PASSWORD PROTECTED PRESALE IN EFFECT UNTIL THE ON SALE - THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3RD AT 12noon.
This is not a Grand Theatre Presents performance.
Presented by Rankin Productions in association with Live Wire Music Series
Buffy Sainte-Marie has been a powerful voice in the world of music for decades and she has not slowed down a bit. Her brilliant and bold new album Power in the Blood was named 2015's Polaris Prize* winner and is just the latest honour bestowed upon this acclaimed Cree Nation singer-songwriter, activist, educator and visual artist.
Perhaps you know Sainte-Marie from her 1960s protest anthems (Universal Soldier, My Country Tis of Thy People You're Dying), open-hearted love songs (Until It's Time for You to Go), incendiary powwow rock (Starwalker), or the juggernaut pop hit Up Where We Belong, which Sainte-Marie co-wrote and Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes sang for the soundtrack to the film An Officer and a Gentleman.
Perhaps you remember Sainte-Marie from her five years on the television show "Sesame Street" beginning in the mid-'70s. Or from the numerous awards she has won in her storied career (Juno, Oscar, Golden Globe).
Whatever the case, every song and every era has revealed new and distinctive shades of an artist revered for her pioneering and chameleon ways. There was no mould from which Buffy Sainte-Marie emerged; she created her own, forged from experiences in both her head and her heart.
That unwavering resilience has rippled across genres and generations, even as Sainte-Marie's profile in the United States diminished significantly when she was blacklisted in the '70s. Recognizing the power of her song writing and activism, the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations considered her an "artist to be suppressed," and Sainte-Marie all but disappeared from the US music industry.
Power in the Blood is a reminder that, five decades on, it is still futile to silence artists or to put Sainte-Marie in any single category. She simply doesn't fit. Yes, she can inspire you to rise up and take action, but she can just as easily melt your heart with a tender ballad. Go back to "Until It's Time for You to Go" and you'll be hard-pressed to say when it was written or for whom. It's evergreen and, like so much of Sainte-Marie's work, it is universal.
"I love words, I love thinking, and I recognize and value the core of a universal idea simplified into a three-minute song," she says. "What appealed to me in folk music were the songs that have lasted for generations, but I wasnt trying to be one of those guys. I wanted to give people something original".
*The 2015 Polaris Music Prize, which goes to the best Canadian album of the year based on "artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation," was determined by a Grand Jury of 11 music media professionals drawn from the greater Polaris jury pool of roughly 200 writers, editors, broadcasters, DJs and personalities from across the country.
Performing in the Regina Rosen Auditorium, Grand Theatre
Tickets are:
Gold Circle - $58.05 plus HST and handling fee
BSection - $50.05 plus HST and handling fee
CSection- $40.05 plus HST and handling fee
