The 5th edition of Wintersong Music Festival will take place in Stouffville, Ontario from January 19-20 with a dynamic array of 100+ acts across 15 venues. Applauded as the “single most impactful relief effort for small businesses in the shoulder seasons” year-over-year, Wintersong generates over 1 million dollars in associated tourism revenue for the town. Hosted by a small-but-mighty team, Warm Hearts Collective and Epidemic Music Group join forces alongside volunteers. Meticulously crafted with gender parity and diversity in mind, and guided by their mission to be accessible and authentic, the festival is free to attend.
The first tea + soundtrack + visuals is curated by Timerity.
Timerity is a modern classical pianist who does a mixture of classical-inspired original material and reimagined covers of well-known songs. Though he has been playing piano for most of his life, he is better known as the guitarist/pianist in Protest The Hero. Some of his material was originally used on PTH albums as interludes in between songs to bring some calm to the otherwise chaotic, aggressive music. As a live act, he likes to bring a relaxing ambiance to his shows with a mixture of technical pieces and sing-
along crowd favourites.
Timerity performs on Friday, January 19th at Latcham Hall as part of Fraxinus Prime & Vice Locker Present: Intimate & Electronic with dreamSTATE & Timerity.
The song I selected is one of my favourites by Steliski. She is a modern classical pianist and has been making waves in the classical music scene as well as been featured in some soundtracks. Jeff Jordan is a talented artist who I’ve had the chance of working with. He has done art for my band Protest The Hero. He has a very unique style and it was hard to choose just one of his works. Finally, the cream of earl grey has been my go to the last couple months. It’s a nice warm cup on a cold day.
Music: Burnout Fugue by Alexandra Streliski
Visual: Sentinel by Jeff Jordan
One more cup of tea, one more lump of sugar: Today’s second tea + soundtrack +visuals is curated by Scott McGregor Moore.
Performing on Friday, January 19th at Latcham Hall as part of Fraxinus Prime & Vice Locker Present: Intimate & Electronic with dreamSTATE & Timerity.
Scott McGregor Moore (aka Scott M2) is a member of ambient electronic music project dreamSTATE. Founded in 1995, the dreamSTATE duo of Scott M2 and Jamie Todd have blazed trails in Canadian live ambient-soundscape performances and nurtured the vital Toronto ambient music scene by curating THE AMBiENT PiNG live music series since 2000 and launching the community improv group DRONE:KLUB in 2016. dreamSTATE
has also created a variety of soundscape installations and squeezed one into their infinite ambient music iPhone app Ephemeral City.
Today’s thoughts on art, music and tea are inspired by Wintersong but all stirred together and spilling right over the edge of the timetable. First, we have a winter’s afternoon overwhelmed by blowing snow. I prop an iPad up against the window and it
films while I watch the white stuff swirl. Ideally for today’s topic, I would be sipping a cup of white tea (though it isn’t truly white) but I’m most fond of Yogi Green Tea Kombucha from our home’s collection of teas. The kombucha brings a fruitiness but without a typically overwhelming kombucha flavour. The tea is mostly organic and is low in caffeine. The iPad video is projected behind a live performance of my band, dreamSTATE, and the show is filmed too. Later, the iPad footage is aligned with the show’s projections and composited into this wintery music video of the performance. The title, of course, is inspired by those rare, beloved “snow days” when you get to stay home from school or work and relax with your tea.
White art has a noble, if controversial, history with artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Ryman being well known for their white paintings. Rauschenberg’s “White” paintings, which were considered “blank” but which changed constantly with the light of the environment, even helped to inspire John Cage’s infamous “4:33” – which, while perceived as a “silent” piece of music, was actually about the sounds within the listening space.
Today, though, we’ll be thinking about “The Beatles” aka “The White Album”. That famous album cover was designed by pop artist Richard Hamilton in collaboration with Paul McCartney as a complete contrast to the very colourful Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour covers. The original cover was not completely blank. “The Beatles” was embossed at a slight angle and a unique number was stamped in the lower right corner.
Inside the cover were songs… so many songs! Many people, including producer George Martin, thought the rambling double-album should have been condensed to a single disc. Over the years, this has produced a wealth of proposed alternate versions of the album, culling the 30 original songs down to just 15. It starts off nice and easy. Goodbye to “Wild Honey Pie” and “Revolution #9”. My next three songs up against the wall: “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da”, “Rocky Raccoon” and “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road” turn out to be other people’s actual favourites when I observe their lists. The next five expendables can be ruthlessly contemplated but the final five cuts are very tough decisions.
I propose this thought exercise for your afternoon tea tomorrow. Some folks suggest keeping two of George’s songs and one of Ringo’s. A final challenge is choosing the running order of the 2 sides. So open up your streamer or pull out that White Album and brew some calming tea while you ponder this puzzle for your own solution – but be careful not to spill!
Tea + Me 