Collectif9 brings innovative show to concert association’s season finale
Montreal- based band Collectif9 will be in Welland on Friday to close out the Welland– Port Colborne Concert Association season.
Andrea Stewart, one of the nine band members, described their music as folkinspired classical music. She said they want to encourage the audience to feel the music and get involved with the performance.
“When listening to a classical music concert, you have to be still and careful … but there’s a lot of music, too, that really draws you to move,” she explained of the style.
The band started in 2011, playing music the members enjoyed and performing at local venues. Stewart said eventually the productions just got bigger and bigger and they found themselves creating these shows.
“We try our best to format the concert like a pop show. Rather than having a couple large scale works that are separate, we play a lot of shorter things and we use the music to form a narrative,” she said.
Apart from Friday’s 7: 30 p. m. show, the group will also be doing an afternoon show for students at Welland Centennial Secondary School, where the concert association’s performances take place.
Stewart said unlike a typical performance, there will be points during which students will be able to ask questions and hear about how the group puts together a show.
She said doing this is one of their favourite things because students have interesting feedback and questions.
Cheryl Maurice, association publicity chair, said throughout the year, the association tries to incorporate different kinds of shows. Where each band or group performs is more about their availability than anything, but she said ending with Collectif9 works very well.
“I think it’s going to be quite different. I think people will really enjoy this concert.”
As of Monday, there were still some tickets available, which can be purchased at wellandportcolborneconcert. org.
Maurice said in the past all of the shows in a concert association series would have been sold out because of the on- going memberships. However, the last couple of years, there haven’t been as many. Only two concerts sold out this year.
She said that’s likely because their audience has mostly been an older demographic and those people may not be able to make it out anymore for various reasons.
To attract more people to sign up to see the shows, Maurice said the association is moving to online sign ups. While people will still be able to sign up as a member or for individual tickets over the phone at
905- 788- 1648, the preferred method is online.
“We realized that we have to update the process and be current with the time,” she said.
Current members will be able to renew starting March 6. Others will be able to sign up come the summer time.
At this final show, brochures for the next season will be available.
Collectif9 can be found on Facebook and Instagram primarily, although Stewart said the group does have a Twitter account as well.