SongBird North - Where Writers Sing and Tell

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Cost: $20.00
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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. For more information on the SACs mandate, activities and membership programs.

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.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS April 14, 2020

IAN FOSTER
Ian Foster, native of Newfoundland, Canada, is a storyteller. That music is the way he tells those stories only makes the telling richer still. Modern folk wrapped in Canadiana, Ians writing style belies a love of history, home and the humble tale. CBCs Bob Mersereau described him as being a fine example of what a 21st century folk performer should be doing.

Often likened to Canadian songwriting icon Bruce Cockburn in both writing and guitar style, and artists like Daniel Lanois for his atmospheric approach to sound, Ians music has been described as thoughtful, introspective, cinematic, hopeful, atmospheric, and cathartic by critics and fans alike. He has numerous awards, nominations and co-writes to his credit, including SOCAN Songwriter of the Year nominations, Lyric finalist for the International Songwriting Competition (Nashville, TN), and a co-write with Canadian songwriting legend Ron Hynes.

Ian has toured in Canada, the U.S, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, and Italy, and has had his music played on radio internationally. With the release of Sleeper Years, he will return to all these places. He has performed his music for audiences of all ages, from school workshops to seniors homes, festivals in Canada, U.S., and Italy to soft seat theatres, churches, pubs and house concerts: the constant has been connection with the audience.

TARIQ HUSSAIN
Tariq is a Juno nominated songwriter and recording artist with a music career that spans over two decades. Born in rural Quebec to parents from Pakistan and Fiji, Tariq grew up on a healthy diet of Bollywood soundtracks. Then, in high school, he got his hands on a guitar and started writing songs which sounded more like Cat Stevens and Neil Young than Mohammed Rafi. By the end of the nineties, Tariq had released two full-length albums, Splat, and The Basement Songs. The Basement Songs, which came out on EMI Music Canada, earned him national radio play as well as a Juno nomination for Best New Solo Artist.

Into the early aughts, Tariq went on to release more musictwo albums and one EPindependently and through small imprints. In 2009, he joined the ranks of the Vancouver based band, Brasstronaut. Since joining, this critically acclaimed act has been putting out music and touring extensively in both Canada and in Europe in support of their records.

Tariqs latest offering is Telegrams, his fifth full-length album and follow up to the 2013 Moonwalker EP. On Telegrams, the songs feel a bit like short stories, hence the titlethree-and-a-half minute snippets of fictional lives. A fan of short fiction, Tariq found characters in stories by some of his favourite authors, like Lorrie Moore and Roberto Bolaño, and cast them as leads in his songs. Written in his apartment on an acoustic guitar, the songs were eventually shaped by a band who helped him envision fresh tempos, feels, and arrangements, adding layers of texture and melody. The result is a ten-song album with thoughtful lyrics and singable melodies reminiscent of artists like The Mountain Goats, and John K. Samson.

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.
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