Collingwood Audio Fest will start off with grandeur on waterfront

A 65-piece orchestra and a Juno award-successful singer/composer will share a large out of doors phase established up in Millennium Park this Saturday for the to start with concert of the Collingwood Songs Competition

The Collingwood Audio Pageant is likely huge at house this 12 months with a concert outdoor at Millennium Park showcasing a 65-piece orchestra and a classically properly trained Indigenous tenor with two Juno awards. 

Though established up will have to start out on July 7, the demonstrate will ring out across Georgian Bay on the night of July 8 when the Countrywide Academy Orchestra of Canada, led by Maestro Alain Trudel accompanies special guest Jeremy Dutcher. 

The display will be on an out of doors stage on Collingwood’s waterfront and will be the inaugural concert for the 2023 Collingwood New music Pageant.

Pageant director Daniel Vnukowski has been hyping up the clearly show considering the fact that it was verified. It will be the initially time the orchestra shares a phase with Dutcher. 

Dutcher is two-spirit and a Wolastoqiyik member of the Tobique Initially Nation in New Brunswick. He is a composer, tenor, performer, and award-winning musician. Dutcher has done a investigate task that included transcribing archival wax cylinder recordings of Wolastoq songs amongst 1907 and 1913 and composing tracks motivated by and featuring those people recordings. 

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Daniel Vnukowski (still left) with the dignitaries that served open up this year’s Collingwood Audio Competition. From remaining: Daniel Vnukowski (inventive director for Collingwood Songs Competition), MP Terry Dowdall, Collingwood Mayor Yvonne Hamlin, Clearview Mayor Doug Measures, Deborah Bloom Corridor (from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, and MPP Brian Saunderson. . Erika Engel/CollingwoodToday
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“[Dutcher] has some thing unique in his voice … it has that spark that I constantly appear for as an creative director,” said Vnukowski. “A single feels the authenticity in his effectiveness.” 

Vnukowski has been working on booking Dutcher for a 12 months now, constantly acquiring in intellect that a display featuring Dutcher’s voice would be grandiose, and include things like an orchestra. 

“[Dutcher] likes grand entrances, we like grant functions,” explained Vnukowski. “So that is in which the plan of performing it outside, which has been at the back of my head for a long time, came from.” 

Though the out of doors show and set up will consider much more coordination than at any time for the festival, issues have arrive jointly – including a shuttle solution considering the fact that there isn’t sufficient parking on the spit to accommodate the audience for the display. 

Dutcher will also be at the Mariposa Folk Competition this weekend in Orillia. 

The pageant has turn into extra than Vnukowski dreamed it would be when he first prepared a piano concert in help of Residence Horizon.

“I had no thought that in a number of short years it would go from a small shoestring finances to a little something that is now a go-to destination,” explained Vnukowski. “It is really appropriate up there with the prime-10 classical new music festivals in Ontario … I under no circumstances envisioned these brief development.” 

The expansion has also been reflected in the budget, as the festival was successful in every a single of its grant apps with extra than $130,000 coming in from resources throughout all 4 amounts of authorities which includes municipal, county, provincial and federal. 

He’s fired up about each individual musician and performer that will be section of this year’s situations, and has put in time selecting them with a different audience in brain. 

As the creative director, a qualified musician, and the host of a classical music radio clearly show, Vnukowski will come across a whole lot of songs, and he works by using these interactions to create the menu for each year’s festival. 

“I see it like a food and I’m placing together ingredients,” he reported. “Recognizing the diversity of our neighborhood and the escalating population, I like to retain it growing and always drive that boundary just a little little bit this yr. Like, we are carrying out hip hop for the initially time this yr, but it’s folks hip hop.” 

He is conversing about the July 15 concert that includes Beny Esguerra and New Custom Tunes. Esguerra is from Colombia, and his work combines Colombia Afro-Indigenous songs with spoken term and hip-hop’s cultural expressions. The songs make urgent calls for justice, environmental healing, and regard for ancestors and land treaties. Esguerra is a multi-instrumentalist and lyricist with two Juno nominations. 

Vnukowski was joined by the pageant board, sponsors, and neighborhood dignitaries in front of the Collingwood Public Library on July 4 to increase the flag marking the begin of the festival. 

Throughout the ceremony, words and phrases of congratulations ended up made available by Collingwood Mayor Yvonne Hamlin,  Clearview Mayor Doug Steps, Ontario Trillium Basis rep Deborah Bloom Hall, MP Terry Dowdall and MPP Brian Saunderson. 

“The talent you’ve got introduced to Collingwood from all around the earth is stunning, it truly is an intercontinental function,” claimed Saunderson. 

Vnukowski thanked the supporters who gathered at the library, noting the regional sponsors and grants have served the festival mature, given that ticket profits only go over about 1-3rd of the festival fees. But, he explained, tickets do keep promoting out. 

“This city, this region, is craving for tradition,” he reported. “For millennia, music and dance has been the binding factor for so several cultures and communities.” 

There will be nightly concerts from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 1st Presbyterian Church from July 9-15. 

For the total pageant lineup and tickets take a look at collingwoodfestival.com as nicely as from their box workplace, mobile phone: (705) 416-1317. All concerts are from 7 to 9 p.m.

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A trio of Queen’s College college students that enjoy under the name Glohw performed during the opening day occasion for Collingwood Tunes Competition. Erika Engel/CollingwoodToday
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