Although I am sad to say goodbye to summer, by the time the September long weekend rolls around I have started to get a little bit tired of the migraines and mosquitoes and I'm ready for autumn to begin. To mark this transition to fall, it's become a bit of tradition for me to attend Symphony Under the Sky. This was one of the first festivals I attended in Edmonton and it's easily one of my favourites. I love coming to the park, well prepared with my blanket and mittens, ready for an evening listening to the Edmonton Symphony play while the sun sets behind them.



I prefer the grassy areas to the seats under the tent. It means you have to brave the elements a bit more, but I appreciate being able to stretch out my legs and cozy up to your significant other if they happen to come along. Of course there's also the added benefit of being able to beat the rush at the refreshment tents.

Conductor Bob Bernhardt adjusts his bow-tie before beginning Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major, K.299 (Elizabeth Faulkner on flute and Nora Bumanis on Harp)

Grassy seating is for lovers!

Amazing views of Hawrelak Park while the sun sets (except perhaps for the trailers parked behind)

This is Bob Bernhardt's sixth year conducting the ESO for Symphony Under the Sky. One of my favourite photos from SUTS in 2009 is featured in the program!

It was a fabulous first night and I'm looking forward to the rest of the weekend.

If you've never gone before or you haven't bought your tickets yet, the rest of the weekend is going to be beautiful. Gates open at 6pm and there are always tickets available at the gate. Hope to see you there!

The last five days have been dedicated to folk fest. Things are sort of back to normal but the younger sister and I are off to San Francisco on Wednesday so I'm sort of busy making sure that I complete a bunch of things before I leave. One if those things is this summary of my weekend at Folk Fest. This is sort of a lazy post, since I'm just posting the videos (and their brief descriptions) that I shot over the course of the last five days. But those videos took a bit of work to edit, so in the end it all balances out.

Wednesday

A friend of mine had a pair of tickets to Van Morrison's performance at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. What a windfall! It was the one night I didn't have tickets for. After work I met the gentleman at the university where we hopped on the bus at the park n' ride which took us directly to Gallagher Park. The line up to get in spanned three blocks, but the queue moved along quickly. Once inside we met up with some friends who had found a spot on the hill, then wandered down to get some eats. After our al fresco dinner we headed back up the hill, just in time for Van Morrison to take the stage.



Thursday

This is the first time that I have taken in the entirety of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. Over the past few years I've been able to attend a couple days, but this year I bought a weekend pass (and one for my younger sister for her birthday) and we planned to attend the entire weekend.

Well, not exactly the entire weekend. We didn't do the full experience, which would entail arriving early for the tarp lottery (we had very experienced and generous friends who were the appointed tarp-masters...). Younger sister and I are also a bit susceptible to the heat and sun, so we paced ourselves and went a bit later in the afternoon/evening, since she faints at the drop of a hat and I just get heat stroke.

Thursday night was just the right temperature. We walked to the festival grounds with our friend Lisa and then found the rest of our crew higher up on the hill. We positioned ourselves for the evening show. None of the Thursday performer's really dazzled me. Gord Downie was off and Ben Harper failed to ignite any enthusiasm in me. But the lovely thing about Folk Fest is, that even when the performers on stage fail to really excite you, you can revel in the company of your tarp-mates or neighbours on the hill and take in the gorgeous view of the crowd and the glowing downtown skyline behind the stage.



Friday

Friday night at the folk fest... younger sister and I arrived late. Headache earlier in the day (me) and post-work meetings (her) meant that we weren't going to make the six o'clock start time. We reached Gallagher Park just in time to catch the very tail end of what looked like quite the popular session on Stage 6. The sun was setting and bathed the sitting crowd in perfect pink light.

The tarp crew had secured a pretty good spot at the mainstage, so I was close enough that I could get some fairly decent shots of the stage with my super-zoom. The Levon Helm band got the crowd off their feet to dance, which was a good start to the main performances of the night. There was a brief appearance by Basia Bulat during the procession of the volunteer lanterns. Following Basia was Calexico, the definite highlight of my night. At the end of Calexico's set (which was awesome), they invited Bassekou Kouyate on stage to play during their last song. Then the cold started to set in and younger sister and I headed back across the river while Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba ended the night of music on the hill. We crossed over the bridge (which was dark), admired the view of downtown reflected in the river and then met the gentleman in Riverdale and were escorted home. The previous night there was a great shot of the hill lit up with candles (which I neglected to photograph at the time), but this evening all that we could see was the glow of the mainstage lights.



Saturday

On Saturday the younger sister and I arrived later in the afternoon as we watched the Cariwest parade and visited the market briefly in the morning.

Our first session was "War and Peace" with Sarah Harmer, Basia Bulat, Jill Hennessy, and Terry Morrison on Stage 6, which always seems to feature the artists that I come to folk fest to see. Once that session was complete, we caught the very tail end of the concert with Debashish Bhattacharya, pioneer of the Indian slide guitar. Younger sister and I ran into my good friends Wade and Phil, who were almost always at different stages than I was. We parted company at that point, W&P off to the beer tent and younger sister and I to the food tent area, where we supped and then headed to the prime tarp location (thanks again to the tarp masters who stood in line).

And that's where we spent the rest of the night, ideally located for the evening's mainstage acts. The bare spots on the hill started to fill in during the four-part harmonies of bluegrass artists Dailey & Vincent and Malian singer and guitarist Vieux Farka Toure. The threat of rain was made good during Sarah Harmer's set, but our tarp was soon retrofitted with umbrellas to provide shelter from the elements. Despite the rain Sarah Harmer managed to get people on their feet and once on their feet they could no longer resist the call to dance. The rain frightened some people away, but their premature evacuation proved to be a poor choice as Brandi Carlile was a quick crowd favourite. She even got the crowd to sing three part harmonies (it did sound pretty good on the hill despite the off-key groaning coming from the people standing behind me). Younger sister and I made our own exit during Colin Hay. We crossed the river while the pedestrian bridge was still lit up and you could still see the glow of the candles on the hill when you got to the other side. I managed to get a picture this time.



Sunday

The younger sister and I arrived earlier on Sunday to catch a session with Alejandro Escoveda who we missed on Saturday. Alejandro was joined on stage by Basia Bulat and Dala as well as Brandi Carlile, so we got a bit of a reprise of the previous evening's mainstage performance.

We sought shade in the beer garden and enjoyed the midday mainstage performance by Te Vaka through the speakers. We were sitting close to Stage 1, so we were within earshot of the early afternoon performance by Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens. My parents were visiting so I wasn't going to be able to stay for the evening mainstage, but the younger sister and I had a little taste of the final mainstage at the 4:30 session on Stage 6 where Jakob Dylan performed with Colleen Brown, Brandi Carlile (she seemed to be everywhere) and Jimmy Rankin. It was a great session. The mood shifted from leisurely and relaxed to upbeat. During the final song of the set the siblings and I did not resist the call to dance.

It was a beautiful way to end the weekend. It was a hot and sunny festival, but younger sister and I managed to avoid heat stroke by pacing ourselves even more than we usually do. We tended to arrive late and leave a little bit early. We didn't see every act that we might have wanted, but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. We left hydrated (cherry lemonade by Stage 6!) and slightly sunburned. No heatstroke or fainting for either of us though. Success!



Oh, one more thing. On Sunday as I was leaving the beer tent I heard someone call my name and looked around to see a couple sitting on the grass. The gentleman in the group raised his glass to me and said, "Raffaella... local celebrity blogger [insert interrobang here]"

"...yes?" I responded, curious because I had no idea who this fellow was and if I do get recognized for something rarely is it my rather unpopular blog (although thinking about it, I might have seen this couple sitting near some mutual acquaintances earlier so maybe I do know who they are but didn't recognize them from behind the brim of my sun hat).

"Keep writing," the gentleman said and his lady friend smiled. I laughed and nodded sheepishly and then wandered on my way.

But as you can see, I did follow the advice/request of this mysterious stranger and as evidenced by this post I have kept writing.

In a couple weeks I'll be visiting Toronto with Aryn. I'm very excited about my trip because other than a brief visit to Vancouver and a weekend trip to Calgary my summer was spent in central Alberta. In some ways I'm glad that I didn't have a real vacation during the summer though. Edmonton is quite pleasant during the summer months and I think that if I had chosen to vacation (can I use that as a verb) I would most likely begin to feel the symptoms of winter cabin fever within the next coming weeks when snow eventually falls (it's snowed in FSJ already so it's not so unlikely that Edmonton will endure similar weather).

I'm in the process of figuring out my itinerary for the trip. Aryn's going to be busy with conference events for the majority of the day, and I'm going to be left to my own devices to explore the city with camera in hand. I last visited Toronto when I was 16 and I was downtown for all of an afternoon. It was a very overwhelming experience and I didn't particularly like it all that much. Mind you I did have a terrible cold (ironic since I had just returned from visiting my relatives in Trinidad) and the day was not a particularly pleasant one. I remember standing on the sidewalk outside of the Hospital for Sick Children and feeling pushed around by all of the pedestrians who were in a mad rush to get somewhere. Now that I'm a seasoned metropolitan traveler (and older and a photographer) I think my experience will be much different. Any former Torontonians who want to give me suggestions of what to see?

So far the only thing I have planned is going to see Beirut at the Danforth Music Hall. I came across Beirut on iTunes yesterday and I spent the entire evening listening to them. On a whim I decided to see if they might be coming to Edmonton and I discovered a Toronto tour date. What luck! My October will be full of rather eclectic and original music... mid way through the month I will also be going to see Final Fantasy. Somehow I've become a music hipster. The number of concerts I've attended is still pretty small though.




These photos are evidence of the somewhat varied performances I've attended since moving to Edmonton. One could say that I somewhat regularly participate in the 'music scene.' I don't have photographical evidence of all the performances though, much to my dismay. I find it a little ridiculous that cameras are seen as such a threat by some venues. I can understand banning the use of flash photography, but sans flash what harm can a camera really bring to a performer? I phoned ahead to the Music Hall in Toronto and I discovered that they don't have a house policy about cameras (yeah!) and with the exception of flash photography and professionals (I think SLRs are a grey area... I think the issue is more about the size of your lens) cameras are permitted. This information excites me... because as much as I enjoy the live performances I also love being able to indulge in a little rocktography.

All of the live music performances by well known artists have been extremely memorable and thoroughly enjoyable. I have not had such luck with live theatre performances... I went to a stinker of a play last week at the and the play I saw at the Edmonton Fringe Festival was horrendous. I quite like live theatre, but I think there are so many more chances for me to dislike what's going on. A band could perform a few songs I don't care for much but the overall performance can be redeemed by the rest of the set being excellent. However, if an actor's performance is lacking or a script is weak, I tend to walk away from the show disappointed. Maybe it is just that my tastes in theatre are much more limited than my tastes in music.

My run of good luck with excellent music performances continued last night at Rexall Place where the Barenaked Ladies played to an interesting demographic of fans in their early teens to early 50s. It was quite interesting. And in the midst of it all was medium sized me, in row 15, seat 21... almost directly in line with the mic stand for Steven Page. I had an almost unobstructed view of the stage, with the exception of the two woman directly in front of me who were treating the concert as their own private living room. I don't know how they were enjoying the concert as they were talking throughout the entire performance.

As you can see from the image above (more here), I brought my camera with me to the concert. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't have any venue staff question me as I walked in to take my seat. I was a bit wary though and at the beginning of the concert I tried to be a little more discreet with my photography. However, that can be extremely difficult when your lens is bigger than your camera body, weighs 4 lbs. and is white. But as the concert got started I started taking photos in plain sight. The opener, Tomi Swick, performed just long enough for me to figure out my camera settings (he was pretty good, you can currently listen to his album on his site). I kept taking pictures with no problem and it wasn't until about two thirds of the way into the show that an usher came up to me to ask if I had a media pass. I had debated bringing my camera with me, but I had read a recent CBC article where it was talking about how the Barenaked Ladies were really getting their fans involved in their music, encouraging them to remix their tunes, as well as post recorded content (video, audio, images) from their concerts online to share with other fans. The band was also selling so-called bootleg recordings of their live shows, available immediately after each show on a USB stick or on their website. The band are also advocates for a DRM free world, which is always refreshing to see. But I digress...

I did not have a media pass and because my camera has removable lenses it is categorized as professional equipment (which I can't really argue with). In the words of the usher, my camera was "too good." Had I been in the mood to argue more I might have been more difficult and refused to check my camera unless they decided to check other cameras with a similar range optical zoom and mega-pixel rating (some compact cameras pack a lot of punch in the optics category), but I really just wanted to enjoy the concert. So, I gave in and checked my bag with the almost elderly lady at the security station who promised me that no harm would come to my camera. I was equally concerned about my images though, so I kept the camera battery and memory card with me.

Despite my little run in with low-grade concert security (I didn't get to deal with any of the burly security guys in their red shirts, only mature women wearing hardware store style tool vests) the concert was fantastic. The Barenaked Ladies really know how to entertain. Their banter back and forth was amusing and they almost seemed to perform non-stop. I'm a little tired today as a result of last night's fun, but it was well worth it.

I received confirmation today that I will be shooting another wedding in June... and next Monday I have another photoshoot for a local restaurant. I was planning to buy a wireless transmitter for my flash, but none of the stores here in Edmonton seem to have it in stock (it's a special order only). I've ordered one from The Camera Store in Calgary and hopefully it should arrive in time for the shoot. If not, it's not a big deal, I can shoot without it. However, I'm trying to track it as we speak... hopefully it will arrive on time. It's kind of annoying though, all of these stores are channeling their orders through their web store but there is a two-three delay in order processing for security reasons. I've shopped there before and they have my information, but yet they still couldn't process the sale over the phone. Too much fraudulent activity going on these days I guess. If they could only see my honest face I'm sure they would change their policy, if only for me.

Hurrah! One more day until the weekend.