The Highway 19 concert series presents two shows in February featuring sounds from around the world with the folk string quartet Medusa at Rivercity Stage on the 8th and a Latin dance night at the Willow Point Lions Hall with live music by Mazacote on the 18th.
Medusa is a reimagining the traditional string quartet with a sound that would turn classical music scholars to stone. By inviting back voices previously regarded as too ugly for “polite society,” Medusa tempts us to redefine what is beautiful.
Georgia Hathaway, Lea Kirstein, Marta Sołek, and Saskia Tomkins are seasoned string players from Toronto whose collective experience as side players in successful bands spans decades and genres. United by a love of strings, particularly obscure folk fiddles like the Suka, the Płosk fidel, and the Nyckelharpa, and their personal stories of navigating society’s liminal spaces. Their debut album as a collective has been recently nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award. It features dynamic arrangements integrating sounds of Middle Eastern, Scandinavian, Celtic, Appalachian, and Eastern European music, as well as original tunes, to create something previously unheard.
Then on Sunday, Feb. 18 Vancouver six-piece powerhouse Mazacote returns to Campbell River to bring some heat to our west coast winter. This is the first Highway 19 presentation at the Willow Point Lions Hall, preferred this time to Rivercity Stage because this is a show that requires a big dance floor, rather than theatre seating.
Mazacote was the feature performer at last summer’s CR Live Streets Latin Night and had hundreds dancing the night away on Shoppers’ Row. Members of the Juno-nominated band have roots in Colombia, Venezuela and Mozambique, as well as Japan and Black Creek, united by a passion for Afro-Caribbean music and rhythm.
Tickets are available for the concert which begins at 8 p.m., or including a dance lesson at 7 p.m. from Courtenay’s Forbidden Dance Company.
Both shows include a licensed concession, but are also open to music fans of all ages. Tickets are available through the Tidemark box-office online or in person.