The Athabasca Heartwood Folk Club has announced its autumn concert lineup: one returning favourite and three acts that will be appearing in town for the first time.
“We’re trying to maintain standards,” said folk club founder Peter Opryshko.
Keeping a consistent quality of music doesn’t mean the club avoids taking chances, though.
“The first show is going to be something different that we’ve never had,” said Opryshko.
The season will kick off with a fiddling frenzy courtesy of Edmonton’s Cam Neufeld and his band, who will play a show called “The Road to Django” Sept. 28. The gypsy jazz show was inspired by Neufeld’s travels in Turkey, the Balkans, France and Spain — an itinerary Neufeld calls the route of the gypsies.
“The Road to Django will feature two of the finest fiddlers in Alberta,” said Opryshko.
Up next is Juno winner David Francey on Oct. 20. He has been to town before and remains both a local favourite and a nationally recognized singer/songwriter based in Ontario. His tunes are inflected with his native Scotland and his working class sensibility: as the son of factory workers and an erstwhile rail yard and construction worker, he knows a thing or two about manual labour.
Ashley Condon — whose recent album, This Great Compromise, was produced by Francey — arrives on Nov. 21, a month after her producer. The young musician, who grew up amongst potato fields on Prince Edward Island, has already been nominated for a slew of awards, including a 2011 Canadian Folk Music Award.
A Celtic group is slated for Dec. 1; Opryshko said the band has yet to firm up a name.
All the shows except for Ashley Condon’s will be at the Nancy Appleby Theatre; Condon’s show will be at the United Church.
Tickets are available as of today at Value Drug Mart and Whispering Hills Fuels, as well as through Opryshko himself. Though ticket prices had yet to be finalized as of press time, Opryshko estimated season passes would be approximately $85.
