Dance, dance, dance! This is Coldsnap's final night and the opening night of "Festival d'Hiver", presented by Le Cercle des Canadiens Français de Prince George (CCFPG). We have collaborated to bring to Prince George celebrated electro-trad band Mélisande and the high energy indie-trad trio Ten Strings and a Goat Skin.
Drawing from a rich heritage of traditional francophone songs, Quebec singer Mélisande unearths rare treasures that she adapts and presents with a feminist perspective and the distinctly modern sound of the band. Mélisande [électrotrad] offers an energetic blend of traditional music, pop and electro with a mix of acoustic and electric instruments, vocal harmonies and programming. Led by Mélisande and her husband Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand, the group offers a fresh artistic proposal to the folk-world-trad music scene. Its first album Les métamorphoses (La Prûche Libre, 2014), greatly acknowledged by the critics, won a Canadian Folk Music Award and an Independent Music Award as well a being nominated at ADISQ. Since the release of the album, the band performed over 50 concerts in Canada, the United States, France and Australia.
Age-old entertainments–sitting around the fire, telling tales–can take on ever-new faces. Young acoustic power trio Ten Strings and a Goat Skin from Canada’s Prince Edward Isle know this, transforming tradition with vigor, curiosity, and sparks of goofy humor. They’re inviting a new circle of listeners Auprès du Poêle (“around the woodstove”; release: June 12, 2016) for sometimes moody, sometimes high-energy set of original and traditional songs. Expanding on the Scottish and Acadian roots of PEI’s traditional music, Ten Strings and a Goatskin weave old-school Franco-Canadian, Breton, Irish, and Scottish tunes with wickedly current grooves and clever quirks, flirting with indie music’s best moments.
(Venue and artists are subject to change)