Surrey’s Band-Aid youth music program is going online this fall, along with some concerts, films, festivals and other events.
For 2020, Band-Aid has shifted to a three-part series on consecutive Thursday evenings, starting Sept. 17. The event has previously been held as a single-day workshop at either Surrey City Hall or Surrey Arts Centre.
The sessions are billed as “a free hour of mentorship with music professionals from around Metro Vancouver” that also provide “an awesome opportunity to connect with other local musicians.”
First up is “Music & the Expression of Emotion” with Sami Ghawi from FUSIONpresents, on Sept. 17 from 7 to 8 p.m. Ghawi will offer “an insightful look into how music is truly the most powerful communicator, through chord progression, melody, dynamics, and rhythm. All participating artists will also receive the FUSIONpresents Music Theory Handbook.”
Next in the series is “The Music Biz” with Bob D’Eith from Adagio Music, on Sept. 24, when the current Maple Ridge-Mission MLA and former keyboardist with the bands Rymes With Orange and Mythos will talk about music promotion during the current “challenging time.” Students will also receive a copy of D’Eith’s book, A Career in Music.
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The Oct. 1 session will cover “Music Mixing” with Karl Dicaire, presented by Nimbus School of Recording & Media.
Registration details for the Microsoft Teams sessions, aimed at local singers, songwriters, solo artists, bands and DJs between 12 and 22 years of age, can be found at surrey.ca, or call 604-501-5100.
Video of the sixth annual Band-Aid Youth Musician Development Workshop, held last September at Surrey Arts Centre, is posted to Surrey Civic Theatres’ Youtube channel.
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Meantime, the trio Indian Standard Time will perform an hour-long The Naad Malhaar (Water Music) concert online Friday, Sept. 18, starting at 7 p.m. The trio features musicians Amarjeet Singh, Bruce Harding and Baljit Singh, filmed in Surrey’s Darts Hills Garden Park for a concert of “enchanting and soothing sounds of the tabla, flute, and dilruba” broadcast on Surrey Civic Theatres’ Facebook page and the City of Surrey’s YouTube channel.
Also this month, Surrey Fusion Festival has morphed into a 90-minute livestream and interactive cultural video series. In collaboration with Canada’s annual Culture Days, the festival will happen online Saturday, Sept. 26 from 10:30 a.m. to noon on Facebook and YouTube channels, with a four-week “interactive cultural video series” to be showcased on Facebook and Instagram channels from Sept. 25 to Oct. 25.
The Coast Capital Savings-presented Fusion Festival livestream will feature cultural performances, musical entertainment, art lessons, Surrey history, Indigenous education, dance lessons, cooking segments and kids’ activities.
Later, on Oct. 2, Surrey Civic Theatres will present an online screening of “Tourette’s Hero: Me My Mouth and I,” a documentary about neurodiversity in the arts, starting at 8 p.m. The film follows artist, activist and performer Jess Thom, who has Tourette syndrome, as she takes on the biggest creative challenge of her life. It’s billed as “a funny and unpredictable journey of discovery into one of Samuel Beckett’s most complex plays, Not I, and asks us to reconsider issues of representation and social exclusion as she prepares to perform the role of ‘Mouth’ in front of a live theatre audience.”
Surrey City Orchestra is also getting in on the online platform, with a “What a Blast!” concert Oct. 16 starting at 7 p.m. “This lively hour of music will feature musicians from the brass section, who will delight audiences with a variety of styles of music, all washed down with a selection of amusing stories and anecdotes,” explains a post at surrey.ca.