Danny Michel album made on icebreaker
Chris Hadfield is joined by Kitchener singer-songwriter and an orchestra for a night of science, story and song
Those who have followed Danny Michel’s career over the past three decades know the Kitchener singer-songwriter has never stayed in one place — stylistically — for long.
Moving from power pop to alt-country to world music to folk, funk and ska, the Juno-nominated musician has proudly championed what he terms “musical ADD.”
Still, no one expected this: a classical symphony concert in which the ambitious 48-year-old performs alongside astronaut Chris Hadfield, who operated the Canadarm, flew two space shuttle missions and was commander of the International Space Station.
Having met at the Ottawa Folk Festival a few years back, the celebrated Canadian astronaut invited Michel — and nine other cultural innovators, including photographers, bloggers and videographers — to travel to the North Pole on a Russian icebreaker to spark artistic inspiration.
“I got to go to the top of the planet and explore it with Chris Hadfield,” notes the Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate grad from his home north of Toronto. “I never dreamed or imagined that would happen.”
Hadfield, of course, got married in Waterloo in the early ’80s, did postgraduate studies at the University of Waterloo and recently served a three-year term as an adjunct professor of aviation.
Their 18-day Arctic voyage through the Northwest Passage two summers ago was the closest thing to outer space on this planet, says Michel, who encountered whales that had never laid eyes on a human and icebergs the size of shopping malls.
“I got to go where only a handful of human beings had ever been. The whole way up there were zillions of miles of nothing but polar bears.”
It was Hadfield’s idea “to take a bunch of people up there to share the experience with the world through music, film and photography,” he notes, “to capture this adventure in whatever mediums we work in.”
The result was the album “Khlebnikov,” a collection of songs about this ice-swathed wilderness — and our place in it — arranged for brass and strings by fellow Waterloo Region resident-turned-film composer Rob Carli.
“I made the entire album and recorded it on the ship,” notes Michel, who calls the experience “very bizarre.”
“It’s pretty much a classical record and it’s all arranged with an orchestra — classical folk.”
It’s these songs that will be the focus of the story, science and song evening featuring Michel on guitar, Hadfield singing in Russian and a “little orchestra that plays around Ontario.”
“It’s hard to play with a symphony,” notes Michel. “It’s hard to keep the beat. It’s different from rock and roll — very regimented, very exacting.”
Not that this is a bad thing. “If I had to play the same style of music my whole life, it would be a prison sentence.”
He’s looking forward to his Waterloo gig, he says, not only as a homecoming but as “a big variety show” featuring songs, stories, photos and an audience question-and-answer session.
“And,” he laughs, “it’s not every day people can see me perform with an astronaut.”