Canada One Five Oh! / Tabla & Ticket Contest!

With the upcoming celebration of Canada’s Sesquicentennial (time is running out to use that fun word!) there’s so much great cultural programming that it’s going to be really hard to choose where to go and when.

No doubt about it, our friends at the City of Toronto’s Cultural Events office have knocked it out of the park! Over the course of the Canada Day weekend at four locations, there will be dozens of great performances from a wide range of genres, a good deal of which will be of interest to newsletter readers.

We’ll give a taste of what’s in store with a partial listing below. For full festival info. go to  www.toronto.ca/canadadays  Happy 150!

Nathan Phillips Square, Friday June 30 – Monday July 3
Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band
Bixiga 70 / H’Sao / Los Poetas
Poirier Migration Sound System
Wesli / Ziskakan

Scarborough Civic Centre July 1
Les Filles de Illighadad
Kingston All-Stars
Lan Shin Band

Humber Bay Park West, July 1
Diely Mori Tounkara
Bareto / Iskwe
DhakaBrakha

Mel Lastman Square, July 1
Noreum Machi
Zuze / The Jerry Cans
Aline Morales & Baque de Bamba

Friday is a busy evening, with three other alternatives to choose from: At the Small World Centre, one of the world’s preeminent tabla artists graces the stage as Anindo Chatterjee performs a solo recital. Known for accompanying some of the greatest names in Indian music, including Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, he’s also the guru of our good friend and tabla player Ravi Naimpally.

By the lakeside, Harbourfront Centre x Revolutions Per Minute x YES YES Y’ALL join forces to bring their alternative take on Canada 150 with UNCEDED, a next level party to celebrate the opening night of the OUR HOME ON NATIVE LAND festival. With so many Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists in town for the weekend, you never know who might show up.

Finally, we have FREE tickets to Friday’s Jazz Festival show – the Toronto debut of Bokanté – a multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-generational ensemble featuring top musicians from a variety of musical styles. The band rocks hard (with four guitars how can it not?) between global music and jazz. The first respondent to this message who correctly names the opening act on the bill gets a pair!