Oliver Swain and Glenna Garramone will come together for a Tower of Song: a tribute to the music of Leonard Cohen next Sunday, April 27.
The matinee show is at 2 p.m. at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons and will also feature special guest Corbin Keep on cello.
Tickets are $20, available at Gaia's Fair Trade, Laedeli, and the Sechelt Visitor Centre.
Swain and Garramone have collaborated to produce a project that is as much a dialogue through song as it is a tribute. Through "re- imagining" the works of Cohen, the duo have crafted a sound that proves to resonate with both long-time Cohen fans as well as a younger audience that is less familiar with Cohen's work.
Tower of Song began as a tribute night at The Media Club in Vancouver and has since grown into an actively touring folk duo.
Initially produced by Garramone, the show was intended to showcase the next generation of artists who could bring their own voices to Cohen's work.
"When I first conceived of this project, I wanted to involve artists who could do something unexpected with the songs, and Oliver Swain was the first person I contacted," said Garramone. "I knew he was up to the challenge of bringing his own vision to the work."
The show gave Swain and Garramone the chance to collaborate on Cohen's rich material, and the chemistry was obvious -to them and to the packed house at the Media Club. Encouraged by the response to the project, they continued to present the show regionally, with production duties and the artistic direction being shared as collaboration between the two artists.
As a duo, Tower of Song fearlessly interprets both rare and classic selections from the Cohen cannon. Rounded out by the inclusion of a few poems as well as a selection of original compositions, a live show with Tower of Song celebrates Canada's greatest bard and his influence on modern song writing.
- Submitted
