Steve's Blog
The State Of The Rogue
Friday April 11, 2025

Take a look at this photo. The stage had just been set for Lucy MacNeil's quartet to perform at The Rogue the other week. It was a truly fabulous concert of Celtic music and song. Sadly, the attendance was only around 100 people (85 paid). Two weeks later Lucy won not one but two Canadian Folk Music Awards at the annual celebration of Canadian Folk Music in Ottawa.

The good news is that we are going to receive a grant from Canadian Heritage some time in the next 3 months or so, and they are adding a 25% top-up this year. Thank you, Canadian Heritage!

The bad news is in spite of some recent well-attended concerts, The Rogue is in dire need of that Heritage Grant right now. We are getting by on ticket sales and bar sales and such, just about, but there is almost nothing left in our bank account. We are going to have to borrow money to tide us over until that grant comes in. How long that grant will sustain us is anybody's guess these days. 

There are ways you can help us to survive. The best way to do it is to come to our concerts. There are over 3,000 of you on this mailing list. If 200 of you made it to every concert we would be fine. That's just 1/15th of you. Obviously we do not expect anyone to come to every concert, but surely you could come to a show or two in the next couple of months as we approach - and, we hope, pass - our 38th Anniversary on May 10th. 

Most of our concerts are streamed, which means you can watch the show live from the comfort of your own home, or watch it whenever you like over the next few days. This is no ordinary live stream, either. It is a three camera view of the action, presented by the wonderful folks at Hubcast Media, an internationally renowned TV studio right here in the Lower Mainland. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all 3,000 of you were to purchase at least one ticket this week? 

Here is a link to an article on the Canadian Live Music Association website. It shows the huge economic impact of the arts on Canada's economy, and also on the well-being of Canadians who enjoy and / or are employed in this vital sector. There is a federal election coming up in a couple of weeks. It is a very important one. If you can make it to an All-Candidates meeting in your neigbourhood, why not ask the candidates what they propose to do to support the arts? Or write to the candidates in your riding and ask them to respond.

Last week we launched an increasingly vital fundraising Raffle! It runs until May 14th. 

Our latest winner received $6,190.00. 

Next up, on Saturday April 12th we introduce the Celtic / OldTime Scots / American duo Hildaland. Louise Bichan is a brilliant young fiddler and singer from Orkney. She has many Canadian cousins right here in BC as well as across this nation. Ethan Setiawan hails from Indiana and plays mandolin so well that he won the 2014 National Mandolin Championship and the 2017 RockyGrass Mandolin Championship. He met Louise at the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston, where they also met and studied with North Vancouver's Gabriel Dubreuil. 

The brilliant fiddler / composer / teacher Gabriel Dubreuil will lead the other half of this evening's bill, the exciting Celtic / Jazz combo Collage Trad, who made an auspicious Rogue debut last year at our own Fiddle Festival, The Driven Bow. Their most recent local gig was at Festival Du Bois in Maillardville last month, and also last month they recorded several tunes "live, off the floor", with the brilliant young fiddlers Annika Wilson and Danielle Lenny - aka Twin Embers - adding their trademark exuberance to the mix. One or both of them will join Gabe this night, along with ubiquitous Celtic guitarist Andy Hillhouse, drummer Allen Dionne and bassist Brent Gubbels(all three are members of the awesome Get Back Unpluggedensemble.) 

Last year the New England vocal quartet Windborne made their Rogue debut and also held a vocal harmony workshop at St. James. It was fabulous! They taught two songs, one in Breton, and the other in Occitan, defining all the elements of harmony singing and breaking down the songs into their component parts. They taught these song phonetically, and also explained their meaning to the enthusiastic participants, who sounded wonderful, I must say! The workshop concluded with a stunning exercise in improvisation inspired by Paulina Oliveiros. 

Folks of all ages and levels of singing expertise and experience are welcome. There is a $50 fee for attending the workshop, payable at the door with cash, credit or debit. If you have purchased a ticket for the evening concert or made a reservation using a Parcel O'Rogues, providing proof of payment will give you a $10 discount off the workshop price. 

Registration & payment is at the door only. 

“The best musical discovery of the year…stunningly powerful. Windborne sets a new bar for harmony singing today!” - NPR

With a 20-year background studying polyphonic music around the world, Lauren Breunig, Jeremy Carter-Gordon, Lynn Rowan, and Will Rowan share a vibrant energy onstage with a blending of voices that can only come from decades of friendship alongside dedicated practice. The ensemble shifts effortlessly between many different styles of music, drawing their audience along on a journey that spans continents and centuries, illuminating and expanding on the profound power and variation of the human voice. The singers educate as they entertain, sharing stories about their songs and explaining the context and characteristics of the styles in which they sing. 

Windborne are adherents to folk music’s longtime alliance with social activism, labour and civil rights, and other movements that champion the oppressed, the poor, and the disenfranchised. They released To Warm The Winter Hearth - a unique collection of Seasonal Songs last December, and their previous project, Of Hard Times & Harmony, explores themes of social consciousness, singing in four languages and showcasing the depth of emotion their voices can evoke, as well as moments of true hilarity and wit. The group is committed to bringing vocal traditions to a younger audience and over the past year has found surprisingly viral success on TikTok for such unlikely genres as Corsican polyphony and early 20th century labour anthems.

I have lots of new releases this week, folks! Plus concert previews of course. I hope you will tune me in and turn me on this Saturday from 8am to 12 noon on www.citr.ca or 101.9fmfor The Saturday Edge On Folk, now in my 40th year on the air! There will be lots of old - and not so old - favourites as well. I hope you will join me.

There will also be tracks from last week's new releases, as well as concert previews and topical songs from around the world. I hope you will tune me in and turn me on again this Saturday from 8am to 12 noon for The Saturday Edge On Folk on www.citr.ca and 101.9fm