JANUARY NEWSLETTER — What’s On in January
A fresh new year opens this January in fine form. Passionate opera, baroque music with a fiddler twist, a renowned pianist and opera singer’s album release, and a two-day personal storytelling workshop top the list for ArtSpring Presents. GISS Dance, the Salt Spring Film Festival, and Salt Spring Photography Club’s exhibition showcase community presentations for all ages.
As a Saturday January 18 matinee, ArtSpring welcomes back always popular Victoria Baroque. The ensemble is joined this time by Baroque violinist and Cape Breton folk fiddler David Greenberg for a program exploring sweet sleep, dreams, and things that go bump in the night. With selections from Purcell’s incidental music for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Vivaldi’s flute concerto “La Notte,” arrangements of Celtic folk songs, and other night-themed music, the concert promises a lively clash between classical and traditional music.
No matter who we are, what we all have in common is we have a story to tell and need to be heard. It’s how we connect. But what makes a great story, and how can you be a better personal storyteller?
Enter Deb Williams, storyteller, actor, comedienne, playwright, teacher, and co-founder and Artistic Producer of The Flame—Vancouver’s premiere storytelling event—who once again brings her transformative storytelling two-day workshop to Salt Spring. From shy beginners to the accomplished, storytellers of all ages, genders, orientations, and cultures are welcome to join a joyful, creative, and supportive space to learn the foundational rules of effective storytelling.
With practice, tips, and encouraging feedback, participants will leave the workshop with several polished and meaningful five-minute stories about their life experiences. The $100 workshop runs Jan 18-19, with a voluntary presentation of completed stories to an audience of friends and family.
Saturday morning MET Opera Live in HD is back with one of its most sumptuous productions, Verdi’s Aida, which draws audiences inside opera’s most famous love triangle amidst the towering pyramids and gilded tombs of ancient Egypt. Soprano Blue Angel stars, with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin taking the podium to conduct.
On January 31, Rachel Fenlon, the internationally-regarded soprano and pianist who had a visiting creative residency at ArtSpring in August 2024, presents a very special program of Schubert’s “Winterreise.” Her long-awaited debut album “Winterreise” was released in October, with her singing and accompanying herself on piano – a recording first.
In community-led programming, GISS Dance presents “Spectral” to showcase dance students’ technical and creative growth with joyful, retro, dystopian, and hopeful choreography and themes on January 15 and 16. The Salt Spring Film Festival is back with its fourth “Best of the Fests” screening of “Blue Rodeo: Lost Together,” a music documentary about the legendary band’s 40-year adventure.
Vetta’s Chamber Music’s third concert “French Connections” is a Monday matinee on January 27 and don’t miss seeing through the lens of the island’s best photographers in the Salt Spring Photography Club’s winter exhibition. See you at ArtSpring!
For all ArtSpring Presents shows, affordable access includes the $5 youth and $15 Angel ticket prices.
See you soon at ArtSpring!
Howard R. Jang
Executive & Artistic Director
ArtSpring
