Brilliant Corners - Pat LaBabera Quartet
2026-05-09 20:00 - 23:00 UTC | Silence, 46 Essex Street, Guelph, ON, N1H 3K8, Canada
May 9th, 2026

Doors: 7:30 PM
Show: 8:00 PM
Brilliant Corners – Pat LaBabera Quartet
Brilliant Corners: A Silence Jazz Series
Seven intimate live performances featuring Canada’s finest jazz instrumentalists and a distinguished international guest Tim Hagans.
Where exceptional music meets meaningful community in Guelph’s Silence listening room—a space designed for retreat, connection, and deep listening.
Pat LaBarbera Quartet
Pat LaBarbera (born Pascel Emmanuel LaBarbera on April 7, 1944, in Mt. Morris/Warsaw, New York) is an American-born Canadian jazz saxophonist, woodwind multi- instrumentalist, composer, and highly respected educator. He is widely regarded for his intense improvisational style rooted in the post-John Coltrane tradition and for his contributions both as a performer with top jazz ensembles and as a mentor to generations of musicians.
Pat was raised in a deeply musical family; his father taught him and his two younger brothers, trumpeter/arranger John LaBarbera and drummer Joe LaBarbera-the fundamentals of music from an early age. Immersed in performance from childhood, Pat’s first studies included clarinet and saxophone, and he developed his improvisational skills in family performances long before formal training.
He went on to study at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston from 1964 to 1967, where he focused on arranging, composition, and advanced jazz performance. His teachers included noted jazz educators such as Joe Viola, John LaPorta, Herb Pomeroy, Don Menza, Joe Allard, Joe Henderson and Joe Allard.
Shortly after leaving Berklee, LaBarbera began a notable professional career in big band jazz. From 1967 to 1974, he was a featured tenor saxophone soloist with the Buddy Rich Big Band, touring extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan and appearing on major recordings as well as network television shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Kraft Music Hall, Mike Douglas and many more.
During this period, he also played with other major ensembles led by Woody Herman and Louie Bellson, and performed alongside jazz and popular music legends including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Stevie Wonder and others.
In 1974 LaBarbera moved to Toronto, Ontario, where he would make his home and become a central figure in Canada’s jazz community. The following year he began a long association with the legendary drummer Elvin Jones and his Jazz Machine, touring and recording with Jones through the late 1970s and joining the band for further international tours in the early 2000s.
LaBarbera’s impact extends far beyond performance. Since 1976, he has been a faculty member at Humber College in Toronto, teaching saxophone, ensemble performance, jazz repertoire, and advanced improvisation. He has also taught at York University, the University of Toronto, and at summer jazz workshops such as the Banff Jazz Workshop and Jamey Aebersold camps. Many prominent Canadian saxophonists-such as Mike Murley, Ralph Bowen, Alex Dean, Kirk MacDonald, and others-count LaBarbera among their key influences or teachers.
LaBarbera has released numerous albums as a leader, showcasing his deep knowledge of jazz tradition and his innovative voice. His 2000 album Deep in a Dream won the Juno Award for Best Traditional Instrumental Jazz Album, one of multiple honors recognizing his artistry.
His recording credits span a wide range of sessions-as a leader and sideman-with more than 100 appearances on albums and countless festival and club performances worldwide. Pat LaBarbera is celebrated not only for his expressive, technically brilliant saxophone playing but also for his dedication to education and community building within jazz. His influence has shaped the sound of modern jazz performance and study in Canada and beyond, making him a revered figure among musicians and audiences alike.
“Pat has tremendous musical ability beyond technical facility. He has great power of concentration to
detail and is totally committed with body and soul,” Elvin Jones

Brilliant Corners - Rebecca Hennessy's Makeshift Island
2026-05-15 20:00 - 23:00
May 15th, 2026
Doors: 7:30 PM
Show: 8:00 PM
Brilliant Corners – Rebecca Hennessy’s Makeshift Island
Brilliant Corners: A Silence Jazz Series
Seven intimate live performances featuring Canada’s finest jazz instrumentalists and a distinguished international guest Tim Hagans.
Where exceptional music meets meaningful community in Guelph’s Silence listening room—a space designed for retreat, connection, and deep listening.
Rebecca Hennessy’s Makeshift Island
Rebecca Hennessy is an award-winning Canadian trumpeter, vocalist, composer, and bandleader whose work bridges jazz, roots, and the singer-songwriter tradition. Grounded in a deeply personal yet outward-looking approach to songwriting, she creates music that is intimate, spacious, and quietly powerful. Her warm, distinctive voice and expressive trumpet function as parallel storytellers, shaping songs that feel direct, unguarded, and emotionally resonant. Whether performing as a vocalist, instrumentalist, or bandleader, Hennessy’s music invites listeners into a space of deep listening, subtle interplay, and emotional honesty.
A recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Jazz Artist Award (2018), Hennessy has emerged as one of Canada’s distinctive trumpet voices—equally compelling as a soloist, collaborator, and ensemble leader. She has been a Yamaha Artist since 2021, performing on the YTR-8310Z trumpet. Known for her lyrical phrasing, melodic sensibility, and deeply musical approach to improvisation, Hennessy moves fluidly between genres, drawing on the language of jazz while embracing the storytelling traditions of folk and roots music.
Her vocal recordings—including All the Little Things You Do (2020), Joy Will Find Us (2023), and Makeshift Island: Live at the Jazz Room (2025)—showcase her original compositions and highlight a longstanding creative partnership with guitarist Kevin Breit. Across these projects she collaborates with a circle of deeply respected musicians, including pianist Tania Gill, bassist Michael Herring, and drummer Dave Clark. Together they create a spacious and responsive musical environment in which Hennessy’s songs can unfold organically. Throughout these recordings, her trumpet remains central: lyrical, melodic, and song-driven, expanding the expressive role of the instrument within contemporary Canadian jazz while remaining rooted in the intimacy of song.
Her current studio project marks a significant artistic evolution, placing Hennessy fully at the centre as a multi-instrumentalist and narrative songwriter. Built around a collection of original songs that explore connection, memory, mortality, and our shared relationship to the natural world, the album reflects her ongoing interest in the emotional and spiritual dimensions of human experience. While one song reflects on her paternal family’s journey from Constantinople (now Istanbul) to Canada, the broader arc of the project celebrates something universal: our collective need to practice presence, care, and meaningful connection—to one another and to the living world around us. Her single Crickets offers an early glimpse into this reflective and immersive body of work, hinting at the spacious sonic landscapes and poetic storytelling that shape the album as a whole.
In addition to her work as a songwriter and bandleader, Hennessy is co-leader of the jazz quartet Way North alongside Michael Herring, Richie Barshay, and Petr Cancura. The ensemble has released three albums and has become known for its collaborative spirit and exploratory approach to modern jazz. Way North was invited to perform in Panama at the international jazz festival founded by pianist Danilo Pérez, further establishing the group’s international presence.
A longtime presence at Massey Hall in Toronto, Hennessy led the band for the Women’s Blues Revue from 2013 to 2022 and returned as a featured vocalist in 2024. Over the course of her career she has toured extensively across North America, Europe, Mexico, Panama, and Sri Lanka, bringing her distinctive voice and trumpet sound to audiences around the world. As both a performer and collaborator, she has worked with a wide range of artists including Adele, Ron Sexsmith, Feist, Broken Social Scene, and Yellowjackets.
Through her work as a composer, improviser, and bandleader, Rebecca Hennessy continues to carve out a distinctive space within Canadian music—one where jazz improvisation, poetic songwriting, and emotional storytelling meet with clarity, curiosity, and care.

CANCELLED: Sands of Time
2026-05-16 20:00 - 23:00
Sands of Time is a performance of experimental soundscapes and evocative visuals with Andean vibes.
This performance takes time to reflect upon the past, present, and future of Palestine inviting the audience to envision a world of compassion and togetherness.
Featuring three artists from Chile: Juan Dino Toledo (guitar), Nano Valverde (Andean Flutes), and Sebastian Cox (visuals).
Join us at the fully accessible Silence Guelph as we improvise, reflect, and share our art.

Geordie Gordon with Bird City
2026-05-22 20:00 - 23:00
A night to celebrate the release of Geordie Gordon’s new record, River Round, with a special full band performance with horn section!

Geordie Gordon with Bird City
May 22nd
Doors 7:30
Bird City 8:00
Geordie Gordon 9:00
$20 at the door
A night to celebrate the release of Geordie Gordon’s new record, River Round, with a special full band performance with horn section!
Geordie Gordon’s third solo album River Round is a collection of love songs as intimate anthems of resilience. Friendship and romance stand off with life’s losses as Gordon weaves into his home-recorded folk music the irrepressible joys of pop—memorable verses and soulful, hard-hitting hooks—honed in his career as sideman and collaborator in acts including Islands, US Girls, Andy Shauf, and The Weather Station. The album’s first single “Endless Line” closes the distance between two lovers that are apart, and this theme is repeated—the closing of distances—as one of music’s healing and super powers. “River House” brings back to life the old, crumbling rooms of a home Gordon moved into at 18, where so many musicians would be roommates and gather to imagine and build the artist’s hometown punk and folk scene in Guelph, Ontario. That community mourns through “Richard’s Song,” an ode to the late musician and indomitable “front man” Richard Laviolette (1982–2023), whose Sunday band practices Gordon recalls with radical tenderness. He sings to Richard, “We can’t rehearse for what life brings / You know you can tell me anything,” and the lines resound as a call to nurture, through song, friendship and queer life at every beginning, end, and transition. This nurturing might be what Gordon calls “the good hurt in the music.” The album’s title River Round cites the “round” as a form of singing in unison, a blending of voices, hinting at how this solo project is in fact a revival, a revelry of coming together. Even in the apocalyptic “All the Fires,” a song that looks frankly at the world, Gordon’s lyrics insist there’s a way through, and that way is by coming together: “I just need to see you safe by morning. Because there’s no morning without you.”
About Bird City:For nearly three decades, singer/songwriter Jenny Mitchell has been regarded as one of the most original voices within the Canadian indie music scene, and her latest project, Bird City, is her most personal yet.As a beloved fixture of the music community in and around Guelph, Ontario, Mitchell has been a member of the Barmitzvah Brothers, the Burning Hell, Richard Laviolette and the Oil Spills, as well as performing under her solo alter ego Jenny Omnichord. Bird City is in many ways an evolution of the last concept, with Mitchell trading her Omnichord for the banjo and tenor guitar. Focusing on these instruments finally allowed Mitchell’s songwriting talents to fully blossom, and the exposed and poetic songs of paranoia, heartbreak and self-examination debuted on her album Winnowing. For the past 6 years she’s been working on a new record, that gets closer by the day.

Brilliant Corners - Jen Lo Trio
2026-05-24 14:00 - 18:00
May 24th, 2026
Doors: 1:30 PM
Show: 2:00 PM
Brilliant Corners: Jen Lo Trio
Brilliant Corners: A Silence Jazz Series
Seven intimate live performances featuring Canada’s finest jazz instrumentalists and a distinguished international guest Tim Hagans.
Where exceptional music meets meaningful community in Guelph’s Silence listening room—a space designed for retreat, connection, and deep listening.
Jen Lo Trio
Jen Lo is a pianist and keyboardist based in Toronto. Originally grew up in Macau, China, she studied classical music and started playing jazz when she was 16. During her undergrad at the University of Toronto, she studied with many prominent Canadian pianists such as David Restivo, Noam Lemish, Mark Eisenman and David Braid.
She has been active in the Toronto jazz scene since 2021 as both a session keyboardist and a bandleader, participating in many Canadian music festivals and events such as the Toronto Jazz Festival. Some of the most recent musical projects and bands she is in include Minh Hoang’s Duck Society, Robert Lee, Patrick Smith, Dan Pitt, Lavender Town, etc.

Brilliant Corners - Ted Warren Sextet
2026-05-31 14:00 - 18:00
May 31st, 2026

Doors: 1:30 PM
Show: 2:00 PM
Brilliant Corners – Ted Warren’s Sextet
Brilliant Corners: A Silence Jazz Series
Seven intimate live performances featuring Canada’s finest jazz instrumentalists and a distinguished international guest Tim Hagans.
Where exceptional music meets meaningful community in Guelph’s Silence listening room—a space designed for retreat, connection, and deep listening.
Ted Warren
Ted has a solid reputation as a musical, versatile drummer. He is an active member of Canada’s jazz scene and has been recognized with Jazz Report’s Drummer of the Year award. He is also a well-regarded clinician and adjudicator.
Ted fronts his own quartet, Ted’s Warren Commission, which has released three CDs, First Time Caller, Songs For Doug, and the recently released The Great Regina Pizza Debate He is also member of Broadview, which he co-leads with Rich Brown and Mike Murley. They released their debut recording, Two of Clubs, on Addo records.
His latest band is Camera Pigeons, which is a quartet he formed in 2019. He was the drummer for the Boss Brass and can be heard on six of their recordings, including Velvet and Brass (with Mel Tormé), From Lush to Lively (with Oliver Jones), Even Canadians get the Blues, and The Boss Brass Plays the Jazz Classics.
Ted was also the artistic director for Kitchener Waterloo’s Jazz Room for the first five years of its existence Ted studied music at McGill and received a certificate in Jazz Studies from St. Francis Xavier University and completed his B. Mus. from Thompson Rivers University. He recently received his Master’s in Community Music from Sir Wilfrid Laurier University.
He has worked with many acclaimed performers, including Slide Hampton, Bob Newhart, Maynard Ferguson, Lew Soloff, Chuck Mangione, Jeff Healey, Norma Winstone, Sheila Jordan, Adam Nussbaum, Howard Johnson, Nick Brignola, Kenny Wheeler, Ron McClure, Doc Severinsen and Jerry Bergonzi. Ted’s extensive touring has taken him to Poland, South Korea, Spain, Brazil, Iceland, and Japan. He has also performed at Carnegie Hall with harpist Joanna Jordon.
In addition to his other recorded work, you can hear Ted on Mike Murley’s CDs Extra Time, and the Jazz Report’s Album of the Year recipient, Conversation Piece. You can also hear Ted on the Juno Award winning Tales from the Blue Lounge by Richard Underhill. Ted’s recorded work also includes the video game Cuphead and CTV’s Bomb Girls.

Khôra & Mas Aya - Primordial Mind [Marionette29]
2026-06-03 20:00 - 23:00
Join us to celebrate the release of the latest project from Khôra & Mas Aya

Doors: 7:30 PM
Show: 8:00 PM
Primordial Mind forms the mysteries and intensity of inner life into eight mandalic instrumentals where Mas Aya and Khôra, artists who share 15 years of music making, orchestrate an inspired, prismatic palette of percussive and melodic sources. Each composition presented stages a vigorous meshwork of colours and textures, contrasting riveting polyrhythms with towering arrangements for flutes, synths, and processed acoustic instruments.Tendencies which the artists trace in their solo practices are amplified, blended, and refracted sublimely in unison, serving as energetic portals to the collective awareness.
Combining trans-ethnic scaling alongside a heady brew of rhythmic influences and advanced electronic processing, the recordings on this album operate with a tactility that vaults between free jazz, dub, raga, ambient, and ritual music. Assimilated powers of primal drum patterning and psychoactive, ceremonial melodies, invoke fourth world adjacencies with the work of Don Cherry, Jon Hassell, Popol Vuh et al. There is an alchemical, Buddhist/Taoist/Hindu inflection that guides the record’s narrative, formed through dialogue between the artists over lifelong shared interest in spiritual modalities generally and the tantric approaches of the global east in particular. The album title is derived from an unexcelled esoteric work known as the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time)Tantra and its associated commentary the Ornament of Stainless Light which detail forms of inner and outer transubstantiation within its complex cosmology and metaphysiology.
Mas Aya is the moniker of Brandon Miguel Valdivia, acclaimed Nicaraguan-Canadian composer, producer, and musician whose electronic and jazz inspired works creatively interlace Colombian, Cuban, and a wide array of traditional music. Khôra is the name of the occult entity that uses multi-instrumentalist, producer, and writer Matthew Ramolo to pronounce itself.
Returning to Marionette following 2024’s monumental Gestures of Perception, Primordial Mind reinforces the rigorous and magical approach to creation which defines Khôra’s two decades of sonic output. Brandon and Matthew met back in 2011 and the pair toured around eastern
Europe with Toronto band Picastro in 2013, also performing as a duo with Brandon contributing drums to Khôra’s opening sets. After a short spate composing and playing in the ensemble Bespoken together, they continued to discover shared inspiration in psych/art rock, jazz, experimental and electronic music, providing a fertile soil for friendship and collaboration resulting in their collaged, lo-fi album Tangled Roots in 2017.
Mythic and talismanic, the duo’s Marionette debut weaves a luminous tapestry of organic pulses, offering itself as a support for resonant meditation and a motor for lucid action and intuition.

Shjaane Glover + Poppy Miers | Live at Silence Guelph
2026-06-05 20:00 - 23:00
Join Southern Ontario singer-songwriter Shjaane Glover for an intimate evening of live music at Silence in Guelph alongside special guest Poppy Miers.
Based in Collingwood on the shores of Georgian Bay, Shjaane’s music sits at the intersection of indie-folk atmosphere and emotional clarity. Known for expressive vocals, reverb-washed guitars, and honest songwriting, his songs explore the space between doubt and hope while carrying a warmth that feels both expansive and deeply personal.
Earlier this year, Shjaane received an Honourable Mention at the 2026 International Songwriters Day Song Contest for his song Effervescence, recognized among entries from across Canada, the UK, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, Taiwan, Austria, and the United States. His music can also be heard on CBC Radio, and he has made appearances at Nashville Takeover showcases across Ontario.
Following the release of his six-song EP Conjure This, this performance offers a more stripped-back and intimate setting to experience the songs live. Blending atmospheric indie-folk textures with subtle alternative influences, the music moves between quiet reflection and moments of lift and momentum.
Whether you’ve been following along for years or are discovering the music for the first time, this evening at Silence is meant to feel close, honest, and shared.
Instagram: @shjaaneglover

Silence Presents: Grdina/Lillinger
2026-06-21 19:00 - 22:00
JUNE 21, 2026
Doors: 6:30 PM
Show: 7:00 PM
Gordon Grdina Midi-guitar/oud, Christian Lillinger Drums/Electronics
The phenomenal, genre-mashing juggernaut duo Grdina/Lillinger mixes electronica, drum and bass, metal, punk, and free jazz into their explosively self-expressive sound. A force of nature on guitar and oud, Gordon Grdina and virtuosic powerhouse drummer Christian Lillinger intersperse intense, complex, spacious, heavily grooving free improv with modular composition ideas. Equal parts rock, punk, and exploratory atonality, these next-level innovators take unexpected turns at every corner, while taking their wildfire chemistry to the next level in this duo setting.
‘Grdina’s fierce licks pushing Lillinger into a manic punk-jazz realm. Lillinger is a masterful shapeshifter, and Grdina is the perfect counterpart for his anything-goes aesthetic…the ideal mixture of technical brilliance and gut-punch intensity.” TROY DOSTERT ALL ABOUT JAZZ

Willem James Cowan w/ Cowboy Medicine & Nick Zubeck
2026-06-27 20:00 - 23:00
JUNE 27TH, 2026
8 PM
$15 in advance/ $20 at the door NOTAFLOF
Nick Zubeck:
Nick Zubeck is a Toronto born, Guelph based musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist known for his eclectic and inventive style, blending elements of folk, rock, jazz, ambient, and experimental music. He has been active in the music scene for more than three decades and has developed a reputation for thoughtful songwriting, expressive vocals, and intricate guitar work. Nick has recorded and released a number of original LP’s, including Hiding Out And Laying Low (2003), Tracker (2008), Saltwater (2008), Skydiving (2016), Venusian Blues (2020), and Echo Park (2023). He also composes and produces instrumental ambient music under the moniker Maud Gonne.
In addition to his solo work, Nick has collaborated with a wide range of artists and musicians, further expanding his creative reach and musical palette. As a sideman, he has worked with Sun Kil Moon, Great Lake Swimmers, Sandro Perri, Dana Sipos. Barzin, Donovan Woods, Royal Wood, Roxanne Potvin, Rich Burnett, Priya Thomas, and many others. Nick has toured extensively and internationally, having played many of the world’s great stages and festivals, notably Pitchfork Fest, Hillside, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Royal Festival Hall in London and The Town Hall in NYC.

Cowboy Medicine:
A duo project created on a foundation of friendship and shared passions, Cowboy Medicine is rooted in tight harmony and story telling. Kale and Lane bring their chemistry and folksy indie influence to the stage, showcasing their shared experiences and the growing pains of life.

Willem James Cowan:
In a Willem James Cowan song, the entire world spills out from the smallest detail. He never sacrifices the vividness of the narrative for a borrowed platitude or a hackneyed phrase. Writing and recording in London, Ontario, Cowan draws inspiration from great wordsmiths like Elliott Smith, Dan Mangan, Joni Mitchell, and Sufjan Stevens. He lets his characters breathe in the verses and choruses, and he’s laser-focused on the emotion and authenticity tucked into the dark corners of his stories. In “Apartment” he sings of nostalgia and how we are haunted by the ones we’ve loved: “Three years from tonight / I won’t remember your body / But I will remember your light / Alone in an airport lobby”. His taut hooks and driving rhythms draw us into the narrative, rooting for the characters as they careen toward salvation or demise.
Cowan’s process is varied but often begins with a few chords and a mumbled melody until something sticks. Perhaps his focus on lyrics stems from his discomfort with placeholders. Where many songwriters start with nonsense or simple phrases and write the final lyrics in the editing stage, Cowan’s unfold as the song progresses. The story never takes a back seat to the overall creation, and the songs carry this clarity into the studio and the live show. Cowan’s alternately confessional and celebratory show has graced the stage of NXNE, VENUExVENUE, and Summerfolk where he left audiences wondering whether they want to cry sad or happy tears.

THE BREAK⚡️EVEN BOYS album release Gala
2026-07-03 19:30 - 23:00
THE BREAK⚡️EVEN BOYS are releasing their debut all original album. Friday, July 3 at silence in Guelph Ontario. Tickets are limited.

This is a very special event you do not want to miss. Join us as we take you through our original music. On a journey through music and The High Plains of wonder.

Silence Presents: Andrea Scala
2026-07-10 20:00 - 23:00
July 10th, 2026
Doors: 7:30 PM
Show: 8:00 PM
Andrea Scala (drums + electronics) :
The project involves the use of acoustic drums, samples, and other electronic elements, all played in a sort of one-man band. These compositions incorporate abstract rhythms, textures, noises and electronics, employing analog and digital processes. Everything is expressed through a system of improvisation within a musical structure, dictated by the interaction of different rhythms that overlap and generate incidents with other sounds in transit. The idea is to fuse all these elements together and transport them beyond the static, aiming to express something happening in the moment, generating chaos and movement. Organic and digital, human and machine, in total creative freedom, conceptually jazzy and adventurous.Bio :
Born in Italy and based in Toronto, Andrea Scala is a drummer and composer. He showed a natural inclination towards percussive instruments and creative arts since he was a kid. Andrea started from a teen age to work as a live and studio session drummer with various bands and songwriters, gathering several collaborations with established musicians in the field of rock and progressive music. He toured with pop, alternative, jazz, folk and world-music bands, performing at festivals, venues and clubs in Europe, Canada, USA. He continues to collaborate and develop original musical projects together with creative composers and musicians.
Over the years, Andrea had the opportunity to collaborate with several projects, his concerts and recordings include collaborations with: David Binney, Shahzad Ismaily, Jozef Dumoulin, Roberto Tarenzi, William Brittelle (Grammy-award winning), Nicola Costa, Francesco Puglisi, Karl Potter, Piccola Orchestra La Viola, O’ Zulù, Duo + 2 Quartet, Jeff kollmann, Tommy Denander, Ron Thal, etc.
Andrea has been recording, performing, and producing music with some of the most visionary artists around: In 2024, he recorded the EP “ENDROLL” and subsequently the single “Till Next,” with the collaborative trio Shahzad Ismaily/Stanford Cheung/Andrea Scala, produced by Ismaily. Between 2024 and 2025, Andrea wrote, produced, and released “BURHST,” a collaborative single with Italian drummer and composer Roberto Pistolesi, and subsequently another single titled “Stems,” with American saxophonist and composer David Binney (creator/producer of David Bowie’s band Blackstar).

Jessica Rhaye, Bill Preeper & Sandy MacKay
2026-11-04 19:30 - 23:00
Catch New Brunswick based artist Preeper Rhaye MacKay bringing their unique folk vibes for a night you won’t want to miss!

Step into an evening of rich harmonies, thoughtful songwriting, and timeless folk music with Jessica Rhaye, Bill Preeper and Sandy MacKay – together known as Preeper Rhaye MacKay.
From New Brunswick, Canada, the trio takes listeners back to the height of the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960’s, while bringing a sound that feels timeless yet entirely their own. Finely blended three-part harmonies, shared lead vocals, and a seamless mix of acoustic and electric instrumentation that echo the spirit of Woody Guthrie, Ian Tyson, and early Bob Dylan.
Acclaimed songwriter and Canadian Folk Music Award nominee Jessica Rhaye, with more than 25 years of touring and nine albums to her name, leads on rhythm guitar, while Bill Preeper’s intricate fingerstyle guitar and mandolin add richness and depth. Sandy MacKay rounds out the trio on upright and electric bass, with touches of banjo that add warmth and colour to their sound.
Together, they create an intimate and engaging performance, often likened to a modern-day Peter, Paul and Mary, showcasing music from their ECMA Roots-nominated album Wood & Wire (2024) and their much-anticipated follow-up album Blackberry Lane (2026).
Whether you’ve followed folk music for years or are simply curious to experience it live, this concert offers an evening to settle in, listen closely, and connect through song, story, and harmony.
