Women making noise
Wildly popular concert series gives solo female singers a spotlight
Australian singer/songwriter Peter Allen wrote the song “Quiet Please, There’s a Lady on Stage” as a heartfelt acknowledgement of the guts, determination and talent it takes to succeed as a woman alone on stage in the spotlight.
It’s also the title of a new six-concert series at Koerner Hall starring individual women singing with accompaniment, curated by Mervon Mehta, executive director performing arts for the Royal Conservatory.
It is proving to be wildly popular, with Joan Armatrading’s opening concert selling out months before her Oct. 3 performance and now Anne Carrere’s star turn as Edith Piaf this Friday also sold out.
Tickets for Lisa Fischer, who rose to public awareness as a backup singer for the Rolling Stones in the Academy Award-winning documentary Twenty Feet from
Stardom, are also close to sold out, and that concert isn’t scheduled until Jan. 29. The others in the series include Rene Marie’s Feb. 19 show, “I Wanna Be Evil (With Love to Eartha Kitt),” Canadian soprano Patricia O’Callaghan on April 22, and “kamikaze cabaret” diva Meow Meow on May 5.
“We are pleasantly surprised by how well the series is doing,” says Mehta. The performers, however, aren’t surprised at all.
“Everyone really enjoys the shows,” says Armatrading, who has been on a solo tour since April 2014. She has been performing since the age of 14, turns 65 in December and will not tackle a major tour again. Alone on stage, Armatrading has been accompanying herself in smaller halls she’s chosen for this tour to allow for an “intimate” experience.
The singer, whose styles include blues, jazz and rock, says a reduction in touring doesn’t mean she’ll stop performing.
“I’ll be singing songs until the day I die,” says the singer known for the songs “Love and Affection,” “Willow” and “Me, Myself and I.”
Carrere first began singing songs by French icon Edith Piaf when she was only 5 years old, as they were favourites of her grandmother.
“I was predestined to perform Piaf songs on stage one day,” says Carrere, who is marking the 100th anniversary of Edith Piaf’s birth with 100 concerts around the world.
The tragic singer known as “The Little Sparrow” gained acclaim during the Second World War and her signature songs “Je ne Regrette Rien” and “La Vie En Rose” remain standards to this day.
Carrere pinpoints the most important aspect of her theatrical rendering of Piaf’s works: “Love, love, love,” she says.
“Piaf’s lyrics are so strong and this is the most important message you want to share with an audience.”
As well, the French lifestyle and music from1940 through the 1960s is brought to life in the show, which features the signature accordion so prevalent at the time. Accompanied by four musicians, technicians and stage director Gil Marsala, Carrere shows how her career reflected her life, she says.
“She had a life with so much emotion, tragedy and love that she needed to be on stage,” says Carrere. “Edith Piaf was unique.”
The evening includes 28 songs from 1930 to 1963, the year Piaf died. Carrere’s favourite song is “L’Hymne a L’Amour” “because the lyrics touch me any time I sing this song. Many times I cry on stage with the audience. This is an important emotional moment in the show.”
The endurance of Piaf’s popularity is evident in the crowds attending her shows, says Carrere. “The audience loves the show everywhere in the world.”
Fischer admits that exposure through Twenty Feet From Stardom helped propel her into also pursuing a solo career. Fischer has just completed a tour singing rock ’n’ roll with the Rolling Stones but she will turn to gospel, blues and jazz in her own show.
She is accompanied by Grand Baton featuring Aidan Carroll on bass and vocals, Thierry Arpino on drums and percussion, and musical director and arranger JC Maillard on bass, guitar, vocals and keyboard.
After performing in the United States and Canada this year, she plans to tour to Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Europe in 2016. She says her experience doing background vocals is intertwined with her new role starring centre stage.
“The thing that brings them together is the music itself.”
And it is music that brings all of these women together in this series that might become a regular part of seasons to come. Anne Carrere sings Edith Piaf @100, Friday, 8 p.m. at Koerner Hall.