Making music
Pop up concert to take place June 24 at Wentworth Park
The Sydney Credit Union Makin’ Waves Music Festival and the Cape Breton Orchestra will bring the park back in time with a ‘pop up’ concert, ‘Cape Breton Orchestra Goes Pops!’ at the Wentworth Park bandshell on June 24 at 2 p.m.
The concert, which will feature the orchestra performing selections from popular music and film scores, will revisit the early days of the 55 year old bandshell when orchestral music was more frequently performed in the park.
The concert, which was presented to a packed house at Sydney’s Highland Arts Theatre in April, will see the orchestra with guest vocalists Demara Maybury and Paul Gatchell. Under the musical direction of Noelle Wadden and with orchestra founder/ artistic director Kim Lantz and concertmaster Shawn MacDonald, the performance will include such songs as “Over the Rainbow” from the 1939 film, “The Wizard of Oz” and the Frank Sinatra popularized standard “My Way.” The hour long performance will be repeated at 3:30 p.m. If the weather is bad, the performance will be moved to Sunday, June 25, at the same time.
“The Wentworth Park bandshell was built for this,” says CBRM Recreation Program Coordinator Joe Costello. “It is only fitting, after Evan (McNeil, Cape Breton Orchestra member) and I have talked about this for so long, that we get to utilize the bandshell the way it would have originally been used when constructed by the Kiwanis Club of Sydney in 1962.”
The Cape Breton Orchestra is a community orchestra now in its 23rd season. The orchestra features 40 members who perform spring and Christmas concerts as well as other special events in the community. They have performed at Celtic Colours International Festival with traditional musicians such as Buddy MacMaster and J.P. Cormier, as well as a performance of the CBC presentation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” to raise money for local food banks.
Sydney Credit Union Makin’ Waves Music Festival is a free summer concert series taking place at the Wentworth Park bandshell. Since 2015, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) Recreation Department and the Cape Breton Music Industry Cooperative (CBMIC) have brought together residents of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality on Thursday evenings with world class musical performances at the historic public space. Among the artists who have performed at the festival are Juno Award winners The Sadies, Grammy Award winner Gordie Sampson, and legendary songwriter Ron Hynes. The 2017 Sydney Credit Union Makin’ Waves Music Festival will take place on Thursdays from July 6 to August 3.