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Voices Uplifted
A CELEBRATION OF SPIRITUAL MUSIC
» Thursday 8 May 2008 | 4:30 pm
» Hanna's Lounge, 1392 Water Street
An informal afternoon hour showcasing the people and ideas featured in Okanagan Arts. Join us as singer/songwriter Jane Eamon and singer Barbara Samuel discuss the spiritual sources of their highly-regarded musical stylings.
» This is a free event. Refreshments will be available at a modest cost.
» Seating is limited, please reserve yours HERE
Sponsored by the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan, Wood Lake Books, UBCO-FCCS, and in support of Project Literacy Kelowna
Singers Talk About Music That Transforms
There's a hidden truth that just about any teen can tell you - music changes you. Typically it doesn't take more than a single note or two to jolt a teen out of complacency or into despair. While that experience may dull as we age, most people realize music moves us from the outside in.
"Any songwriting is a gift. It's the muse - it's something else that directs your sound," says singer-songwriter Jane Eamon, who will be speaking along with Barbara Samuel Thursday May 8th at 4:30 p.m. at Hanna's Lounge on Water Street in the Okanagan Institute's presentation Voices Uplifted: A Celebration of Spiritual Music.
Jane Eamon, recipient of the 2008 Okanagan Music Award for folk artist, has established herself as a musician with a soul that sometimes sears through the heart aches that crop up in our materialistic world. She takes on social issues and challenges us to look at them more deeply. Along the way she's been known to infuse her music with a spiritual sentiment (her first album was entitled The Blue Madonna), and that's both smoothed and ruffled some fans' feathers.
"When you craft spiritual songs, they are not strictly faith-based songs," says Eamon, who was also nominated in the gospel category. "It could be a song about mourning the death of a father. Think of We Shall Overcome that's a spiritual song. You don't have to say Lord or God for the music to have a spiritual component."
Music arrived on Barbara Samuel's doorstep like a bolt from the blue. She was struggling with a health problem that culminated when one day her voice all but vanished. At that time she made a pledge to God to devote her voice to Spirit, and she's been singing ever since performing with her band Sista B and the Boys, and working as music director for the Kelowna Centre for Positive Living.
"I can't imagine life without song. I hear music in everything. I hear it when I walk, when a door closes, I hear it when I'm talking. I think the connection people feel with music is at a level that is beyond our reality - it's primal. The spiritual experience is innate in us."
In every culture, it is music perhaps more than any other art form that assists us in transcending our human experience.
Ravi Shankar, who introduced the Indian sitar to the Western world in the 1960s, recently said in an interview with Life Positive that people come to a spiritual recognition of themselves through music when it resonates with peace, regardless of what form of music takes them there.
"If you listen with absolute concentration to a church organ or Bach or a truly good musician performing any raga, you shall have a fantastic sense of peace. I consider that the final therapy."
Voices Uplifted: A Celebration of Spiritual Music is a free event, and takes place at Hanna's Lounge. This marks the 45th event the Okanagan Institute has held since the series got underway last July. Since that time, the series has played host to various local luminaries, including BC Book Award nominee Don Gayton, former deputy secretary general of Amnesty International Derek Evans, CBC Literary prize winner poet Harold Rhenisch, animator Jim Cliffe, and others from a variety of creative fields including artists, architects, storytellers, and interior designers.
Express is sponsored by the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan, Wood Lake Books, UBCO Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, and supports the work of Project Literacy Kelowna.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER ONLINE CLICK HERE
Okanagan Insitute at Hanna's Lounge A hearty feast of lectures, presentations, workshops and showcases celebrating our culture and community. Produced by the Okanagan institute in association with Wheat King Publishing magazines: Okanagan Arts and Okanagan Home.
Expresss is a cultural tonic that refreshes the mind. Join us at Hanna's Lounge after work on Thursdays for a free hour of stimulation that will get your synapses tingling with new ideas and fresh images. Designed for inquiring minds looking for, among other things, the wild blue yonder.
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