Masonic Temple to reopen as Concert Hall
No sooner did Toronto lose a music venue — the Silver Dollar, which closed Sunday — than it regained an old one, as concertgoers got word Tuesday that the Masonic Temple will reopen this summer and host shows for the TD Toronto Jazz Festival.
The performance space at Yonge St. and Davenport Ave., now simply to be known as the Concert Hall, will return on June 23, when Randy Bachman, with guests including American blues guitarist Walter Trout, performs as part of the fest. Opened by the Masons in 1918, the building (capacity 1,500 patrons) transitioned to serve as a ballroom in the 1930s; then, beginning in the late 1960s, it began to host rock and other pop shows.
Over the decades, musicians such as Led Zeppelin, R.E.M., Green Day, David Bowie and even Frank Sinatra played the venue — operating under three different names over the years including the Rock Pile — but it was sold to CTV in the late 1990s and then used as a TV studio. CTV’s parent, Bell Media, sold the property in 2013.
Other acts set to play the Concert Hall during jazz festival include the trio of Geri Allen, Terri Lyne Carrington and Esperanza Spalding; Robert Glasper; Shabaka & The Ancestors and Bokanté. Other jazz players won’t be far away: the fest also announced Tuesday that it will put on more than 100 free shows around nearby Yorkville, including Aaron Neville on June 24.
No word was immediately available regarding concerts after the fest ends July 2. Star staff
Two prizes for literary firsts
Two literary prizes have announced their short lists: one an award for the best first collection of short fiction by a Canadian author published in English; the other for up-and-coming young Canadian writers.
Nominees for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, which gives $10,000 to the winner and $500 to the two runners-up, include Kerry Lee Powell for Willem de Kooning’s Paintbrush, which was shortlisted for the Governor- General’s Literary Award last year and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Other finalists are Kris Bertin’s Bad Things Happen; Lyse Champagne’s The Light that Remains; Andre Narbonne’s Twelve Miles to Midnight and Laura Trunkey’s Double Dutch.
The winner will be announced June 3 in Vancouver. The RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers rewards writers 35 and under who are unpublished in book form. The prize, doubled this year to $10,000, alternates between poetry and short fiction.
The poets nominated this year include Calgary’s Tyler Engström for “after thoughts”; Montreal’s Domenica Martinello for “All Day I Dream About Sirens”; and Philadelphia-born Noor Naga, who studied in Toronto, for “The Mistress and the Ping.”
The winner will be announced May 30 in Toronto. Each finalist receives $2,500, up from $1,000, and the chance to be mentored by a poetry editor.
Nominated poems are available for download on iBooks at iTunes.com/ Bronwen Wallace. Star staff, wire services
TV, movie writers avoid a strike
Hollywood can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The Writers Guild of America reached a tentative deal with the major studios and networks early Tuesday for a new film and TV contract for its nearly 13,000 members.
“It came right down to the wire,” said one person close to the talks. “We didn’t get everything we wanted and they didn’t get everything they wanted, which is usually the result of a successful negotiation. We made real and substantial gains for writers in a number of areas.”
In a statement to members, guild leaders said the agreement provides gains in minimum pay and increases in contributions to the union’s health plan that “should ensure its solvency for years to come.”
The three-year contract also provides for a 15-per-cent increase in pay-TV residuals, job protection for paternity leave and residuals for comedy-variety writers who work in pay TV.
The last-minute agreement averts a potentially devastating strike that would have affected production throughout the industry. Los Angeles Times