Hello, Orillia, and welcome to fall. It’s after Sept. 21, the leaves are falling, it’s cooler, and it’s raining. It must be fall.
And there are lots of fantastic fall arts and culture events happening every week. Read on to find out more about them.
This week, Arts Orillia’s Future Fest continues with Hard Wire, a physical theatre piece, at the Orillia Opera House. Please note the time change, to 12:30 p.m., for this special show. Get tickets at orilliaoperahouse.ca.
Future Fest will wrap up with a free augmented reality experience, and an art exhibit, at the Orillia Recreation Centre this Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. This experience is part of Orillia’s Culture Days presentations, and you can view them all here. All events are free and happening this Saturday.
The Sharing Place Food Centre’s Harvest Hoedown is this Friday at 6 p.m. at ODAS Park. The Muskoka River Band will be playing some great covers while Shaw’s Catering serves up a fantastic pig roast. There will be a cash bar featuring Quayle’s Brewery beer, and a 50/50 draw. Come out for an amazing time and support your local food centre at the same time. Tickets are $125 and can be found here.
Saturday night, St. Paul’s Centre’s popular Pub Night returns with Upbeat Groove (Cathy Empie and Brian Alger). They will be playing a fusion of jazz, blues and pop numbers. There will be pub food, a cash bar, great music and lots of fun. Cover is $10 cash at the door. It’s in the lower-level Banquet Hall and it starts at 6 p.m.
Matchedash Parish is playing at St. Paul’s Centre on Saturday night, as a fundraiser for the Orillia Youth Centre. It’s going to be a fantastic show — an album release, actually — so you should all come out. This band features amazing Juno-nominated and award-winning musicians, all together, all playing some incredible tunes. As a bonus, you also get the incomparable Roger Harvey opening. You really don’t want to miss this one. Tickets are here.
Friday at the Orillia Opera House, it’s a Bob Seger tribute band, playing at 7:30 p.m. If you love Bob Seger, you will have a blast. Tickets are at orilliaoperahouse.ca.
This weekend is the Coldwater Fall Fair. Come out and enjoy this spectacular three-day fair, with everything fairs should have: exhibits in everything from vegetables to quilts, various farm animals, a midway, horse pulls, tractor pulls, music, a demolition derby, and lots more. The fair runs Friday to Sunday at the Coldwater Fairgrounds. You can find full schedules and all the other information at coldwaterfallfair.com.
Monday is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. St. Paul’s Centre is acknowledging this with a Lunch and Learn on Oct. 6, with special guest Jeff Monague speaking about the Williams Treaties. Jeff is treaty research director with the Anishinabek. Come out to this special educational event in the lower-level Banquet Hall at St. Paul’s from 12 to 1 p.m.
Try out the Sing It! Choir Monday, Sept. 30 at 6:45 p.m. at Creative Nomad Studios. You don’t have to be able to read music; just have a love of it. Come and see.
The big arts event of the fall, the Images Studio Tour, is back Thanksgiving weekend, with 32 artists of incredible calibre opening their studios for us. The tour guides us through the rolling hills of Oro-Medonte, which will be gorgeous at this time of year. The artists are in a variety of media, and you are going to want to open up your wallet to bring some of their amazing work home with you. The tour runs Thanksgiving Friday to Monday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. For the list of artists, their bios, and the tour map, click here.
In October, many of our incredible community music groups are rolling into their first concerts of the season.
The Orillia Concert Band and the Orillia Big Band, both directed by Randy Hoover, are putting on a special fundraising concert for The Sharing Place Food Centre on Oct. 19 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Centre. These bands always put on top-notch performances, so this is definitely a don’t-miss event. For tickets, go here.
The Cellar Singers have their first concert of the season the day before, on Friday, Oct. 18, at 7:30 p.m. at St. James’ Anglican Church in Orillia. This concert will feature Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace. Don’t miss this moving, special piece. Tickets are available here.
The Orillia Concert Association’s 2024-25 season begins with the Stratton Soloists. This fine group is returning to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Oct. 27 at 2:30 p.m. to kick off the season. You can get tickets for the whole season, or just one of the four concerts, here.
Mariposa Arts Theatre’s Film Night series continues throughout the year, and is an excellent way to see Toronto International Film Festival shows here in our own theatre. Check the website here for all the films and dates.
And, Mariposa Arts Theatre’s big musical for this year is Gypsy: A Musical Fable. It’s going to be an incredible show, and tickets are already selling well. Gypsy is running from Nov. 7 to 17, so don’t delay. Get your tickets today through the Orillia Opera House box office at orilliaoperahouse.ca.
That’s all I have for this week. Do come out and support live music, theatre, and your local artists and artisans. Our world would be very sad without them.
If you have arts and culture news to share, send it to [email protected] by Tuesday at noon to be included.
