Rik Emmett brings ‘magic power’ to stage

OLD SAYBROOK — The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, “the Kate,” welcomes Rik Emmett on Thursday, May 31, at 7:30 p.m.

This show will be an acoustic duo performance with guitarist Dave Dunlop.

Emmett gained international recognition as the lead singer/ songwriter/guitarist with the Canadian hard-rock trio Triumph.

The adjectives “prolific” and “eclectic” frequently pop up in Emmett’s profiles after five decades in the business.

Following more than a dozen platinum albums from his Triumph years, he produced 19 more, ranging from rock to blues to jazz to folk to classical. International notoriety earned him entry into three Canadian Halls of Fame, a star on the Walk of Fame in his hometown of Mississauga, Ontario, and he picked up a few best guitarist awards in various style categories from different organizations along the way.

Emmett wrote a Guitar Player magazine column for more than 12 years, and the instruction book, “For The Love of Guitar,” which recently landed at No. 4 in Shawn Persinger’s review of “The 50 Greatest Guitar Books.”

“As a music educator, he remains humbly proud of his longstanding inclusion on the heavily-respected Humber College faculty, where he’s taught songwriting, music business and directed studies; and he’s also been artistic director of the Songstudio Songwriting Workshop every summer for the past 12 years,” according to a statement.

Contributed photo Rik Emmet, the lead singer of the supergroup Triumph, performs at The Kate on May 31.