‘There are points in time where we have to work together,’ says Quincy. ‘And there are other times when it's a little freer, when we can spar with each other.’

He adds: ‘It's like a heated debate. Sometimes you end up laughing about how much you disagree.’”

“Father and Son – Dueling Pianos” is part of a 2019 tour celebrating Black History month and is proudly sponsored by TD Bank.

Pianist, composer, arranger and producer Eddie Bullen is in every way, a standout amongst his generation of multi-talented artists. Eddie's lengthy career has yielded an abundance of awards and recognition for his outstanding talents. From his first album, 'Nocturnal Affair' to his most recent ‘Spice Island', Eddie gives his audience a taste of contemporary jazz, flavoured with Caribbean rhythms. Since his move to Toronto in 1980 from Grenada, Eddie has worked with Caribbean, Canadian and American artists like Melba Moore, Anslem Douglas, Byron Lee, Maestro, David Rudder, Liberty Silver, Deborah Cox and Dee Dee Bridgewater. He is also a composer and arranger for TV, Radio and Films. His work has been heard on City TV, YTV, Love & Hip Hop (American Television Series) and Wine TV Australia. To date Eddie Bullen has produced over 150 albums and is currently working on several new ventures through his record company Thunder Dome Sounds and publishing company QDB music. Eddie is always on the lookout for cutting edge new innovative artists. Eddie's two sons Quincy and Tre-Michael are both following in their father's footsteps. Quincy, the elder son has recorded three CDs under the Thunder Dome Sounds label: On Q, Quintessential Boys, Under Age (which was featured in high rotation on XM satellite radio) and Quantumplations. Through his production company Thunder Dome Sounds, Eddie is fulfilling his passion for nurturing youth talent through a high school co-op program he launched in 1986. Challenges like this keep Eddie Bullen growing artistically and personally.

Quincy Bullen is an accomplished pianist, composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist (drums, bass, guitar, Piano) and singer. Extraordinarily talented, with a great sense of timing, Quincy ‘wows’ audiences across Canada, the USA and the Caribbean. His style is jazz with a funky vibe. His repertoire includes his own version of popular standards from jazz, R&B, Pop and soul as well as his original compositions. He has been a featured performer at many large music festivals and venues in Canada and the Caribbean. Quincy has been splitting his time between Toronto and Los Angeles. He also works as a producer and DJ.

Quincy is a founding member of the Quintessential Boys (a successful teen-jazz band). Quincy’s band now includes a mixture of up and coming musicians and seasoned jazz professionals.

Working with his father, Juno award winning Eddie Bullen, Quincy has released three solo albums, On Q, Quantumplations and Poise Debris. “On Q” is mostly original material featuring: Larnell Lewis on drums, Alex Toth on bass and Rob Christian on sax. The CD demonstrates Quincy’s funky jazz vibe and his sensitivity as a composer. “Quantumplations” A solo experimental album shedding light on Quincy’s producing and composing abilities. Many influences include jazz coupled with modern Electronic Dance Music and RnB. –“Poise Debris” is the title of Quincy Bullen’s third solo compilation. Completely original, balanced, intermingling Blues, Funk, soul, rock and a touch of jazz, as he gathers up the broken fragments of life scattered bits and pieces.

Quincy is also in the process of developing a new album with his Father. This CD will merge the generations and highlight Quincy’s love of jazz, electronic and Pop music with his father’s the Caribbean and contemporary jazz sensibilities.

Quincy and his Dad are also continually refining their two-man show, 'Dueling Pianos – Father and Son' for the stage. With the addition of Q’s guitar playing and brother Tre Michael Bullen on drums, the Bullen family leave audiences in excitement.  He is also touring and doing gigs developing a unique sound with various musicians, coupled with all of his inspirations defining Quincy Bullen as a True Artist.

Vancouver bassist and music educator Jodi Proznick is best known as a superbly swinging accompanist with multiple National Jazz Awards and two JUNO nominations to her credit.  One of those nominations was for “Sun Songs” (Cellar Live label), a highly personal 2017 album that demonstrates her immense composing, songwriting and producing abilities.  The genesis for the project occurred a decade earlier when Jodi experienced two opposing life events: the birth of her son and a mother whose health was deteriorating with early-onset dementia (Jodi’s mom died in January 2019).

“It’s really about the two of them,” Proznick explained to Clare Hennig of CBC News.  “Just the polarity of that and the pulling and ripping apart of my heart with the incredible joy of watching my son emerge while my mother was in the fall of her life…I thought to myself, ‘If I were to pass away tomorrow, what would I want my son to know?’”

“Sun Songs” draws on the prodigious talents of Proznick and the rest of her core West Coast band:  husband Tilden Webb (piano), brother-in-law Jesse Cahill (drums) and lifelong friend Steve Kaldestad (tenor saxophone), as well as guest performer and family friend Laila Biali, whose luminous vocals lift the pieces to unparalleled heights.  Jodi’s greatest creative breakthrough on this recording came with the recognition that even when anxiety and grief are at their deepest, “there is grace all the time and there is beauty all the time available to us.  We just have to stop and pay attention to it.”  Inside each Sun Song a radiant beauty echoes and there’s a gateway to the many ways we can light up the sky.

One-half of Jodi Proznick’s May 23rd performance will feature “Sun Songs” while the rest of the evening will spotlight a variety of material from Jodi & Laila’s other projects.  The lineup for her London ensemble is Jodi (bass), Kelly Jefferson (tenor sax), Dave Laing (drums), Dave Restivo (piano) and Laila (vocals). Half of the proceeds from the sale of Jodi’s CDs at this TD Sunfest concert will be donated to the Alzheimer Society of Canada.

Join Terry Barber for a very special Valentine's Day concert featuring the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber along with some romantic classics!

A rare countertenor, Terry Barber was a member of the multiple Grammy winning ensemble, Chanticleer. He has been a soloist for many of the best venues around the world, from the Metropolitan Opera to Moscow’s Svetlanov Hall and can be heard on recordings with artists from Madonna to the London Philharmonic. Terry’s most recent solo album was considered for 6 Grammy nominations in a category with Barbara Streisand, Andrea Bocceli, Josh Groban, Willie Nelson, and Kristin Chenoweth. A voting member of NARAS (Grammy Awards)Terry completed the musical theater program at Northwestern University, a Masters Degree in Historically Informed Performance from Trinity College London, and a nonprofit Management Certificate from Duke University. Terry founded the nonprofit organization, Artists for a Cause to support artists who use their talent to meet critical community needs.

A loving and humorous look at rural life in story and song!

Dan Needles is a familiar face to theatre audiences, having penned the entire Wingfield Farm series. In 2003 he won the Leacock Medal for Humour. Dan joins Ian Bell, folksinger, storyteller and founding performer of CBC's Vinyl Café, to take you on a ramble through the back roads of rural and small town Ontario with stories, songs and lots of laughter.

A loving and humorous look at rural life in story and song!

Dan Needles is a familiar face to theatre audiences, having penned the entire Wingfield Farm series. In 2003 he won the Leacock Medal for Humour. Dan joins Ian Bell, folksinger, storyteller and founding performer of CBC's Vinyl Café, to take you on a ramble through the back roads of rural and small town Ontario with stories, songs and lots of laughter.

A loving and humorous look at rural life in story and song!

Dan Needles is a familiar face to theatre audiences, having penned the entire Wingfield Farm series. In 2003 he won the Leacock Medal for Humour. Dan joins Ian Bell, folksinger, storyteller and founding performer of CBC's Vinyl Café, to take you on a ramble through the back roads of rural and small town Ontario with stories, songs and lots of laughter.

A loving and humorous look at rural life in story and song!

Dan Needles is a familiar face to theatre audiences, having penned the entire Wingfield Farm series. In 2003 he won the Leacock Medal for Humour. Dan joins Ian Bell, folksinger, storyteller and founding performer of CBC's Vinyl Café, to take you on a ramble through the back roads of rural and small town Ontario with stories, songs and lots of laughter.

The O’Pears are a Toronto-based contemporary folk trio made up of Lydia Persaud, Jill Harris and Meg Contini, three songwriters who weave stories that stir the spirit and capture the timeless character of folk music. With beautifully blended harmonies, insightful songwriting, and a playful love of performing, they make perfectly balanced vocal performances look effortless. Winners of the 2018 Folk Music Ontario Stingray Rising Star Award, these women know how to turn an audience of any size into a gathering of friends. In 2018, The O’Pears are giving audiences even more to love with their second full length release.

Their sophomore album Stay Warm illuminates the comfort, darkness, and complexity of the winter holiday season. This isn’t a commercial Christmas album with charming cover songs, blinding tinsel, or any assumption about “the most wonderful time of the year”. Instead, Stay Warm flickers with the glow of family reunions and new love while taking in the chill of blowing snow, drifting hearts, and seasonal solitude. A cappella covers of winter classics are sprinkled between original songs that examine the many ways that the holidays can bring rest, joy, and cheer while also inspiring feelings of loss, grief, and nostalgia. Taken as a whole, Stay Warm is a balanced offering – musically and emotionally – from a trio that mixes tight a cappella and rootsy instrumentation.

The O’Pears 2016 debut album Like Those Nights, captured the trio’s soaring harmonies and seamless blend, evoking the profound intimacy of Nick Drake, the sister-like connection of The Staves, and the dynamic harmony of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They toured that collection of songs to high acclaim at renowned Canadian festivals including Summerfolk, Wolfe Island, and Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival and garnered radio play across Canada, including on the CBC. In 2017, they toured across Europe, performing in centuries old churches. Since then they’ve toured to Qatar and joined the ranks of performers at the 2018 GroundUp Music Festival in Miami, Florida. Their engaging performances and absolute musicianship have earned them performances alongside Joey Landreth, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Lionel Loueke, Weaves, Royal Wood, Good Lovelies, Michelle Willis, and Coco Love Alcorn as well as direct praise from David Crosby who called them “fantastic singers”.

Each member of The O’Pears is a distinctly talented musician with a stand-alone voice, style, and stage presence and together they are breathtaking. Their latest release proves that The O’Pears continue to bring a strong, honest voice to the modern female perspective.

November 7, 2018 marked the second anniversary of Leonard Cohen’s death, and the passage of time has only added to the significance of his words and music. Cohen’s legacy will be celebrated that day with the release of Andrea Ramolo’s Homage, a 10-song collection of some of Cohen’s best-loved works interpreted by the acclaimed Toronto singer/songwriter and produced by Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies.

Although—like virtually all songwriters—Ramolo has long been a passionate Cohen devotee, the idea to make Homage developed gradually in the wake of a stunning rendition of “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” she performed with The Wooden Sky’s Gavin Gardiner at a Last Waltz tribute concert staged in Montreal days after Cohen’s passing. Ramolo made the song a staple of her live repertoire from then on, and seemingly constant requests for a recording of her rendition eventually expanded to what ultimately became Homage.

Ramolo turned to Timmins—who also produced her 2017 Polaris Prize long-listed NUDA—to oversee the recording, which features Ramolo on baritone guitar and vocals, Tom Juhas on lead guitar, Derek Giberson on keyboards, David Goncalves Gouveia on drums, and special guest Sahra Featherstone on harp. In all, Homage has been a true labour of love for Ramolo, underscored by it being a fully independent release.

In addition to being a lifelong Cohen fan, Andrea had worked briefly alongside Leonard’s son Adam for a show with him and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, during which she had the honour of staying in the Cohen family home in Montreal. It all inspired her process of selecting the songs for the album. “I spent two months listening in depth to every single album of Leonard’s from top to bottom. I wasn’t as leery about ruling out the famous songs as I was about making sure I didn’t repeat the same ‘colours.’ I included my personal favourites, like ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ and ‘Suzanne,’ but I wanted to make sure the others I chose were a mix of newer and older songs to best represent his massive catalogue.”

It has been said that Cohen’s songs truly take flight when sung by others, and that argument can certainly be made with Homage. The blending of Ramolo’s mesmerizing vocals within delicate musical settings creates a haunting atmosphere unique to other Cohen tributes. Like Timmins’ own revered work with Cowboy Junkies, restraint is the key to the overall sound, offering stunning beauty and brooding tension in equal measure.

“Homage was the first time I’ve gone this deep into someone else’s material, so that presented a challenge in itself because you want to ensure that you are honouring the original artist while at the same time making the songs your own” Ramolo says. “I tried to focus on aspects of the songs that spoke to me, while also infusing my own life and character into them. As a female artist, there was something exciting about covering songs by a very powerful, iconic man, especially when time-travelling through the older tunes. During the process I often wondered if Leonard had been a woman, would the world still have come to know the songs in the same way?”

Indeed, part of Cohen’s poetic genius has always been a celebration of female empowerment, and Andrea admits she wore a pantsuit on Homage’s throwback-inspired cover to symbolize this. At the same time Ramolo didn’t shy away from some of his later, more politically charged songs such as “The Future” and “Everybody Knows.” Ramolo explains that she wanted to include a message that speaks to our times, beyond the themes of love and all that surrounds it.

“I chose ‘The Future’ specifically because of its apocalyptic theme and how it expresses the complete loss of our private lives, private spaces, and structure. Our modern world thrives on invasiveness and public approval.  It proves that Cohen was prophetic in this regard, foreshadowing the world as we now know it back in the ‘90s. I love how raw and crass it is at certain points—I’m pretty sure I’d never write a song with the words ‘anal sex’ in it—but there is something in interpreting someone else’s songs that gifts you with this extra sense of freedom and boldness.”

Ramolo, in fact, captured a lot of that spirit on NUDA, so in some ways Homage is a natural progression. Longtime fans of Ramolo will also acknowledge that she has given all she has to her work since she first began performing and recording in her early twenties. After spending over three years from 2008 to 2011 living in a van and touring all parts of Canada in support of her first two solo albums, Ramolo teamed up with Cindy Doire to form the duo Scarlett Jane whose two albums released under Warner Music Canada were hailed by critics coast to coast and recognized with multiple Canadian Folk Music Award nominations. Ramolo was also nominated for a CFMA award on her own in 2011.

Following that, Ramolo contributed to projects by Lee Harvey Osmond (where she crossed paths with Timmins), leading to the creation of NUDA, which she describes now as a “huge growth spurt, both spiritually and artistically.” But above all, she says the experience of making that album instilled a sense of confidence and willingness to experiment that she had never felt before, and Homage stands as an important next step in her journey.