Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area

Subject: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 06:09 PM

This will be just prior to Jon & Rika appearing at Mystic Seaport's Maritime Music Festival, so those that can't make the festival & or those that can, these guys are a dou that you just can't possiby get enough of.

Thursday, June 12, 2008, 8pm
W. Concord, MA
$12 for all at the door
Reservations required; email suzanne AT smrozak DOT com for
reservations and directions.
Jon and Rika are singers of traditional song and amateur (for-the-love-of-it!) scholars of ballads, shanties and other folk songs. They are teachers, too, and have always been interested in how these songs are passed on -- in both theory and practice.

Jon and Rika met at the Vancouver Folk Song Society (VFSS), where they were (and still are) active as singers, organizers and board members. They began singing together in 1976. At the time they focused primarily on Canadian folk songs and presented workshops to teachers and students from Kindergarten to the post-graduate level. Their educational work culminated in 1979 with the production of Songs and Stories of Canada, a sixteen-part radio series for the CBC schools� broadcast. In 1980 they produced The Green Fields of Canada, an LP of Canadian folk songs extracted from the radio shows.

During this time Jon and Rika were active in Canadian folk songs on a national level. They sang at folk festivals and folk clubs across the country and in the US. They published Canada Folk Bulletin, a bi-monthly national magazine about folk music.

Jon and Rika have incorporated singing into political action. Over the years they have sung at many marches, demonstrations and picket lines. They were founding members of Cultural Workers Against the Budget (CWAB), which organized the 70,000 strong march and rally of October, 1983. From 1991 to 1999 Jon and Rika were involved in organizing CityFest, a cultural festival presenting the music, dance, visual and spoken arts of Vancouver area ethnic and community groups. Jon was co-ordinator of the festival for its last four years.

Most recently Jon and Rika have been pursuing the singing and study of traditional ballads. They have put together an archive of cassettes of the traditional ballads from the F.J. Child collection and for two years they ran a ballad study group.


They are being put on by the Folk Song Society of Greater Boston

Barry

Subject: RE: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 07:10 PM

Thanks for this, Barry, although I should say that we are not APPEARING at Mystic but only ATTENDING. We'll certainly be at the evening/night/early morning Big Sings and hope to join big crowds there. As to Boston, we're looking forward to sharing a slew of BC songs with Boston folk, especially the 1791 broadside ballad (The Bold Northwestman) that unites us!

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: adventure
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 07:19 PM

So Barry..this means you are going to be at Concord on Thursday....learn to swim my lad...learn to swim.

Doryman

Subject: RE: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: Barry Finn
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 12:17 AM

I don't think I'll be able to make thrusday (transport conflict) but I recommend that others do, espically now that I mistakenly thought that they were part of Mystic's line up. This may be the only chance others will get to see them in performer's mode. In any case they are really great in any mode, see them if you can.

Peter why do I need to learn what I was always good & stong at; swimming? I attained lifeguard cert before I was 16 (like my daughter), quite I feat in the old days.

Barry

Subject: RE: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: GUEST,KT
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 02:02 AM

i recently had the good fortune of meeting Jon & Rika at Folklife and would encourage anyone who can, to attend the house concert. It will, no doubt, be a wonderful evening.

KT

Subject: RE: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 12:21 AM

I'll be streaming there up my own steam tomorrow evening, as long as my wife get's out of work on time. It'll be great to hear them both again, I thought it'd be a nice way to start off a weekend at Mystic, you rreally can't get enough of these 2.

Barry

Subject: RE: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 09:25 AM

I met Jon and Rika at Mystic in 2006. Well worth going to hear! And a CV that spans political activism and Child Ballads - excellent.

Subject: RE: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 04:04 PM

Have a fine time. Wish I could be there with you!

Art

Subject: RE: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Jun 08 - 09:38 PM

I would be there for sure if I were 90 miles away. Jon and Rika are fine traditional style singers, and they generate a whole lot of energy, and information about their songs.

I'm looking forward to hearing them at the "after concert" get-togethers at the Mystic Sea Music Festival this weekend.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, in Maine but bound for Mystic!

Subject: RE: Jon/Rika house concert 6/12 Boston area
From: Barry Finn
Date: 13 Jun 08 - 01:19 AM

I just got home from their house concert. It was one of the finest concerts I've been to in a long, long time. Loads of variety even with the good represention of songs from the Northwest, crossing genere's like smooth cross country skiers, they knew their songs & the backgrounds without giving the overdose but with just the right personnal touch. It didn't matter whose lead it was both traded with harmonies like the fur trappers they sang about, Christ they were good.

Barry