The music
A special thank you to Neruda Arts for co-presenting Cascabel and Ekhaya, and to So Far Sounds KW for co-presenting Anwar Kurshid.
Anwar Khurshid
Anwar Khurshid's music has been featured in Oscar-winning film Life of Pi as well as Kama Sutra besides performances in Europe, North America and Asia.
Performing for more than 3 decades with musicians from other genres including Blues, Jazz, African, Middle Eastern and Chinese, Anwar's innovative collaborations create music transcending categorization!
Onion honey
Onion Honey makes folk music, sharp and sweet and mixed in with banjo and mandolin, washboard and double bass, fiddle and warm five-part harmonies. It’s a recipe for a great time and good for what ails, home-cooked comfort food for the ears.
Dave Pike, Esther Wheaton, Keenan Reimer-Watts, Leanne Swantko and Kayleigh LeBlanc play new-time traditionals and old-time originals and all-time favourites: mountain music filtered through the Grand River Valley. They have performed in dim saloons and sunny cafés, folk festivals and country weddings, small-town castles and downtown galleries, and once a fancy hat shop.
JANICE LEE
Janice Jo Lee, aka Sing Hey, is a second generation Korean folk-soul musician-poet and theatre artist from Kitchener, Ontario, on Haldimand Treaty territory. Lee is a hard femme queer radical and is known for being disarmingly hilarious, off-the-cuff and fearlessly honest.
KW Poetry Slam
The KW Poetry Slam is a monthly spoken word competition where anyone can sign up to perform their original poetry in front of an attentive and responsive audience. Audience judges score out of 10 and after two rounds, there are cash prizes to the top 3 poets as well as people's choice ribbons. Each slam also begins with an open mic where anything goes. Slam poets have an opportunity to represent KW on the team that competes at the annual Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.
CASCABEL
A magical music journey to Latin America.
CASCABEL expresses Latin music styles just as the meaning of its Spanish name: it is a rattlesnake, a chili pepper and a child's musical rattle. Like its diverse meaning, CASCABEL plays with intensity and sensitivity. Its sound is fresh and familiar adding up to a captivating musical experience.
CASCABEL has been a major attraction at festivals such as Harbourfront Centre, the Canadian National Exhibition, the Royal Ontario Museum. Cascabel has also performed to sold out venues in Mexico and had a guest performance at the Festival of the Cultures in Guiyang China.
EKHAYA
Coming together from different tribes and weaving the sounds of many nations into a musical tapestry, the songs of eKhaya have traveled far. Each song tells a story, or wakes a memory and invigorates your ears.
The sound of Ekhaya defies an easy label. It is a merging of music: Rock steady, Afro-beat, Rock, its both old and new, and it invites you to get up and move to find your own rhythmn and dance. With a warm and engaging presence and a charismatic music style, Ekhaya is a band that will take you there…and bring you home
The Oldest man i know
The Oldest Man I Know is a combination of hard travel, falling in love, and too much time spent alone.
But mostly it's the solo project of Taylor Esch.
Jack Garton
Coming from Galiano Island in the Salish sea, Jack Garton’s pursuit of foot-stomping beautiful songs has taken him as far as Europe, Canada’s arctic, and the Southern USA, playing his unique combination of trumpet and accordion. Parts writer, composer, player and showman, Jack’s show is a roller-coaster tour through roots music in the folk and blues traditions.
BLUE SKY SINGERS
The Blue Sky Singers are a group of strong, creative Anishinaabe and Onkwehonwe women whose beautiful music tells stories that preserve and celebrate the resurgence of their respective cultures from the constraints of colonialism. They sing traditional and community songs, covers of songs by Indigenous artists, as well as their own original music. All of these women are urban Indigenous sisters and are (or have been) single mothers who are active in the Indigenous community. Members include Christine Lefebvre, Amy Smoke, Jaydum Hunt (Mohawk), and Heather Majaury (Algonquin).
NO DISCERNIBLE KEY
No Discernible Key is a band of friends, many of whom met at the fabled Shaky Acres farm in Rummelhardt in the 80s. They’ve sung and played together for over 20 years and some were at the original Barnfest at Shaky Acres when the “Stop the City” campaign started in 1986. They cover a variety of Canadian folk tunes that include songs that focus on the land. No Discernible Key is (from photo left) Dave Neufeld on mandolin/harmonica, Jim Bender on fiddle/guitar, Dwight Steinman accordion, Bruce Becthel on sound, Brent Klassen on percussion and Fred W. Martin on guitar/bass.