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Adult entertainment?
I saw the ad the other day: “Sharon and Bram – 40th anniversary farewell concert.” Hard to believe the children’s entertainers have been at it together for 40 years; equally hard to believe they’ve lasted 40 years. (Well, they haven’t lasted intact for 40 years. They were originally Sharon, Lois and Bram until, sadly, Lois died in 2015).
The 40-year saga takes me back to the years in which our children were young and my wife and I became consumers of children’s music. Back in the mid-1980s, Sharon, Lois and Bram had established themselves as top of the heap with their impeccably produced, infectious songs that adults could enjoy as much as children could. Long playing records were still the thing back then, and our turntable was loaded with the best of them. There was Raffi (Baby Beluga), Fred Penner (The Cat Came Back) and the Junior Jug Band (the Whiteley brothers and their children singing Turkey in the Straw and other classics)—just to name the first ones that come to mind.
It’s tempting to me to think of that era as a magic time in children’s music, and that nothing comparable is being produced today; but that’s because I am out of touch. Besides, I’m like a Maple Leafs fan who remembers a bygone era and thinks sentimental thoughts like “if only they could put the 1967 Leafs back on the ice, they’d blow away the competition and bring back the Stanley Cup.”
So it was with a shrug of the shoulders and a ‘what have we got to lose’ attitude that my wife and I took in the free concert put on by children’s entertainer Jennifer Gasol during the Wellington Water Week festivities held at the end of August. Her resume is not too shabby: her album Throw a Penny in the Wishing Well won her the 2014 Grammy Award for best children’s album. But we were unsure how real children would react, and—I might as well admit it— I was worried about being dragged into shenanigans that would not befit my status as the page eight columnist for a publication as prestigious as The Times.
I needn’t have worried. Despite a technical hitch in the sound system, she quickly established her credibility with the children, inducing them to come forward and stand up and ensuring there was something physical for them to do in every song, whether it be to make motions, wave props, feign sleep or shout out suggestions to her.
And to experience the uninhibited behaviour of the children was a delight. They didn’t seem to have any room for entertaining thoughts about how other people would perceive them; they were in the entertainer’s world for a solid hour. And I have to add that the adults, who were encouraged but not forced to join in the action, responded well. I even waved a paw or two. Nothing so raucous as to show up on some viral video—“Old guy making a fool of himself at children’s concert”— but enough to be able to claim that my own inhibitions got a bit looser. So hats off to Ms. Gasol.
But that concert was only one event during the inaugural Wellington Water Week event. My wife and I took in three additional concerts—music from The Mosaic Project from the Ensemble Made in Canada; tango music from Payadora Tango; and a combined reading/ musical evening featuring Wellington’s own Graham Abbey reading water-themed excerpts from Shakespeare and Wellington’s own bass singer Alain Coulombe, as well as violinist Alissa Lee and pianist (and festival artistic director) Johannes Debus. The standard of performance—as well as the pedigree of the performers—was amazing. And we talked to other people who had seen concerts we missed, and the response was uniform: this was a stunningly high quality series of concerts. And the concerts were only a part of the festivities: there were talks, art displays, play readings and interactive exhibits at several public and private venues.
So hats off also to festival co-ordinator Maria Gacesa and all the participants, sponsors, hosts and volunteers. If you are still hemming and hawing about whether to do it next year, you have my vote: do it. Maybe next year you could convince Ms. Gasol to return and put on a special ‘adults only’ children’s music concert for those of us who are prepared to consider further loosening (I use those three words deliberately, although I could have used the single word “shed”) our inhibitions. Maybe I could convince the remaining 1967 Leafs to join in too.
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