Allison Crowe's Nanaimo Tidings with Musical Friends December 10, 2011

Celebrate the season in Nanaimo's Old City Quarter with Allison Crowe and a cavalcade of tremendous young musical talent. The "Tidings" tradition continues this year at historic St. Andrew's United Church (311 Fitzwilliam), Saturday, December 10 at 7:00 pm (Doors: 6:00 pm).

It's Allison Crowe's opportunity to acknowledge the importance of the community's teachers and mentors - those who've nurtured her creativity, including: Andrea Bertram, singing teacher (Andrea Bertram Studio); & Rick Becker, stage, concert, and tour band (Woodlands Secondary). Just as these, and others, inspired Allison to a rich life through music, the process continues. This annual show, in part, brings aid to The Mind's Eye (NYSA) youth newspaper and Woodlands Secondary School Basketball and Band Programs - well-springs of a new generation of athletes, musicians and writers.

This year’s Tidings concert line-up features:

Chelsea Peckett
Chelsea is the official accompanist of the Andrea Bertram Studio. She has trained as a collaborative pianist and is a veteran of many music festivals, concerts, dinner theatres and the Allison Crowe "Tidings" concerts. She also teaches piano and accompanies the AVIVA women's choir. On this Winter's night she will be collaborating with Christopher Wood, Kaleigh Hargrove, Raymond Salgado, Kiana Smith, and Taylor Manns.

Christopher Wood
Chris is a Grade 12 student at Dover Bay Secondary. He has appeared at Chemainus Theatre as "Jerome" in "South Pacific". He has performed in many musicals including as "Lumiere" in "Beauty and the Beast" and last season's production of "Annie" at Dover Bay Theatrix. Actor, singer and dancer, Chris always gives his all. He will be performing as "Prince Charming" in the Spring 2012 Kirkwood Academy production of "Cinderella".

Kaleigh Hargrove
Kaleigh is a Grade 11 student at Cedar Community Secondary School. She is a veteran of many stages including Cedar Idol, Songbird and numerous Cabarets, Concerts and Festivals. She performed at the Bathtub Celebrations with her band,"Youth With No Name".

Raymond Salgado
Raymond is 13 and a student at NDSS. He is a veteran of competitions, concerts and festivals. He is a "Pinoy's Got Talent" winner and won a bursary for his performances at the Upper Island Musical Festival last season. He brings his rich developing Tenor voice to the Tidings stage.

Kiana Smith
Kiana is 15 and attends Dover Bay Secondary. She is a triple threat performer who last year had the lead in the Dover Bay Theatrix production of "Annie". She was also "Peter Pan" in the Kirkwood Academy production of the same name. She attended the Performing Arts BC Provincial Finals in Kamloops as the Upper Island Musical Festival Junior Musical Theatre representative.

Taylor Manns
Taylor is a Grade 12 student at Wellington Secondary School. Her versatile instrument allows her to excel in Classical Voice, Jazz and Musical Theatre. She was the Classical Voice Alternate to the Provincials last season. Taylor played "Tinkerbell" in the Kirkwood Academy production of "Peter Pan" and this Spring will lend her talent as "Cinderella" in Kirkwood's production of the same name. She is currently auditioning for the New York campus of The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA).

Emily Blake
Emily is a grade 11 student at Woodlands where she loves being in Jazz band, Tour Band and Choir. Her instruments include piano, saxophone, (both alto and tenor), flute, trumpet and vocals. She is active on Student Council and is volunteering as Santa's helper, Sugar Plum Mary, for the Downtown
Association Christmas season - at events throughout Nanaimo. Emily plays the role of Snow White in Nananimo Theatre Group's musical production, "Snow White: a Pantomime", which runs through this holiday season.

Energized by this cavalcade of talent, Nanaimo-born, internationally-heralded, Allison Crowe stirs together traditional Christmas carols and holiday favourites with an organic blend of rock, jazz, folk, gospel and soul. It's a joyous sound spiced with notes of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles and more. "Be prepared to be amazed," chimes ChristmasReviews.com Longtime NPR broadcaster Ross Hocker calls Allison Crowe's show, "The most honest, heartfelt, and directly intimate concert in my entire life."

Italian radio calls Allison Crowe "Una voce incredibile per una forza della natura."

As a performing artist, Crowe is akin, in ways, to the late, great, Swedish power-house soprano, Birgit Nilsson, about whom it's said "No record or CD could quite prepare a listener for the real thing, live in the opera house".

Tidings is Allison Crowe's melding of the sacred and secular in "songs of the season" and spirit. Some of the music is familiar repertoire, delivered in singular style. Some is not like anything customarily heard in a holiday-time concert.

Tidings viscerally surveys a musical terrain of carols - It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, In the Bleak Midwinter, What Child Is This, First Noel, Silent Night, O Holy Night - performed with rare artistry and passion, and emotive arrangements, alongside the modern canon of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Lennon/McCartney+, and Allison Crowe's original songs, (including the just-composed "Arthur", and the epic "Disease"), that draw on themes of faith, hope, sorrow, joy, redemption, transcendence and more from life's well.

First staged in 2003, Tidings is an exciting experience shared by music-lovers around the world. This holiday season Allison Crowe with a troupe of musical friends bring Tidings to:

St. Andrew's United Church, 311 Fitzwilliam, Old City Quarter, Nanaimo

Saturday, December 10, 2011 Music: 7:00 pm (Doors: 6:00 pm)

Tickets now @: Andrea Bertram Studio; Lobelia's Lair; Tom Lee Music; House of Indigo; Mind's Eye - NYSA; West Coast Classic Floral; Fascinating Rhythm; & Thrifty Foods (all three Nanaimo stores - Longwood Station, Port Place and Brooks Landing); & in Allison's online Box Office @ http://www.allisoncrowe.com/shoptickets.html

Advance Tickets: $20 General/$15 Students & Seniors (Door: $22/$17)

More @: http://www.allisoncrowe.com

Official Website: http://www.allisoncrowe.com/tour.html