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From Drake to Shania Twain, Canadian music scene looks promising in 2023

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Over the past few years, music lovers have come to expect concert postponements and cancellations. One of the first significant shows of 2023 happens at New York’s historic Apollo Theater, where Toronto rap superstar Drake is scheduled to perform on Jan. 21 and 22 – an event that has been postponed twice.

Let’s hope things get back to normal in 2023, because the Canadian schedule looks promising. Highlights in the first half of the year include Billy Joel’s small-venue show at Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ont. The Red Hot Chili Peppers launch their spring tour at Vancouver’s BC Place Stadium, rapper Nav hits arenas in Toronto and Vancouver, and John Mellencamp visits Toronto’s Massey Hall and Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre.

Pierre Kwenders, winner of the 2022 Polaris Music Prize, kicks off a tour at the end of January in Winnipeg, and buzzy American singer-songwriter Weyes Blood plays Montreal and Toronto in March. Further down the road, jazz icon Herbie Hancock plays Toronto and Ottawa in June.

On the classical music front, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra unveils its Riopelle Symphonic Experience, presented as part of its Jean-Paul Riopelle centenary celebrations. Celebrating its own 100 years, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra returns to its ancestral home for one night (Feb. 17) at Massey Hall.

Noteworthy opera productions include the first fully staged professional production of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha in Canadian history.Handout

Noteworthy opera productions include the Canadian premiere of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs by Calgary Opera, Gluck’s Orphée by Edmonton Opera and, in June, the first fully staged professional production of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha in Canadian history, by Toronto’s Volcano company.

No music calendar would be complete without mention of the Junos (March 13, in Edmonton) and the Grammys (Feb. 5, Los Angeles). That said, music’s biggest nights are as follows:

Winnipeg New Music Festival: Music For Airports

The Polycoro Chamber Choir.Jay Siemens/Handout

In 1978, the British ambient music maestro Brian Eno released Ambient 1: Music for Airports, a four-part, tape-looped adventure in background music. Critic Lester Bangs described the work as having “a crystalline, sunlight-through-windowpane quality that makes it somewhat mesmerizing even as you half-listen to it.” Eno’s electroacoustic masterpiece anchors a concert that brings together Dutch bassoonist Bram van Sambeek, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra principals Yuri Hooker and Meredith Johnson and the Polycoro Chamber Choir.

Jan. 29, Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, Winnipeg

National Arts Centre Orchestra: Songs for Murdered Sisters

Joshua Hopkins performs Songs for Murdered Sisters, a song cycle conceived by the Canadian baritone after his older sibling and two other women were slain in a 2016 rampage. Composed by Jake Heggie and based on original poetry by Margaret Atwood, the piece is about the loss of a sister and the larger tragedy of domestic violence against women. It receives its live orchestral premiere in Ottawa. “Meaning transforms grief into a more peaceful and hopeful experience,” Hopkins told The Globe and Mail a year ago. “These songs have provided that meaning for me.”

Feb. 9 and 10, Southam Hall, Ottawa; Feb. 11, Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto; Feb. 14, Isabel Bader Centre, Kingston

Kid Koala: The Storyville Mosquito

Montreal-based turntablist Kid Koala.Corinne Merrell/Handout

These two things can both be true: Nothing the intrepid Montreal-based turntablist Kid Koala does surprises me any more, and Kid Koala never ceases to amaze me. His latest brainstorm is The Storyville Mosquito, a family-friendly experience in puppetry about a melodious small-town mosquito who has a bee in his bonnet about the big city and a band there he dreams of joining. It’s presented as a live film, with Kid Koala, a string trio, foley artists and puppeteers performing, filming, editing, projecting and scoring it all on the fly.

Feb. 22 to 24, Le Diamant, Quebec City

Buddy Guy: Damn Right Farewell Tour

When the blues guitarist Buddy Guy first broke onto the scene in the 1960s, he was a rare breed in the genre: Instead of affecting a sober, authoritative presence, he was excitable and sexy. Now, as an octogenarian and the senior artist in his field, Guy is still up for high energy and electrified shenanigans: Blues Don’t Lie, released in 2022, earned some of the best reviews of his career. That said, the Grammy-winning guitarist who played on Chess albums by Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Big Mama Thornton in the 1960s is quitting the road. And while we’ll probably hear that he is the “last of his kind,” Guy himself would not likely believe it. That he is touring with 48-year-old Eric Gales and 23-year-old Christone (Kingfish) Ingram is verification that Guy believes in his album from 2018, The Blues is Alive and Well.

March 30 and 31, Massey Hall, Toronto; June 30, Montreal Jazz Festival

Shania Twain: Queen of Me Tour

Reportedly the first track on Shania Twain’s forthcoming Queen of Me album is Giddy Up! Whether that is self-encouragement or a message to her fans and road crew, the Canadian country-music superstar will embark on a six-month tour that begins in Vancouver. The singer changed the face of country music in the late 1990s with her pop-music savviness and empowering messages. She also had a way with exclamation points, as proved by Man! I Feel Like A Woman! What left can be said now, except “giddy up”?

May 2 and 3, Rogers Arena, Vancouver, with dates in Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Halifax, Moncton, Quebec City, Montreal, Hamilton, London, Toronto and Ottawa to follow

For some Canadian pop artists, Christmas music is the gift that keeps on giving

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Mariah Carey performs to a recording of All I Want for Christmas Is You at Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in New York.NBC/Getty Images

When Mariah Carey performed to a recording of All I Want for Christmas Is You at Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in New York last month, the holiday season more or less commenced. The crowd against the commercialization of the holidays cried, “Too soon!” For some musicians, however, it couldn’t come soon enough.

December is a jackpot month for artists with holiday albums in their catalogues, especially in a country where a holiday record (Michael Bublé’s Christmas) won a Juno Award for album of the year. Not only are festive songs evergreen and popular, they are the passports into the lucrative seasonal concert schedule.

“We released Barenaked for the Holidays in 2004, and we’ve toured behind it 12 years now,” said Barenaked Ladies’ drummer Tyler Stewart. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

The band’s Hometown Holidays tour this month covered 14 cities, from Vancouver to Toronto. Not only does their 18-year-old album give them material for an annual show, it allows them to hit markets more frequently. Barenaked Ladies just played a Toronto-area concert in November, at Casino Rama in Orillia, Ont. Less than a month later they were back in the same region with a holiday concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall. This kind of tour routing is only feasible with a completely different show on the return visit.

“Our fans love it,” Stewart said.

The BNL show was just one of the holiday concerts that filled up this month’s calendar at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. The artists booked there, including Molly Johnson, Good Lovelies, the Tenors, Kellylee Evans, and Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, all have recorded seasonal albums at some point in their careers. Coming off the pandemic, generally ticket sales this year have been sluggish, according to promoters and presenters who spoke to The Globe and Mail. Christmas concerts were the exception.

“There’s a significant appetite,” said Heather Gibson, responsible for non-orchestral music programming at the NAC.

What helps fuel the demand is the family nature of the events. With multi-generations attending, tickets are snapped up quickly. “It’s a holiday experience with kids, parents and grandparents,” said Tim Des Islets. “Where typically fans are buying two or three or four seats, for Christmas shows it’s six, eight and 10.”

Des Islets is the founder of the Canadian artist management company Noisemaker. His clients include the Newfoundland vocal trio the Once and Ontario’s Good Lovelies, both touring mistletoe music this month. Citing the broader audiences who attend Christmas concerts, Des Islets sees the shows as a marketing tool. “It’s an opportunity to introduce a new fan base to the band.”

Comprised of singer-songwriters Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough, and Susan Passmore, the harmony trio Good Lovelies are a hot ticket on the summer folk festival circuit. But, with three holiday-themed albums and EPs to their credit, they’ve developed a niche as annual Christmas specialists as well.

Barenaked Ladies on the Bravo! Program in December 2006.Geoff George/Handout

“The Good Lovelies are like the Messiahs of pop music,” says the NAC’s Gibson. “Our orchestra has to do Messiah and I have to book the Good Lovelies. I think I would catch a fair bit of flack if I didn’t bring them in.”

Despite the demand for seasonal pop, it’s not as easy as decking the halls with retreads of Jingle Bell Rock and, with all due respect to Bruce Springsteen, Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Both Good Lovelies and Barenaked Ladies mix in their own holiday-themed material with traditional chestnuts and covers. “It was important for us to write original songs,” says BNL’s Stewart. “With the complete saturation of the shopping environment today, by the time Christmas rolls around, you’re kind of done with hearing the same old songs.”

It’s hard to deny the bottom-line implications of putting out Christmas music. According to a 2017 report from The Economist, singer Carey, the self-branded Queen of Christmas, had earned more than US$60-million from All I Want for Christmas Is You since its release in 1994. That big number doesn’t reflect touring income from seasonal concerts. With a pair of jingle-belled shows this month at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena and two more at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Carey is laughing all the way to the bank.

Other seasonal ventures are more organic. Hawksley Workman recorded Almost a Full Moon in 2001 as a mediation on his sentiments toward Christianity and as a nostalgic celebration of family. It was also a reaction to 9/11. “The songs were written at a time when the world was rethinking its position on religion and how these things play out globally,” said Workman, whose Almost a Full Moon tour this year hit 14 Ontario markets. “There were zero commercial intentions for the record.”

The album is tuneful and thoughtful, with such nose-nipping gems as First Snow of the Year, Common Cold and Let’s Make Some Soup. Workman tours the record every year now. As well, the songs were adapted by playwright Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman for a stage musical that premiered at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton this fall. Rather than a one-off holiday lark, Almost a Full Moon endures as one of the Juno-winning musician’s finest works.

“There’s nothing maudlin, which is what Christmas music is turning into,” Workman said. “All the songs came from my gut and my heart, which is why I think the music has fallen into people’s lives in a way that is meaningful enough that it has become an annual tradition. I mean, I’m not singing garbage.”

Do you think you have what it takes to complete The Globe’s giant holiday crossword?

Download the puzzle here. Share your progress with us on social media using the hashtag #GlobeCrossword.

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