{"id":25934,"date":"2020-02-13T19:22:24","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T00:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25934"},"modified":"2020-02-13T19:22:25","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T00:22:25","slug":"vitamin-joy-from-outer-space-will-fill-cultural-centre-this-family-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/vitamin-joy-from-outer-space-will-fill-cultural-centre-this-family-day\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cVitamin joy from outer space\u201d will fill Cultural Centre this Family Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cZany\u201d music will be the order of the day this Family Day\nas the Aurora Cultural Centre hosts children\u2019s performer Matt Gerber for a free\ncommunity celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s tenth anniversary\ncelebrations, Gerber will perform two concerts \u2013 at 1.30 p.m. and 2.30 p.m. \u2013\nin Brevik Hall, entitled \u201cLadybugs and Dandy Lions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ladybugs and Dandy Lions is also the title of the\nchildren\u2019s album Gerber released in 2017. In his music, Gerber, who balances\nhis love of music with his day job as a structural repair engineer at De\nHavilland Aircraft of Canada, also tries to find the balance in appealing to\nboth kids and adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a singer-songwriter, I have always enjoyed singing in\ndifferent genres to begin with, but I found I always leaned towards writing a\nlot of quirky-style songs,\u201d he says, noting he would be just as comfortable\nplaying the set he\u2019s prepared for the Cultural Centre at a pub as he would in a\nschool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audiences regardless of age pick up on the playfulness of\nhis work, he says, thus bridging the generation gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerber\u2019s love of music surfaced at a very early age. He\nalways had an affinity for singing and music, discovering his ability to\nharmonize on long road trips with his mother where singing in the car was the\norder of the day. It\u2019s a love he fostered throughout his youth, but it wasn\u2019t\nuntil he was nearly finished university that he started picking up instruments\nand honing his skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI found that when I was by myself, I would start humming\na tune and having an idea, but was never able to do anything with it,\u201d he says.\n\u201cOnce I was able to start learning some of those instruments, I figured out how\nto lock that stuff down and start my own process of song-writing. It seemed a\nvery natural thing for me that there would be some form of music I was involved\nwith, either just singing, or now writing and recording. It has been an\ninteresting process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no single instance he can pinpoint on when he\nrealized he was on the right track turning his hobby into something more, but\nGerber says seeing the reaction to his music from kids and parents alike\npowered him forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI saw this over the course of multiple different live shows\nwhere I was always getting similar reactions, drawing people to come out in\nfront of the stage and getting the little kids to start dancing and running\naround,\u201d he says. \u201cI felt this was something really speaking to them and that\nreally got me focused on developing sets that paid more attention to that\naudience. Seeing first-hand results and reactions from young kids and getting\nfeedback from parents and colleagues of mine [fostered] that realization and\nthen it became a pretty straightforward thing to push ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday\u2019s Family Day concerts, he adds, will feature his\nirreverent songs, accompanied by such instruments as the guitar, ukulele and\nkazoo \u2013 along with a number of other elements to \u201ccatch audiences by surprise\nand delight them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t the type of music they have heard before,\u201d he\nsays. \u201cSometimes I describe my music as \u2018vitamin joy from outer space.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To hear the music straight from lift-off, head over to the Aurora Cultural Centre this Monday afternoon, February 17. For more information, visit auroraculturalcentre.ca. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cZany\u201d music will be the order of the day this Family Day as the Aurora Cultural Centre hosts children\u2019s performer Matt Gerber for a free community celebration. Part of the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s tenth anniversary celebrations, Gerber will perform two concerts \u2013 at 1.30 p.m. and 2.30 p.m. \u2013 in Brevik Hall, entitled \u201cLadybugs and […]<\/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_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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Ki","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 14:57:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25934","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=25934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}