While summer is a ways off, Banff’s fifth annual Performance in the Park is cued up and ready to take to the Cascade Gardens stage on the Parks administration grounds on June 22.
This year, headlining the always sold-out event will be Ontario’s Serena Ryder, owner of two Canadian gold albums and three Juno Awards (2008 New Artist of the Year, 2009 Adult Alternative Album of the Year, 2010 Video of the Year), along with three 2013 Juno nominations.
Opening will be Vancouver pop rockers Said the Whale, last seen at The Banff Centre’s The Club, and Cśur de pirate, Quebec folkstress Béatrice Martin.
Performance in the Park is a co-production between The Banff Centre, Parks Canada and Banff Lake Louise Tourism. Past headliners include Great Big Sea, Sam Roberts and Hawksley Workman, among others.
“Performance in the Park is gathering quite a following,” said Casey Prescott, associate director of producing at The Banff Centre. “And this year we’re really excited to have Serena Ryder. She’s one of the hottest artists out there who is breaking records for radio play and has mass appeal. We sense a lot of urgency for people to see Serena play her new songs.
“Performance in the Park will be the first opportunity for people to see her in southern Alberta. This is her first big show. We’d been talking with her management, she has a new album out (Harmony) and we felt it would be huge if we got in there and booked early.
“She’s having multi-layered success. I heard her music at a Flames game and she’s breaking into a lot of new markets with this album.
“We believe she’s just right for Performance in the Park, high energy for a wholesome performance at a family event. She’s written radio-friendly songs and her last album was several years ago.”
“Harmony is my journey… my past, my present, my future and all the ugly and beautiful things that I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing so far in my short life here,” states Ryder on her website. “I’ve chosen with this record to experiment more freely with the different musical parts of me that make up the whole.”
Cśur de pirate, said Prescott, “is arguably one of the biggest pop stars in Quebec. She rarely comes out west, so it’s a coup to land her. It’s a bit of a one-off because most of her career has been in Europe, but she seems to be on everybody’s iPod.”
A change for this year’s Performance in the Park is the female component, said Prescott. “We haven’t had big female stars in past years and we wanted great, vibrant and diverse artists, so this is a great collection.
“We think Said the Whale will get the event off on the right note because nothing can match their energy. They ooze fun and they’ll be a good starting pistol for the event. They’ve been here at The Club, but we felt this was a great chance for an audience to see them on a bigger stage.”
With sellouts in the 3,500-seat range, Performance in the Park is one of the more popular Banff events in the summer months.
Tickets will be $35 for adults and $12.50 for kids, as in the past. Doors to Cascade Gardens will open at 2 p.m., with the show starting at 3 p.m.
Ryder, a native of Millbrook, Ont. has logged some serious tour miles going across Canada multiple times, as well as in the U.S., Australia and Europe.
At times, Ryder’s songs range to darker and moody, but she says on her website, “there is a greater good to be found in the darker moments of one’s life... there are lessons in the dark, more potent than any facades of happiness. I’m frustrated at how greatly misinterpreted the word ‘happiness’ has become by pop culture.
“Most of us spend our whole lives trying to achieve this horrifically impossible state. I’m feeling my way around in the dark to stop using my ‘book by the cover’ eyes.”
Cśur de pirate (Béatrice Martin) has played the piano since she was three. After five years of conservatory, she felt the urge to write her own songs to express her feelings, emotions and experiences and was quickly recruited by band Bonjour Brumaire as keyboard player.
However, in the spring of 2008, she decided to concentrate on her solo project, Cśur de pirate, inspired by the music she grew up with (French and folk music). Her self-titled first album was released and acclaimed by critics.
Said the Whale is another Juno-winning act.
After uniting in early 2007, the band wasted no time in releasing its EP Taking Abalonia, which was re-issued the next year with seven new songs as the debut full-length, Howe Sounds/Taking Abalonia. Said the Whale put out the follow-up LP Islands Disappear in 2009, and quickly won over new followers when the crunchy power-pop hit “Camilo (The Magician)” became one of the most played Canadian songs on modern rock radio in 2010.
