Albert Schultz, General Director of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, today announced the line-up for the second Sunday in Sundays at the Young, a series of day-long festivals that enlivens the Young Centre throughout July and August.
For four Sundays in July and August, the Resident Artists of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts take over the entire venue to celebrate the creative spirit of Toronto in all of its cultural, ethnic and disciplinary diversity.
Each program is inspired by a unique theme and features concerts and free ancillary events and installations throughout the day and into the evening.
The second Sunday at the Young features:
Making Hay in Hard Times - Sunday, July 26
drum talk: movement of a people
2:00 p.m.
Developed by Weyni Mengesha and d'bi.young, drum talk: movement of a people looks at the centrality of the drum in African culture and how the community coped when the drum was prohibited during times of slavery. In Trinidad, the steelpan was birthed. In Jamaica, rhythms of Kumina were born on water barrels. The performance will include a wide range of beat-driven music and dance including Beatboxing, Capoeira and Calypso, featuring aka Subliminal (beatbox), Aquilla (dub poet), Divine Brown (Gospel), Nation Cheong (Kumina), David Cox (tap dance), Janelle Joseph (Capoeira), Talib Robinson (steelpan), Rhoma Spencer (Calypso).
Yellow Brick Road
4:00 p.m.
Songs and stories from the Great Depression curated by Young Centre Resident Artist Noah Richler.
Hard times are often times of great creativity, too, and this is no more true than of the plays and songs that came out of the Great Depression. Murray McLaughlin, David Buchbinder, Chris Whiteley, and Diana Braithwaite lead an evening of musical and literary remembrance of a decade that was awash with masterpieces, from Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front and Mississippi's searing Delta Blues to George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and Hollywood's The Wizard of Oz.
Other dates in the series feature:
O Canada - Sunday, July 19
Two special concerts celebrating Canadian songwriting legend Gordon Lightfoot and master percussionist Trichy Sankaran.
Gordon Lightfoot Songbook
2:00 p.m.
Toronto's finest celebrate a songwriting legend. Join Patricia O'Callaghan, Kurt Swinghammer, John Millard, Miranda Mulholland, Mike Ross and more!
Trichy Sankaran Tribute
4:00 and 8:00 p.m.
Indo-Canadian master percussionist shares the stage with Suba Sankaran, Autorickshaw, Andrew Craig, aka Subliminal and more!
From the Nile to the Don - Sunday, August 9
Young Centre Resident Artist Andrew Craig hosts a concert showcasing the extraordinary vocal talents of Toronto's hottest musical jazz and blues divas that celebrates the cultural influence of Africa in our city.
The Birds and the Bees - Sunday, August 16
Young Centre Resident Artist David Buchbinder leads a concert celebrating our fragile planet and its creatures in song, word and dance.
Sundays at the Young are led and created by General Director Albert Schultz and the Young Centre's Resident Artists: Waleed Abdulhamid, David Buchbinder, Roberto Campanella, Andrew Craig, Weyni Mengesha, John Millard, Claudia Moore, Andrea Nann, Patricia O'Callaghan, Soheil Parsa, Noah Richler, and Suba Sankaran.
Sundays at the Young begin on Sunday, July 19 and run until August 16 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, located at 55 Mill Street, Building 49, in the Distillery Historic District. Tickets for the concerts are $20 for adults, and $5 for students (18 and under). All ancillary events are FREE. Tickets are available by calling the Young Centre box office at 416.866.8666 or online at www.youngcentre.ca
Sundays at the Young are also supported by TD Canada Trust Music, the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund. The media sponsor for Sundays at the Young is CBC 99.1. The Young Centre Resident Artist Program is generously supported by Donna and Gary Slaight.
The Young Centre for the Performing Arts is an award-winning, multi-venue performing arts facility located in the Distillery Historic District. Anchored by Soulpepper Theatre Company's year round season and George Brown College's Theatre School, the Young Centre is a home for Toronto's leading artists and arts organizations across all performance disciplines. The Young Centre presents the very best in theatre, dance, music and spoken word in a state-of-the-art setting.
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