{"id":21790,"date":"2018-10-03T17:30:22","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21790"},"modified":"2018-10-03T17:30:22","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:30:22","slug":"cultural-centre-lifts-curtain-on-transformative-bold-season-by-brock-weir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/cultural-centre-lifts-curtain-on-transformative-bold-season-by-brock-weir\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Centre lifts curtain on \u201cTransformative & Bold\u201d season By Brock Weir"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n

As they approach their tenth anniversary, the Aurora Cultural Centre has established itself as a hub for the full artistic experience, but now they are kicking things up a notch, unveiling a new season they can only describe as \u201cTransformative and Bold.\u201d
\nTransformative & Bold is the theme that runs through their entire professional arts program for the 2018-2019 Season, encompassing gallery shows, special events and performing arts.
\nThere are returning favourites, new series, and some acts that are set to break new ground at the Cultural Centre, all in the name of creating a \u201cdiverse experience for the community.\u201d
\n\u201cWe have created an arc to really give people an interfiled sense of the professional arts year at the Cultural Centre,\u201d says the Centre\u2019s Jane Taylor. \u201cWe thought it was really time. We have grown so much. In 2020, we\u2019re heading into our tenth anniversary and this is a time to really look at our collateral and redesign it. The ethos that we took when we were programming for this season is you will have transformative experiences when you come through the door and you will see the bold changes that have been made.\u201d
\nTo get a flavour of the bold changes in store, look no further than October 12 with Alysha Brilla, the first concert in the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s new Brevik Hall Presents series, which encompasses most of their performing arts programming for the season ahead.
\nMs. Brilla is a multi-Juno award nominee who will bring a fusion of world musical sounds to the centre, blending sounds from her own Indian and Tanzanian heritage.
\n\u201cHer agent says, \u2018Yeah, she\u2019s amazing and she\u2019s always up against Michael Buble,\u2019\u201d says Ms. Taylor of Ms. Brilla\u2019s Juno experience. \u201cThat said, she is being recognized in the same stratosphere as him. Her sound is upbeat folk fusion and I\u2019m very excited because this is a new sound we haven\u2019t had on our stage before.\u201d
\nBold holiday fare is also on the program on December 13 with \u201cSongs for a Winter\u2019s Night\u201d presented by the Polaris Prize-nominated voices of Joelle Westman and Kelly Lafaive of the duo Georgian Bay.
\n\u201cThere were a couple of people who whispered to me about this duo,\u201d says Ms. Taylor. \u201cThey are Franco-Ontarian and they\u2019re anglophone, so what we have is holiday content, some in French and some in English, so it gives you a nice flavour for the duality of our province.\u201d
\nKobo Town, featuring frontman and songwriter Drew Gonsalves of Trinidad, takes the stage on February 14, bringing what is described as an \u201cintoxicating blend of lilting calypsonian wit, dancehall reggae and trombone-heavy brass\u201d to the Centre.
\n\u201cThis guy has been on my list for a long time,\u201d says Ms. Taylor. \u201cHe is bringing his five-piece band for Valentine\u2019s Day. His sound is very calypso and we can have very political statements that are woven throughout his incredibly danceable music. He is based in Toronto, but he is hard to get because he is huge in France and spends a lot of time in France.\u201d
\nEnduringly popular Celtic sounds arrive in Aurora on April 26 with Coig, one of Atlantic Canada\u2019s premiere traditional groups hailing from Cape Breton. They are an ensemble of East Coast musicians who promise \u201cone explosive coming together.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat was once solo acts on stage has amalgamated into an electrifying super group, picked as Penguin Eggs magazine\u2019s 2014 #1 New Discovery Internationally.\u201d
\nJuno Award-winning band Digging Roots hits a vein of rock when they bring their sounds to the Cultural Centre on May 24. Fronted by ShoShona Kish and Raven Kanatakta, they have played everywhere from the Glastonbury Festival to Canada\u2019s most remote northern communities, to Australia, and everywhere in between, delivering \u201ctheir message of love, activism and positive change\u201d wherever they perform.
\n\u201cThese guys are awesome,\u201d says Ms. Taylor of the Indigenous group. \u201cThey\u2019re based in Barrie and bringing a five-piece band as well. They\u2019re a mixture of upbeat folk, but a lot of rock influence in their music. They have been on our list for a long time, but travelling internationally, it was hard to pin down a date that worked for them, but because we managed to snag them when they\u2019re back home for a bit, they will be part of our Bold series in May.
\n\u201cThroughout the rest of the year, we have genres that people have really responded to. We have the luxury of being able to go out and find the best of Canada. Part of the reason is we\u2019re so close to Toronto, so if they are passing through the city or based in Toronto, it is easy to lure them up to Aurora and it makes my job even more fun because I can dream big.\u201d
\nReturning favourites are part of the 2018-2019 season as well, including the popular Great Artists and John Sheard Presents series.
\nThe Great Artists Series, presented by local Grammy winners Bonnie and Norbert Kraft, kicks off November 9 with Tristan Teo. A 23-year-old Vancouver-based pianist who has just started his doctorate at Juilliard. Last year, he was a quarterfinalist at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and is considered on a \u201cmeteoric ascent onto the world stage.\u201d
\nThe series continues on January 18 with Chopin specialist Charles Richard-Hamelin, who is making a return engagement to the Great Artists program.
\nThe AYR Trio, consisting of Angela Park on the Piano, Yehonatan Berick on the violin and Rachel Mercer on the cello, usher the Great Artists series into the spring with their varied repertoire, while the Ralston String Quartet closes out the program on May 3.
\nThe legacies of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong will be explored in \u201cElla & Louis: Cheek to Cheek\u201d on January 25, the first in the John Sheard Presents series. This first installment will feature Mr. Sheard on the piano, Dennis Pendrith on the upright bass, and special guests Donovan Locke and Kelya Ramu.
\nJazz and standards from the Great American Songbook give way to a little bit of country on March 22 with The Best of the West: Golden Country Classics, honouring the sounds of Patsy Kline, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash and more. The series closes June 7 with Homeward Bound: The Best of Simon & Garfunkel on Friday, June 7.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As they approach their tenth anniversary, the Aurora Cultural Centre has established itself as a hub for the full artistic experience, but now they are kicking things up a notch, unveiling a new season they can only describe as \u201cTransformative and Bold.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Fs","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 10:26:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}