SongBird North - Where Writers Sing and Tell

Tickets

Cost: $20.00
Find tickets: here

Vancouvers longest-running songwriters showcase is ringing in the new year with an expanded line-up FIVE talented Canadian songwriters (instead of the usual four) will share the Roundhouse stage on February 4. SongBird North producer Shari Ulrich hosts writers from across the country: Jon Brooks (Ontario), Susan Crowe (Nova Scotia), Lynne Hanson (Ontario), and Lynn Miles (Ontario). Audiences can expect great songs, great stories, and unique insights into the creative processall in an intimate acoustic atmosphere that brings performers and listeners together, up close and personal with the music.

SongBird North: Where Writers Sing and Tell is produced by Shari Ulrich for the Songwriters Association of Canada. The SAC gratefully acknowledges the support of the SOCAN Foundation.

BACKGROUND: Since 1995, SongBird North (formerly Bluebird North) has been a mainstay in Vancouver for songwriters from across the continent, as a bi-monthly showcase that features four talented singer/songwriters of widely varying styles, on stage together, taking turns playing their own original songs and sharing stories with one another and the audience about their work. The series has toured nationally, and has established itself in several other Canadian cities. Vancouver remains its longest-standing host city. www.songwriters.ca

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS February 4, 2020
JON BROOKS music is polyphonic in sound, word, and influence. His seven albums are obsessions of Canadian locality and universal themes: paradox, love, fear, grief, religion, war, post traumatic stress, technology, AI, refugee crises, animal justice, murder, ecology, esoterica, and the stars. Born and raised in Ontario, Brooks studied jazz piano at Humber College in the late 80s, and later attended York University to study music, politics, theology, and architecture, eventually graduating with a degree in English Literature. In 2003 Brooks returned to music, and in 2005 he released No Mean City. His sixth album, No One Travels Alone, (Borealis Records, 2018), made US National Public Radios Global Village Best of 2018 list. 2019s Moth Nor Rust II is a reimagining, of his 2009 solo acoustic album. Brooks currently holds the dubious record for most nominations at The Canadian Folk Music Awards for English Songwriter of the Year, and in 2010 he became the fourth Canadian since 1975 to win the esteemed Kerrville New Folk Award. www.jonbrooks.ca

SUSAN CROWE has investigated love, loss, and the human condition, with an outsiders eye for detail, and a poets love for wordplay, over the course of three decades and six solo albums. In 1994 she released her first album, This Far From Home, which was nominated for a Juno award for Best Solo Roots & Traditional Album followed by 3 more albums through the 2000s. In the early 2000s, Susan toured with Laura Smith and Cindy Church in the collaboration Brava. Later, she toured with Cindy and the late Raylene Rankin. Susan released Book of Days, in 2003. Produced by Danny Greenspoon, it was nominated for both a Juno and ECMA Award for Solo Roots & Traditional Album and earned her Nova Scotia's Female Artist of the Year. 2009s Greytown, again produced by Danny, garnered the 2009 Canadian Folk Music Award for English Songwriter of the year. Having returned to Nova Scotia 18 years ago, Susan continues to write and perform.
www.susancrowe.com

LYNNE HANSONs brand of "porch music with a little red dirt" can turn on a dime from a sunshine, blue sky ballad to a full-on thunderstorm of gritty Americana swamp from one song to the next. Too tough for folk and too blues-influenced for country, Lynne is known for her high-energy, roots guitar driven live performances, whether playing solo or with her band the Good Intentions. Lynne is a two-time Canadian Folk Music Award winner (2018 English Songwriter, Ensemble of the Year with The LYNNeS), a two-time Indie Acoustic Project Alt-Country album of the year winner, a past winner of the Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award, and a two-time finalist in the prestigious Kerrville New Folk competition in Texas. Lynne will release her seventh studio album produced by Jim Bryson (Kathleen Edwards, The Weakerthans) on February 7, 2020. www.lynnehanson.com

LYNN MILES is one of Canadas most accomplished singer/songwriters, with 13 solo albums to her credit. She won a Juno Award for Roots and Traditional Solo Album of the Year in 2002 and multiple Canadian Folk Music Awards including Solo Artist of The Year for her CD Downpour and 2011 English Songwriter of the Year. Lynns work with THE LYNNeS received two 2018 Canadian Folk Music Awards for Ensemble of the year and English Songwriters of the Year. Her song Black Flowers is on the 2017 Grammy-nominated North By South album by Claire Lynch. Her song Three Chords and the Truth is included in the BBC TV show Case Histories. In 2013 Lynn was nominated for an Edmonton Theatre Sterling Award for best musical score, along with her guitar player Keith Glass and was an instructor in Carleton Universitys popular music program for five years, teaching performance and songwriting. She recently performed an evening of her music with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. www.lynnmilesmusic.ca

SHARI ULRICH (Host / Producer) is an award-winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist (violin, mandolin, piano, guitar, dulcimer) who has been winning hearts with her music for over four decades. From the legendary Pied Pumkin to The Hometown Band (Fear of Flying), and as a solo artist, she has released 25 albums - including collaborations with Bill Henderson and Roy Forbes (UHF), Barney Bentall and Tom Taylor (BTU), and The High Bar Gang, a 7-piece bluegrass band with Barney Bentall. Her work has garnered two Juno Awards, an induction into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, and a 2014 Canadian Folk Music Award (CFMA) for English Songwriter of the Year. Shari has just released her ninth solo album, Back to Shore (Borealis Records), her third engineered and co-produced by her daughter, multi-instrumentalist Julia Graff. She has been producing and hosting SongBird North for the SAC for 23 years.
More info