Will Gillespie & Brian Tremblay: 2 Northern Troubadours

Will Gillespie & Brian Tremblay: 2 Northern Troubadours 

Will Gillespie & Brian Tremblay: 2 Northern Troubadours - Songs & Stories of Northern Ontario" is a concert of new songs in old styles, telling stories from two different, nearly-lost, unsung chapters of Canadian history that happened right here, in Northern Ontario!  

The two songwriters first met at the Folk Music Ontario conference, and after discovering they both not only grew up in the North, but each separately wrote and recorded their album of songs about Northern Ontario, they immediately decided to hit the road together and perform both albums live at the same concert. 

TOUR:

Oct 1 - Bruce Mines United Church - Bruce Mines, ON

Oct 2 - Ertaminger Clergue - Sault Ste. Marie, ON

Oct 3 - Timber Village Museum - Blind River, ON

Oct 4 - Knox Hall, Sudbury, ON

Oct 5 - Northern Ontario Railroad Museum - Capreol, ON

​Oct 5 - Shuswap on the Nipissing - Monetville, ON

Oct 7 - North Bay Museum - North Bay, ON

Oct 8 - Temiskaming Art Gallery - Haileybury, ON

Oct 9 - Museum of Northern History - Kirkland Lake, ON

Oct 10 - Royal Canadian Legion - Elk Lake, ON

Oct 11 - Timmins Museum - Timmins, ON

Brian Tremblay opens the show with songs from his album "In the Tracks of the Black Bear," inspired by the Algoma Central Railway, where his father and other family members worked before and after World War II. Some of his siblings were also born in the Northern Ontario rail towns of Hawk Junction and Chapleau, living in a Section House like most railroad families. He also recorded some familiar early 20th-century traditional train and railroad songs on this record that Tremblay encourages the audience to sing along to. The songs are all done in a roots, folk, country style with simple stripped-down acoustic instrumentation "to let the stories be heard”, as he puts it. The concert will also feature projected backdrop visuals with images from the early days of the ACR during Tremblay's set.

Then Will Gillespie performs songs from his own original Northern Ontario history-themed concept album: "MINE! True Stories & Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush," as a kind of Campfire Cabaret, taking the audience on a musical journey back in time to a lost world of prospectors, pioneers, bootlegger-bandits, high-graders, dogsledders and moonshiners. The songs about the local folk heroes behind the legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush of 1909 and the Cobalt Silver Rush are written in historical styles from bluegrass to ragtime to concert hall, hot jazz, barrelhouse blues, waltzes and more. Featuring projected backdrops of original Northern Ontario landscape paintings by visual Artist Susan Robinson and historical photos from the collection at the Timmins Museum National Exhibition Centre of the real people, places and events he will be singing about.

The tour kicks off in Bruce Mines at the historic Bruce Mines United Church, which first opened in 1906 and then moves on through Sault Ste. Marie, Blind River, Sudbury, Capreol, North Bay, Haileybury, Kirkland Lake, Elk Lake, and finally ending off at the Timmins Museum. Playing at a variety of venues in different cultural institutions, from actual historical buildings to modern museums, concert halls and Art galleries, with local historical societies and Arts councils acting as local presenting partners. The tour was also made possible thanks to the support of the Ontario Arts Council. 

Many of the performances on this tour are an official part of Culture Days, a national celebration of arts and culture. Every year, thousands of free events are connected under a three-week national campaign to encourage people across Canada to engage with, participate in, and support arts and culture in their communities. Thousands of organizers have made Culture Days Canada’s largest celebration of arts, culture and heritage!

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