Steppin’ Out with Lorna
Soprano teams up with swing combo for Baddeck concert
Lorna MacDonald is hoping Cape Bretoners will be Steppin’ Out to her latest concert in Baddeck this Friday night.
MacDonald, pianist Peter MacDonald (no relation) and the new swing combo Steppin’ Out will be playing together in the performing space at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Although best known as a classical soprano, Lorna MacDonald is no stranger to the world of the popular song. She has sung throughout the U.S. and Canada and in many countries around the world. Many of the arrangements that she uses are specially geared for her.
“A lot of the arrangements have been done for me by classical musicians who know my voice,” said MacDonald in an interview Wednesday. “This show opens with “The Nova Scotia Song” which brings us back to memories of Catherine MacKinnon way back in the day. But this particular arrangement was done for me and a lot of the show has those arrangements and so it lets me sing slightly less formally.”
She is also the creator of the award-winning show, “The Bells of Baddeck – the Alexander Graham and Mabel Bell Story.” This summer, the show is on hiatus while she considers other sources of funding and some revisions to the popular program.
“The funding for it was a very generous grant in the first place and to be truthful, I made that go further than it might have first been intended so I’m very pleased with how that all happened,” said MacDonald. “Now we are looking at a different funding structure for it. There
“The funding for it was a very generous grant in the first place and to be truthful, I made that go further than it might have first been intended so I’m very pleased with how that all happened.Now we are looking at a different funding structure for it.”
Lorna MacDonald
are some modifications that I am looking at. The Bell story is so interesting that the hard part about writing that show was what do I leave out, not what do I put in. So there were a few things that I left out in its original form that I may revise … because I am able to do that.
“I feel very confident that there is a future for it.”
When the show ran in the past, MacDonald had been on sabbatical from her full-time position as the Lois Marshall Chair in Voice at the University of Toronto. Now that she’s back to work, she’s also considering ways to change her role as producer so that it’s less demanding.
“This summer, although it’s been very busy, I’ve been doing some very logistical thinking and planning. There is life in “The Bells of Baddeck” for sure.”
In the meantime, MacDonald plans to sing some of the pieces from “The Bells of Baddeck” in Friday’s concert as well as some folk and Indigenous songs from coast to coast. She will do a Gershwin piece with Bruce McKinlay and Peter MacDonald as well as some old favorites by Cole Porter and Jerome Kern with Steppin’ Out as well.
Steppin’ Out features pianist Peter MacDonald and bass Mike MacDonald, vocalist Kevin Colford, clarinet/sax Bruce MacKinlay, sax Russell LeBlanc, drummer Ron Leadbeater, trombone Ken Howatson, trumpet Steve MacInnis and guitar Doug Johnson.
Tickets are still available for adults, $25, and seniors and students, $20.