Dean’s big day
I’ve got two large ensemble shows this weekend. Saturday May 14th, 7:00-8:30 will be the highly anticipated (and nearly sold out) debut of Dean Thiessen’s Stranger Friends orchestra at Brentwood Presbyterian Church (as well as Dean’s 30th birthday!) I wrote a review of Dean’s album of the same name but that featured a smaller group almost exactly a year ago. Now, having played much of his music over the last several months of rehearsals, I can say that this collection of compositions is a triumphant realization of Dean’s unique compositional voice that his album from a year ago introduced. I’m honoured to be a part of it and I can’t wait for it to be experienced by everybody attending. Check out the event link here.
Big weekend, even bigger bands
On Sunday May 15th, 4-5pm, I will be playing Jazz Vesper’s at St Andrew’s Wesley with the VCC Bigger Band lead by John Korsrud. This group has been an absolute blast to play and rehearse with over the last 6 months. Being able to meet up with this group on a weekly basis in the midst of the pandemic was something that I desperately needed. I’m grateful to John for asking me to be in the band and for being such wonderful person to work with. Regrettably, two shows that we were meant to play in April were cancelled due to COVID and other unforseen circumstances, so alas, this will actually be the final performance by this permutation of the band.
The focus of the Bigger Band has been on contributions of its bandmembers. This happens to include Dean Thiessen, John Nicholson, Sofia Avelino, and myself, who will all be performing in the Stranger Friends orchestra the day before. So if you don’t buy tickets for Stranger Friends on Saturday or they sell out before you can get them, you can still catch Dean playing piano on a few of his own tunes at this show (he won’t be playing piano for Stranger Friends). Event link here.