The season begins with our 100th show! Featuring Helen Austin, Stephen Fearing and Shaun Verrault (Wide Mouth Mason).
Date/Time: Sep 13 2016, 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Vancouver, Roundhouse Community Centre, Performance CentreCost: $18.00
Find tickets: here
In this intimate musical showcase, Shari Ulrich and the Songwriters Association of Canada bring together some of Canada’s most inspiring songwriters. Discover a Canadian icon, an up-and-coming treasure, or someone you’ve simply never had the chance to hear live. During this informal evening, each songwriter will give an acoustic performance of their songs and talk about how each song was inspired and written.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS September 13, 2016
Helen Austin spent 20 years performing as a musical stand-up comedian, regularly headlining the Comedy Store in London, the most prestigious comedy club in Europe. During this time she wrote and performed original compositions on the side, fronting a band called Smithers, playing venues in London such as The Dublin Castle and Dingwalls, Camden and recording their album, Release Candidate One. It wasnt until her move to Vancouver Island in 2002 that she was finally able to make songwriting her main focus. Since then, Helen has won a Juno Award, a Canadian Folk Music Award and The John Lennon Songwriting Competition's Song of the Year. Since 2008 she has had over 70 synch placements on TV and in film. Her latest project is a collaboration with songwriter and recording artist Paul Otten, called Big Little Lions.
Stephen Fearings music embodies a fierce intelligence, a haunting candor, and a steady-handed pursuit of fleeting beauty. He exudes an abiding love for his craft and a respect for his audience that is reflected in two Juno Awards and a touring circuit that includes festival stages and concert halls across Canada, Europe and the United States. A beguiling teller of tales and a singularly intense instrumentalist, Fearing is an alluring entertainer heartbreaking, expansive and full of mirth - with a clear, honorable voice that lifts you out into his wide world and brings you back home to yourself.
Shaun Verreault is perhaps best known to Canadian audiences as the guitarist and primary vocalist for popular blues-rock trio Wide Mouth Mason, a band he formed as a high school student with childhood friends Safwan Javed and Earl Pereira. Music has been one of the guiding passions of his life since he first picked up a Seagull Acoustic guitar at age 10. His skills as a songwriter and lyricist have contributed to Wide Mouth Masons success, speaking to the emotions of life that are not only felt and experienced by the band members as individuals but also are expressed musically in such a way as to allow fans to hear parts of themselves in the music. Though he has yet to develop an affinity for such new-fangled devices as computers, Shaun remains open to the idea of experiencing what has yet to be experienced, be it in life or in the music that guides it.
Shari Ulrich (host/producer) grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, and immigrated to Canada in 1972. Shortly after, she discovered music and joined up with Joe Mock & Rick Scott to form the quirky Pied Pumkin. In 1976 she joined Valdy's back-up band, which went on to become the Juno Award-winning Hometown Band. Her subsequent solo career also marked the beginning of her life as a songwriter, winning her another Juno Award in 1981 and a SOCAN Award for She Remembers. Over the years Shari has also expanded into television hosting, songwriting education, and composing for film and television. Everywhere I Go, Sharis eighth solo album (and 23rd including her work with UHF, BTU and the High Bar Gang), garnered her the 2014 CFMA Songwriter of the Year Award. She recently released Tightrope Walk with Bentall Taylor Ulrich and the Someday the Heart Will Trouble the Mind the 2nd High Bar Gang album on True North Records. She has produced Bluebird North since 1996.
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