Some of the artists featured in the NAC Presents series: Pierre Kwenders (photo from his Facebook page), Safia Nolin (photo from her Bandcamp page), and Tanya Tagaq (photo from her website).
The NAC is celebrating the 5th anniversary of its “NAC Presents” concert series this Saturday with a shindig in the NAC lobby. The party will feature music by The Lionyls, Mehdi Cayenne, U.S. Girls, and headliners A Tribe Called Red. For the past five years, the concert series has brought many of Canada’s best up-and-coming artists and many of its most established stars to Ottawa.
The series is produced by Simone Deneau, the NAC’s Producer of Variety and Community Programming. Before the party on Saturday, Simone shared with us some of her favourite backstage stories from the last 5 years, her favourite discoveries, and some fun facts about artists who have graced the series’ stage.
1. Best Backstage Stories:
The Bros. Landreth, photo from the band’s Instagram.
Over the years there have been many. One artist needed so much quiet backstage that we had to disconnect the water cooler in the backstage hallway because it was too noisy. Artists riders (a document accompanying the contract that outlines food, beverage and other preferences) are always fun. We’ve had requests for DVD’s for the tour bus, our movie selection, and another for a Moleskine notebook.
Recently when Winnipeg’s The Bros. Landreth played, in addition to their dad filling in last minute due to a family emergency (and he was fantastic, by the way!), the Royal Winnipeg Ballet was performing the Nutcracker the same night, and production staff from the Ballet came up to see the show after they had finished – they all knew each other – so it was a lovely reunion. The audio engineer for the Bros. Landreth has a full time gig with the Ballet but booked off to do the sound mix instead. That night was also special because Royal Wood played keyboard for a few numbers also.
Mo Kenney, photo by Paul Wright, from her website.
2. Top 5 Band Discoveries:
3. Top 5 Artists They Hope to Bring In:
Hey Rosetta!, photo from the band’s Instagram
4. Repeat Artists (artists who have performed multiple times as part of the series):
- Royal Wood (4 times)
- Gordon Lightfoot (4 times)
- Michael Kaeshammer (3 times)
- David Myles (3 times)
- The Once (3 times)
- Jenn Grant (3 times)
- Emilie-Claire Barlow (3 times)
- Hey Rosetta! (twice)
- Jean Leloup (twice)
- Ariane Moffatt (twice)
5. A Family Affair (Family members who have performed as part of the series, either together or separately):
- Jill Barber and Matthew Barber (brother and sister)
- Sam Cash and his father Andrew Cash (of the Skydiggers)
- Doug Leahy and the Leahy family
- The Bros. Landreth (Joey and Dave)
- Martha Wainwright and Rufus Wainwright (brother and sister)
- Ashley MacIsaac, brother of Madison Violet band member Lisa MacIsaac
- Pandaléon (brothers Frédéric and Jean-Philippe Levac)
- Les Soeurs Boulay (sisters Stéphanie and Mélanie Boulay)
- The Abrams Brothers (brothers John and James Abrams)
Catl, photo from the band’s Bandcamp
6. Couples Who Have Played NAC Presents:
- Whitehorse
- Catl
- Sound of Lions
- Digging Roots
- 24th Street Wailers
- Andrea Lindsay and Luc de Larochelière
7. Music in Many Tongues (Languages, and styles,heard onstage over the past 5 years)
- English
- French
- Innu (Florent Vollant)
- Spanish (Alex Cuba, Boogat, Alejandra Ribera)
- Inuit throat singing (Tanya Tagaq)
- Wolof (Karim Diouf)
- Congolese (Pierre Kwenders)
- Créole (Wesli)
- Swedish (Sarah McDougall)
- Xitswa and Portuguese (Samito)
