ARTIST BIOS
Check out some of the music from our 2024 lineup!
Blackwood
Friday at 9:30pm
JUNO nominees Jeff Reilly (bass clarinet) and Peter-Anthony Togni and Jeff Reilly combine the unusual melodicism of the bass clarinet with a colourful range of keyboard sonorities in both organ & piano to perform a wide variety of works exploring the improvisational qualities both. Crossing Europe-based modernist jazz masters like Ralph Towner with Gregorian Chant-based works like Togni’s Ave Verum, to performing their own version of a Miles Davis classic, they defy stylistic boundaries with virtuosity and sensitivity.
Blue Dirt Girl
Saturday Market at 10am
Blue Dirt Girl is an indie band based in East Vancouver and Saturna Island. Kathryn’s fascination with her wah pedal, desire to dance and her eclectic music collection informed both her vocal style, songwriting & composition. Albert delved into his accumulated musical and songwriting prowess for his bass interpretations saying “Every bass line is a melody.”
An essential ingredient for their new modern soul sound was the creative connection between Blue Dirt Girl’s Kathryn Sutherland and recording engineer Dan Ponich. Their latest release ‘No Street Signs No Straight Lines’ is a 15 song album. (06.21.23)
Record Selections by Denny Goertz
Saturday at 9:30pm
Denny Goertz will be spinning rare grooves, funk, disco, house and techno from his collection of vinyl. Get ready to dance and groove under the stars!
Ian Skorscha
Sunday at 2pm
Ian Skorscha is a musician born in Patagonia, Argentina. Alternating his solo songwriting project with session work for a few bands in different countries led him to become a nomad, a troubadour. Ian is cultivating a personal and worldly sound nourished from Latin and Folk rhythms. Committed with words and guitar Ian takes us on a journey along different paths, moving between languages to create bridges on every place he passes through. His second album will be out in 2024. His debut album “Lilah” with his earliest compositions is on Bandcamp and all the streaming platforms
Laila Biali
Friday at 8pm
Multi award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist and CBC Music national radio host Laila Biali has headlined festivals and venues spanning five continents from New York City's Carnegie Hall to Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts, and supported international icon Sting. In 2020, Laila was honoured by SOCAN Music with the Hagood Hardy Award for Excellence in Songwriting. In 2019, Laila’s eponymous release won her a JUNO (Canada's GRAMMY) for "Vocal Jazz Album of the Year.” The year prior, she was awarded top prize at the Canadian Songwriting Competition in the Jazz category.
In September of 2017, Laila was brought on as the host for CBC Music's national radio show, Saturday Night Jazz, a weekly show broadcast to listeners across Canada. While Laila continues to earn high honours in the Jazz world, her signature sound transcends genre as she "masterfully mixes jazz and pop, bringing virtuosity and unpredictability to songs that are concise and catchy" (Washington Post). Laila's highly anticipated album, Out of Dust, which features multiple GRAMMY nominees and winners including Lisa Fischer, Alan Ferber, John Ellis, and Larnell Lewis, released March 27, 2020 and was also nominated for a 2021 JUNO Award.
Malakai
Sunday at 3pm
Malakai sings with a soul surprising in one so young yet at 15 years old, this multi-instrumentalist is already a seasoned performer. Accompanying himself on guitar, this young balladeer performs with intricate artistry and powerful emotion. As an emerging songwriter, Malakai composes songs that are a portal of passion and sentiment. Covering folk, pop and R&B ballads, he has a way of taking any song and making it his own. This dynamic young sensation astounds and delights while sharing his own unique style with audiences of all ages.
Mike Edel
Saturday at 6:30pm
‘Tears and laughter have a way of getting along,’ sings Canadian singer-songwriter Mike Edel on the title track from his upcoming 5th full-length-album and accompanying documentary ‘casseroles & flowers’ out July 22nd, 2022.
Edel makes both his self-production and film-making debut with ‘casseroles & flowers’ while he has been recovering from a stroke he suffered in April 2021. Edel and his wife — pregnant with their firstborn — were on tour playing outdoor shows and living in a converted van in an effort to keep performing in a covid-compromised live event landscape. These experiences unravel before us and make ‘casseroles & flowers’ extremely personal and Edel’s best yet.
Edel has over 6 million cross-platform streams and has been featured on ABC’s American Idol, extensively on CBC and CBC q, on Sirius XM’s The Verge, The Loft, North Americana and CBC Radio 3 and played hundreds of shows and festivals across North America and in Europe.
Nice Verdes
Saturday Market at 11am
Nice Verdes are a two-piece act that met during a peace march in Vancouver, Canada in 2003. They play a multi-genre mix of melodies, with a style that flows from original sounds to music from the traditions of Latin America. They traded the conventional life for a life on the road as artists, and the spirit of adventure inspires them.
Their music is defined as infectious sunny melodies that create something fresh and honest. Their organic sounds are inspired by the places they go and the people and landscapes they meet. Years of relentless touring have seen the pair play a diverse mix of venues and locations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Latin America, and Europe. They continue to hone their craft by studying in places such as Cuba and Colombia, as well as soaking in any inspirational sounds and songs through their collaborations and encounters with others along the way.
Pico’s Puppet Palace
Sunday at 10am
Pico’s Puppet Palace was established in 2016, by Sally Miller and Jesse Hamilton. Sally and Jesse have been performing together since 2002 in various musical and theatrical collaborations, as folk duo Nice Verdes, as musical and dance performers in a number of performance groups.
Sally and Jesse create puppets and sets for Pico’s Puppet Palace from a wide variety of reclaimed, recycled and repurposed materials. Each show is an episode of Pico’s adventures and introduces ecological and environmental issues, innovations, and ideas, and hence the use of these recycled materials is aligned with the ethos of the show overall. Their puppets include full body puppets and costumes, hand and rod puppets, sock puppets and muppets, mechanical sculptures that can be moved by the puppeteer, shadow puppetry, and more.
Sarah Jane Scouten
Sunday at 6:30pm
Sarah Jane Scouten is a Canadian folk and Americana songwriter. Her songs pay their respects to 60s and 70s country songwriters Willie Nelson, John Prine, Bobby Gentry and weave in British folk revival elements with a continuous thread leading back to her roots in bluegrass and old time music.
After a transformative four years, training as a herbalist in the hills of southwest Scotland, Sarah Jane is releasing her fifth album Turned to Gold (Light Organ Records). Sarah Jane offers a new depth and solidity as a songwriter. With producer Johnny Payne's (The Shilohs) gift for modern vintage arrangement, this is destined to be your next favourite road trip album.
Terra Lightfoot
Sunday at 8pm
Whether you’re talking about her as a songwriter, guitarists or vocalist, one thing is indisputable: roots rocker Terra Lightfoot is a ferocious talent. Her songs tape into the raw emotion of hearts supercharged by love, lust, loneliness and temptation. Her playing melds expert finger-picking and distorted, hook-heavy melodies. And her elemental voice commands attention and awe, whether on slow-burning soul ballads or hard-charging rock numbers.
On stages in France, the UK and across Canada, Lightfood has performed alongside the likes of Emmylou Harris, Gordon Lightfood, Ron Sexsmith, and many others. She also stays busy as part of country band, Dinner Belles.
Lightfoot’s touchstone influences include roots groundbreakers Maybelle Carter and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, blues legends Leadbelly and Lightnin’ Hopkins, soul greats Same Cooke and Otis Redding, jazz titans Nina Simone and Billie Holiday – and her songs are infused with those influences and more. But for all of that, one listen to Tara will convince you that this remarkable artist is an inspiration all her own.
The Group of Seven
Friday at 6:30pm
The Group of Seven, the senior members of The Pender Young Violins, are a local force to behold. They are a thriving group of youth, who have played together since they were very young alongside Denny Goertz. They are grateful to create music together at the Mosaic Festival this summer, on S,DÁYES, the beautiful shared and traditional territory of the Coast Salish Peoples. Denny is so grateful to be a mentor in the lives of many Pender youth, and is very thankful to all the parents and community for supporting the musical journey from year to year.
The Group of Seven is Annika Fleming, Isla Goertz, Lauren Ohnona, Meredith Boyd, Nick Croft, Nuala Stafford, and Taeven Lopatecki, with accompaniment from Cedar Lopatecki and Owen Goertz.
“The Pender Young Violins fill a beautiful role in the community with their growth, presence, and enthusiasm for music!”
The Harpoonist
Saturday at 8pm
You ought to meet Harpoonist. Known to family, friends and hardcore fans as Shawn Hall. A harpoon/harmonica/harp virtuoso with a couple of decades in the hardcore, blues-based rock and roll trenches. D’you remember The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer, Shawn’s duo with Matt Rogers for 17 blistering years at festivals and concert halls and clubs large and small, grungy and almost clean?
Well, Hall’s turned a new leaf. Harpoonist — Hall’s non-de-plume and the name of the band — is something else again. New songs. New record. New gritty, tough-assed swamp music with edge and off-the-wall lyrics. More importantly, new musical partner-in-crime Big Sugar’s Gordie Johnson. Harpoonist (the band) is something else: Hall on harpoon, and vocals of course, and some keys. And Johnson, Big Sugar’s Texas-based producer, guitarist on nearly everything else. Plus, Hall’s pal Jonas Shandel, who also helped write the songs.
Harpoonist is ready. There's a new track ready to be released called "Good People” The made-in-Texas record is titled “Did We Come Here to Dance.” Due in February on Tonic Records label and on all the streaming services.
Oh, and you almost certainly will dance. Promise.
