Cross-Canada tour to follow Toronto premiere
The music of The Beatles, The Four Seasons and even ABBA has fuelled hit stage shows, but a new production shines a spotlight on Canadian hitmakers from Paul Anka to Joni Mitchell.
Oh Canada What a Feeling, which premieres in Toronto on Tuesday, celebrates the legacy of Canadian singers, songwriters, rockers and recording artists in a multimedia musical showcase.
"It's not about the story of the artists, it's about their presence at certain times in [Canadian history]," according to the show's Calgary-based producer Jeff Parry, whose previous credits include the Beatles tribute stage show Let It Be.
"It's really a story of Canada."
Based on Martin Melhuish's book Oh What A Feeling: A Vital History of Canadian Music, the stage show begins with Paul Anka's Diana and charts a path through the following decades with performers backed by a live band onstage and surrounded by screens featuring archival footage of the relevant era.
"You come in and you're going to have screens that basically are pieces of the culture," noted music historian Melhuish. "You're going to bathe in Canadian music."
The music of The Beatles, The Four Seasons and even ABBA has fuelled hit stage shows, but a new production shines a spotlight on Canadian hitmakers from Paul Anka to Joni Mitchell.
Oh Canada What a Feeling, which premieres in Toronto on Tuesday, celebrates the legacy of Canadian singers, songwriters, rockers and recording artists in a multimedia musical showcase.
"It's not about the story of the artists, it's about their presence at certain times in [Canadian history]," according to the show's Calgary-based producer Jeff Parry, whose previous credits include the Beatles tribute stage show Let It Be.
"It's really a story of Canada."
Based on Martin Melhuish's book Oh What A Feeling: A Vital History of Canadian Music, the stage show begins with Paul Anka's Diana and charts a path through the following decades with performers backed by a live band onstage and surrounded by screens featuring archival footage of the relevant era.
"You come in and you're going to have screens that basically are pieces of the culture," noted music historian Melhuish. "You're going to bathe in Canadian music."
Oh Canada What a Feeling plays at Toronto's Princess of
Wales Theatre from Aug. 11-23. A cross-Canada tour gets underway in October and
will make stops in:
Oshawa, Ont., Kitchener, Ont., Montreal, Ottawa, Saint
John, Halifax, Fredericton, Charlottetown, Moncton, N.B., Hamilton, London,
Ont., Thunder Bay, Ont., Winnipeg, Regina Medicine Hat, Sask.,
Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver.
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