The Pearl Company

Tjupurru, Live in Hamilton: Friday, February 12. 10:00pm (post Art Crawl) $15, Art Bus riders $5. A proud descendant of the Djabera Djabera tribe of the West Australian Kimberleys, Tjupurru plays a unique slide Didjeridu, named “The Didjeribone” because it can slide through different notes and tones - a cross between a didj and a trombone. He picks up his sound through a device called the “Face Bass”, a seismic sensor implanted inside his mouth. With the addition of sampling and electronic effects, Tjupurru has enabled himself to perform as a one man band creating live samples and looping them to create songs and soundscapes that crisscross musical genres. His live show is a must hear. This is an artist bringing something unique to the current music scene. Tjupurru is mixing cultures, technologies and sounds with aural traditions that are thousands of years old. The result he describes as 21st century Didjetronica. The rest of us call it amazing, stunning, revelatory, provoking . . .
Tjupurru’s has played festivals all over the world. He’s in Hamilton for one day only, on his way to play at the Cultural Olympiad, part of the Olympic Games celebrations in Vancouver!

The Undesirables & C.R. Avery (with The Legal Tender String Quartet), Saturday February 20th, 2010 Doors: 7:30pm Show: 8:00 pm. Adults: $17.00 (advance) $20.00 (door) Artists (musicians, etc.)/Students: $10.00 (advance) $15.00 (door) reserve your seat or payable in cash at The Pearl Company. Corin Raymond and Sean Cotton are The Undesirables: Roots music / blues / folk, inspired by anyone who is honest and on fire, and who is saying something real and doing it with conviction and colour. If you stumbled upon a tavern where Tom Waits, Ray Bradbury, Jim Morrison, and Charles Dickens were huddled in a corner exchanging stories, perhaps eavesdropping on them would give you a better idea of what to expect from this Toronto duo.

C.R. Avery: A Canadian music sensation; poet, pianist, singer, beatboxer, and harmonica player with a mix of hip-hop and blues. His lyrics, vocal delivery, energy, and artistry have won him international acclaim. C.R. Avery’s current band(The Legal Tender String Quartet) is no less than classically trained! Tom Waits is a fan and brought C.R. up to perform on stage with him.

The Acoustics: A Valentines Concert: Saturday, February 13, 8:00. $20 at the door. With special guest, the romantic guitar of Gary Santucci. The Acoustics are a happening band. Their CD Forever and a Day came in 2nd place for World Album of the year at the 2009, JPF Music Awards, in Nashville TN. They had two major category Nomination for the 2009 Hamilton Music Awards. Folk/Traditional Recording of the year and Instrumental Recording of the year - The Acoustics - ‘Forever and a Day’.

Gary Santucci: Composer / Flamenco, Classical and World Jazz Guitarist will play his most romantic and compelling pieces in honour of St Valentine.

Rob Lutes. Opening Set: J.P. Riemens: Sunday, February 7, 8:00. $15. Rob Lutes is a soulful singer/songwriter from Montreal with an ever-growing collection of literate, moving meditations on life and love. His ability to encapsulate universal ideas and questions, even the subtle ones, coupled with his gritty, heartfelt delivery and world-class performance chops, have invited comparisons with several legends in the roots genre from John Hiatt to Fred Eaglesmith. “Widely recognized as an gifted songwriter”. - Ottawa Citizen.
J.P. Riemens local singer / songwriter has charmed Hamilton audiences for years. His style leans toward roots/rock and country, calling his particular style “Acid Country”, J.P. is as at home in an intimate acoustic environment as a Concert Hall

Pearl Review Fundraiser: Saturday, February 6, 8:00 $10. Please join us here at The Pearl to help launch the Pearl Review Studio House (located directly beside The Pearl Company). Door Prizes, 50/50, Silent Auction. Food and Beverages. And more!!!

The arts journalism newsprint magazine, The Pearl Review (an exciting new take on the Hamilton Arts Scene and an Arts view of Hamilton issues) is coming right along.  Check out the patron subscriber incentives at www.thepearlreview.ca. This newsmagazine will focus on our individual artists of all disciplines, - the background stories, the big questions, and the lively particulars. First issue projected for Spring 2010. Order your subscription now!

Haiti Media Telethon in support the two public hospitals in Haiti with which St Joseph’s Hospital is affiliated. One is still standing but overwhelmed with patients and lack of supplies. The other is rubble. St Joseph’s Health System has established a fund through which 100% of donations will go to provide medical supplies for the Haitian people. The Haiti Media Telethon will go live on Cable 14 on Tuesday, January 26 from 6:00am to 10:00 pm with constant support from CHCH. Please help the besieged population of Haiti. There are numerous events throughout Hamilton; let us do what we can in whatever ways we can.  Gary Santucci is one of the co-chairs of this event.

Italian Film Night: Monday, January 25, 7:00 p.m. $10 at the door. Cinema Insieme presents “THE LAST KISS” “L’ultimo bacio” directed by Gabriele Muccino. Film is in Italian with English subtitles. The Last Kiss (2001) focuses on relationships in today’s society, from the 29 year-olds who fear commitment and responsibility, to the 50 year-olds who fear aging. With its multiple storylines and some amazing performances, the film creates a vivid and colourful fresco of modern Italian life.

Mary M. Cushnie-Mansour: Sunday, January 31 at 2:00. Mary will be launching two new poetry books “Shattered”  and “Memories”. She will be reading selections from them as well as from her collection of short stories. “From the Heart”, which was released in May 2009.  Mary is a freelance creative writer who was born in Stoney Creek.  She now resides in Brantford.

• February 5: First an art show and tour at The Lincoln Alexander Centre, next Arctic Experience/McNaught Gallery, and the Anastasia Gallery. Then we head to the Sunrise Gallery and back to Gallery 435.
• February 12: It’s a second Friday again which definitely means the James North Crawl, the Tiger Group Studio Gallery, and the Imperial Cotton Centre. Read the rest of this entry »

Jay Linden With Special Guest Colin Linden, Jan 30: Part of The Southern Ontario “Under the Radar” Mini Tour.  Saturday, January 30 8:00pm. $20.  Call for tickets 905 524-0606

Jay Linden has been around, off and on, for a very long time. Jay is a legend (1 inch = 1/2 mile) of 40 years standing and some other years of sitting around. He’s unabashedly acoustic, unabashedly folk rooted. His musical trail comes up from Woody, Pete, Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, through Dylan, Johnny Cash and the 50s folk scare and through contemporaries like Townes, Willie P, Dolly Parton, Dave Carter and more. He writes and sings memorable folk songs and plays a lot of fretted and stringy things.

Concert: Jacob Moon: Jan 29  at 8:00. ($15 advance, $20 at the door) Moon has been very busy recording and touring all over Canada and into the United States. His passionate vocals and inspired lyrics are given flight by his total command of the guitar, which at times sounds like an entire orchestra, owing to his use of the ‘JamMan’, a live looping device that allows him to more fully realize his onstage ambitions as a solo artist.  A musical high wire act without a net!
CD Release of “Maybe Sunshine” – A new studio mini-album with a new sound. Inspired by Moon’s travels, and shot through with optimism, these songs shine.. Balancing between songs of hope, joy, and wonder and those that reflect the dark realities of  our world today, “Maybe Sunshine” offers an artful response to the matters of the heart and soul that we all wrestle with.
“Every once in a while a voice just leaps out at you…and that’s what happened when we heard Jacob Moon” - Shelagh Rogers, CBC

Opening January 22: The Streets of Hamilton: 7:00 pm start time. Featuring Sylvia Simpson, Gord Leverton, Rod Paget, Rob Laffier, John Stirling and Eric Ranveau…. Hamilton as you have never seen it before! The gritty made beautiful.  The beautiful made riveting (and sometimes gritty…).  Our Hamilton.

Banned From Heaven: Starting at 9:00: In conjunction with “The Streets of Hamilton”.  Playing together since the Sixties (in various incarnations), their style of music is somewhere between Blues, Punk Zydeco, or Jug Rock. It’s lots of fun and a wild ride. $5 donation at the door

The Hamilton Philharmonic: What Next? Festival has some events at The Pearl:
Saturday, January 23, 10:00 pm: Late Night Electroacoustic: A show unlike any you’ve seen, with music by Steve Reich, the premiere of a new work by Sergio Barroso, and grooves by American laptop virtuoso/DJ/composer Jeremy Flower.
Sunday, January 24, 1:00 pm: Music and the Mind: Panel Discussion: As science probes deeper into the secrets of the human mind, it has become clear that music plays a central role in our intellectual and emotional development. Groundbreaking studies at McMaster University have provided surprising insights into how we respond to harmony, melody, and dissonance.
Sunday January 24 3:00pm. Canada in the World: Chamber Concert. Music by Ravi Shankar, Elma Miller, Paula Matthusen, Scott Good, and a horn trio by Gary Kulesha commissioned for James Sommerville.
See www.whatnextfestival.com for ticket information and more events.

Carmen…?: Playing January 8 and 9, 15 and 16, 2010 at 8:00. Tickets $15. A tragic-comedy dance theatre presentation based on Bizet’s Carmen.  Sergiy Shvydkyy, an internationally renowned avant-garde dancer, mime-actor, choreographer, and leading figure in contemporary performance arts in the Ukraine brings his unique choreographic vision, to The Pearl Company. He does this with a fresh imagining of the famous story of love and betrayal, Carmen, unique in both its dance style and its interpretation of the tale. Emanuela Dussin, a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, brings the fire and beauty of flamenco to the stage. And then, of course, Gary Santucci has found himself willingly drawn into Shvydkyy‘s world where the musician not only performs the music but is a character within the production.  Not the same old Carmen! Time has changed her, you will love her more than ever? Reserve your seat! Call 905-524-0606. Read the rest of this entry »

Introducing the Lincoln Alexander Centre Art Bus! As of January, the new Lincoln Alexander Centre, a 350-seat theatre at The Hamilton Plaza Hotel will lend its name and some serious support to the bus not to mention cross-pollination between our two theatres. I am delighted to have the help and if the bus has to be something other than Barbara’s Bus, what better name to share than Lincoln Alexander’s!
January 1: No bus on the first Friday of this month.
January 8: The plan is to take in the action on Ottawa Street (Earls Court Gallery, Under the Moon), the James North Art Crawl (many, many galleries and events!) and the Tiger Group Studio Gallery (five artists in one large studio/gallery)  Read the rest of this entry »