Connie Kaldor ft. Aleski Campagne **3 seats left**

Description

Connie Kaldor 

"Just when you think you've got it all figured out, something roars in and it turns you about."

Connie Kaldor writes this and more about the unexpected twists and turns of life and love. She could well be writing about her personal artistic complexities. Music pundits have tried to define the essence of the prairie-born acoustic performer for over two decades, but even the most eloquent have fallen short of perfection.

Fact is, Connie Kaldor is a performer without borders. A contradiction in terms. She is a Juno Award-winning singer who has flourished on the folk music scene for over two decades, yet her repertoire of original material blurs musical boundaries, embracing elements of gospel, rock, country and western, folk, blue grass and adult contemporary.

She is an artist of substance without pretension, witty and urbane without condescension. She is a fearless chronicler of the human experience without the folksong angst. She has recorded nine albums, sold tens of thou- sands of copies, but has never had a commercial hit.

Her live performances are legendary and her fan base broad and fiercely loyal. People come back to see her again and again because a Connie Kaldor performance is about more than just the power of music. It is also about the power of personality. What she says between songs is as intriguing as the lyrics she sings.

She has traveled prairie backroads to visit modest community centers and sold out concert halls in major cities. From Beijing to New Delhi to Saskatoon to Washington, Connie has triumphed with a mix of song and spoken word honed in pacing and tone by the many years she spent performing.

Like many prairie girls in the 50s and 60s, Connie grew up singing in the church choir and listening to Patsy Cline and The Beatles on her record player. But it wasn't until the 1980s, after four years spent performing with an avant-garde theatre company in Toronto, that Connie turned to music full time and was welcomed with open arms by the folk scene.

Aleski Campagne is uniquely qualified to offer a contemporary, indie-folk take on the time-honoured fiddle-singing tradition. When playing live, Aleksi floors audiences by singing while bowing his violin and leading his four-piece band. His original music blends folk song writing with an edgy, multi-layered sound resulting from his unique combination of voice, violin and looping-effect pedals. In a full-page spread in the Montreal Gazette, Brennan Kelly described him as “not just a folksinger with a guitar!”

He is now ready to launch his highly anticipated debut album titled For the Giving is set to launch in July 2023. The first single Won’t be Scared will launch on July 10th in English and in French. This single was selected as the only Canadian finalist in the Kerrville Folk Festival’s Grassy Hill New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters (with finals to be held in person on May 26th and 27th in Texas). Thematically, this next single embodies the broader themes of the album that is about all the firsts of growing up–from first loves to first moves, the first steps of your career and even first breakups. 

This album features 10 songs, but 20 tracks—each of the 10 songs are fully translated to offer a full English and a full french version (on two discs in one sleeve). To create the album, Aleksi received both a Canada Council Grant and a FACTOR Grant to fully fund the recording and its production. He then received an additional CALQ grant to create a video version of the album. This album will be launched in both audio and video formats this summer where he will debut it on a Canada-wide tour, hitting festivals like the Canmore Folk Festival, Springtide Folk Festival, the Live from the Rock Festival, Bear Creek Folk Festival, and Islands Folk Festival.

Although this will be his first full-length album, Aleksi is not new to the stage. At five years old, he began performing alongside his mother, Canadian folk icon, Connie Kaldor. At 19, Aleksi moved to Paris to study under jazz violin legend Didier Lockwood. At 21, Aleksi became the only student to have ever been accepted into the classical violin, the jazz violin and the jazz voice performance programs at McGill University. And, by 25, Aleksi had graced the lineups of some of Canada’ most beloved folk festivals—including the Mariposa Folk Festival, the Regina Folk Festival, and the Northern Lights Festival, among others.

Aleksi has toured festivals and venues across Canada with a four-piece band made up of some of the finest young musicians Montreal has to offer: Stephane Krims (Bass), Aaron Dolman (drums) and Zach Bachand (guitar).

 

Venue Details

The Dream Café

67 Front Street
Penticton, British Columbia V2A 1H2

The Dream Café