Starry Night Studio and Gallery Tour, the penultimate arts event of the summer, is almost upon us!
Come stroll the streets of downtown Orillia this Sat. Aug. 24 and see and purchase art in 20 different locations, including local studios and galleries such as Peter Street Fine Arts, Hibernation Arts, Orillia Museum of Art and History, Cloud Gallery, and more. Additional art venues include The Lone Wolf Café, Blossom, Sanderson Monument, Tiffin’s, and 123 Breakfast Club, among others.
Saturday, the streets will be closed during the daytime for the Classic Car Show, then closed again at 6 p.m. for Summer Saturday Nights, the patio program. Starry Night runs from 7 to 10 p.m. and all galleries and other venues will be open at that time.
Come out and support the incredible local artists who make Orillia such a culturally vibrant place to live. In the past, Starry Night has attracted thousands of art lovers and purchasers to Orillia, and been the No. 1 night of the year for local artists to sell their work. Let’s bring that back this year, and give our artists a night to remember.
Go here to see the map of all the Starry Night venues for 2024. See you Saturday!
The All Your Friends Festival is this weekend at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds, so stay alert for traffic issues in Oro-Medonte this weekend. All Your Friends is a new festival this year, and features Billy Talent, Fall Out Boy, The All-American Rejects, Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, and many more. For more information and tickets, click here.
Another huge cultural highlight in our region, the Rama Powwow, is also on this weekend, August 24 and 25. Grand entries on August 24 are at noon and 5 p.m., and August 25 at noon. All the festivities take place at the John Snake Memorial Community Grounds in Rama. For the full schedule and list of events, follow the Rama Powwow Facebook page here.
The final Orillia Opera House summer theatre show of the season, Norm Foster’s Those Movies, is running now until August 30. I saw the show last week, and it is a nice lighthearted comedy with four excellent young actors who bring a lot to the stage. You can get tickets at www.orilliaoperahouse.ca. Enjoy!
This Sunday is the second last band concert in the park for this summer, and the band performing is the Simcoe County Band. There will also be an artisan market, with lots of vendors and original arts and crafts available for sale. The market gets underway at 5 p.m. and the concert at 6:30 p.m., at the Rotary Aquatheatre. The concert is free, just bring some loonies for the Champlain Seniors buckets.
Orillian Tracey Woodhouse’ first novel, Redemption, has done very well on all the Amazon charts, and she is going to be doing a Meet the Author at the Book Re-View, Thurs. Aug. 29 from 10 a.m. to 12 noon. Come buy a signed copy.
The Hawkestone Singers are hosting a vocal workshop to get your chops in shape for the coming singing season. It’s happening Sept. 7, all day, at the Hawkestone Hall, in, you guessed it, Hawkestone.
The workshop is being led by two vocal coaches, Katie Pergau, and Meaghan Ing. For more details and to register, click here.
September is bringing a ton of concerts, courtesy of the Orillia Youth Centre. The two weekends of shows in September, and the shows that follow in October and November all see proceeds going directly to the Orillia Youth Centre to support youth programming and the Nelson Bell and Jake Beers Funds. Here are the details:
- Sept. 20: The Griddle Pickers w/ Andrew Alli and Josh Small & SAMMY
- Sept 21: SAMMY w/ Andrew Alli and Josh Small & Bella Frances
- Sept. 21: Ronnie Douglas Band w/ Andrew Alli and Josh Small
- Sept. 22: SAMMY & the Band with special guest Bella Frances
- Sept. 27: Skye Wallace w/ Roger Harvey and Spencer Burton
- Sept. 28: Matchedash Parish with special guest Roger Harvey
- Sept. 29: Skye Wallace with special guest Roger Harvey
- Oct. 10: Lenny Lashley with special guests Nixon Boyd and Rebekah Hawker
- Oct. 11: Lenny Lashley with special guests Nixon Boyd and Rebekah Hawker
- Nov. 9: Danny Michel and Steve Poltz Together Again 2
The shows are at various venues, tickets are various prices, but they will definitely all be amazing. More information and tickets can be found here. Aren’t we lucky to have this kind of music offered to us, right in our own backyard?
There is so much more coming to us in the fall, including Arts Orillia’s Future Fest, the new Third Age Learning Fall lecture series, many incredible shows coming to the Orillia Opera House and St. Paul’s Centre ... the list goes on.
Lots of live music this weekend, including a vinyl listening party at Lone Wolf with Ian North Thursday at 7 p.m., and Samantha Windover Saturday, and Jenn Hisko Friday, at Couchiching Craft Brewery. Have a great week!
If you have arts news, send it to [email protected] by Tuesday at noon to be included.
