Celebrating 89 years of entertaining Sarnia through music is no easy task. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes curating a list of artists each season to keep things fresh and appeal to a wide audience with an emphasis on Canadian music.
“We select about 20 different groups that might be wanting to come here from string quartets to brass bands, and with the committee, we put together what we hope will be a balanced and quite varied program that will interest people,” David Nichols, the program selection committee chair, tells the Journal.
The upcoming season starts in October and will run until May 2025. It features five concerts featuring world-class entertainment.
“I know people who move from bigger cities and retire in Sarnia…and they take a look at our program and they say, ‘wow we can’t believe that and we can’t believe the prices you are charging because when we lived in Toronto we would have paid four times as much for that.’ I think the important thing that we are doing is bringing the artists here,” Nichols says.
The dedication to bringing in some of music’s top talent is what has kept the Sarnia Concert Association going and bringing back audiences year after year.
“We really try to look at a variety of groups,” says Sarnia concert association president Paul Wiersma. “Some people really like vocalists, some people really like piano, and some people like string quartets but we know not everyone likes everything like that so we try to focus. Our series next year is a nice collection of different genres.”
Acts for the upcoming season include the Toronto Concert Orchestra, Heather Bambrick Quintet, Weston Silver Band, Penderecki String Quartet, and Bridge and Wolack -- which happens to be a Canadian duo of an accordion player and clarinetist.
“This duo is quite unique. Michael Bridge is the foremost accordion player in the world. He’s just a brilliant guy. Kornel Wolak is a world-class clarinetist and the two of them have been working together for a number of years now, and I think we had them maybe four years ago and they were a tremendous hit. And they play all kinds of music they’ve arranged for these two instruments from Mozart to Dolly Parton,” says Nichols.
The Weston Silver Band is also a repeat performer, having attended the concert series a few years ago and made an impression.
“It’s a group of about 30 wonderful brass and percussion players and the variety of music they do, I mean they do classical arrangements but they do all kinds of popular things too that are arranged for the band. They are the most award-winning band that Canada has ever had. They go off to Europe always placing high in the world ranking of things, they are tremendous,” says Nichols.
For more information and to purchase individual tickets or a subscription to all shows visit www.sarniaconcertassociation.ca