Scarboro Foundation Distinctive Artists Music Series 2024

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PROARTS@NOON CONCERTS PRESENTS

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The ProArts@Noon Concert Series is pleased to announce a unique series of concerts during 2024 featuring particularly distinctive performing artists.

The Scarboro Foundation recently awarded Calgary’s ProArts Society funding to undertake the Distinctive Performers Concert Series, which will feature a diverse selection of performing arts genres.

This special series will be part of the ProArts@Noon weekly schedule of Wednesday concerts.

Once again this year, the Scarboro Foundation has given ProArts Society Artistic Director Damon Johnston free rein to select the artists for this unique series, and he’s had fun making the choices. Johnston offers the following quote to illuminate his process of judgement:  

The world is a complicated place, and there’s a lot of division between people. The performing arts tend to unify people in a way nothing else does.

David Rubenstein

Now celebrating its twenty-second season, the ProArts@Noon Concert Series is a free, noon hour concert series presented by the ProArts Society, who rent the historic Cathedral Church in the heart of Calgary’s Cultural District for their weekly concerts.

THE SCARBORO FOUNDATION DISTINCTIVE PERFORMERS SERIES 2024

1. February 14 Gai Lan Ensemble
2. April 03 Hank Knox (harpsichord)
3. April 24 Emily Triggs (singer-songwriter) 
4. May 08 Prashant M. John (world music)

Artist Biographies

Gai Lan Ensemble   February 14, 2024

A diverse program featuring traditional music and new compositions, including the premier of a new piece by Hong Kong composer, Chris Hung. Find the Gail Lan Ensemble on Instagram.

Hank Knox April 03, 2024

Hailed internationally for his “colorful, kinetic performances” (All Music Guide) which “abound in vitality” (Early Music America), Hank Knox performs on harpsichord in concert halls, churches, museums, galleries and homes around the globe. A founding member of Montreal’s Arion Baroque Orchestra, with whom he has toured North and South America, Europe and Japan, Knox also regularly performs, records and tours with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, le Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, and l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, among numerous other ensembles.  As one of today’s busiest musicians in the field of Early Music, Knox’s musical collaborators have included violinists Elizabeth Wallfisch, Monica Huggett, and Stefano Montanari, lutenist Steven Stubbs, baritone Max van Egmond, and conductors Christopher Hogwood, Trevor Pinnock, Sir Roger Norrington, and Andrew Parrott.

Dedicated to sharing the unique sounds of antique harpsichords, as well as fine copies of historical instruments, Knox has released a number of acclaimed recordings on rare instruments. He has released two collections of Frescobaldi keyboard works, on a 1677 Italian harpsichord, for the ATMA Classique and early-music.com labels, along with works by D’Anglebert performed on a copy of one of the few upright harpsichords in existence, made by Montreal builder Yves Beaupré. A recording of Handel opera arias and overtures in transcriptions by William Babell was recorded on three different exceptional antique instruments from the treasured Benton Fletcher collection at Fenton House in London. Knox’s most recent recording features transcriptions of music by Francesco Geminiani, performed on a 1772 Kirkman harpsichord. A solo recording of works by J.S. Bach, performed on a copy of an 18^th-century Flemish instrument, will be released in 2013. Hank Knox can also be heard on numerous recordings with Arion and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestras for early-music.com, ATMA, Analekta, CBC, Titanic and Collegium labels, as well as on national broadcasts for Radio-Canada and CBC.

Emily Triggs April 24, 2024

Emily Triggs is a bred-in-the-bones roots musician. In her debut album, When Guinevere Went Under, the guitarist, singer-songwriter takes you on a journey through influences and experiences that have shaped her folk/roots sound. 

“I’m pushing the boundaries of what I consider folk – and bringing in influences I’ve had over the years,” she says. Those influences span the Deep South with the likes of Lead Belly, through Texas blues, strains from the Appalachian Mountains to her early years in French Canada.

A regular performer at family gatherings and parties since she was small enough to fit inside a guitar case, Emily’s natural talent was honed in Hemmingford, Quebec. Her mother, Louise Demers Triggs was a dancer in the folk troupe Les Feux-Follets. Her father, Stanley Triggs, was a folk singer in the 1960s and has songs that can be found within Smithsonian Folkways.

Emily shares stories through her songs with an endearing simplicity and emotional depth. With a pure and true vocal, complementing a solid base of undeniably roots music composition, Emily engages the listener. Her music grips the heart and elevates the soul. Her songs are double edged, unapologetic and a unique sound in the genre of folk/roots.

Emily has been singing festivals, clubs and coffee houses and has become known as an established singer songwriter. She has been a member of Calgary-based bands: “The House Doctors”, “The Fallen Angel Band”, “June Gloom” and “Magnolia Buckskin”. 

Prashant M. John May 08, 2024

Born of Indian parents, Prashant Michael John was raised in Bangladesh and moved to Canada when he was 19. Immersed in the music of the West since childhood, he plays Blues, Rock, Funk and Improvisational Jazz as well as cross-cultural world music. He has studied Indian flute, African Fula flute and the Baul music of Bengal. Prashant has received nominations and awards from the American and Canadian Independent Music Awards, International Song Writing Competition and the Canadian Folk Music Awards, together with his two cross-cultural, Worldmusic bands: Tandava and Lehera. 

His compositions, while influenced by the musics of the Indian sub-continent, combine the influences and instrumentation of a variety of genres and world cultures. They include songwriting in English with east-west sensibilities. His Debut Album, Tandava,  was CBC radio’s Roots & Wings 10 Best Albums Of 2006 (Internationally); #2 in the National Canadian Campus Radio ‘International’ charts in March 2006 and  #1 at various Canadian  stations for weeks including Calgary’s CJSW.

Some selected past performances included Vancouver’s Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, Vancouver Island Music Festival, Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre, Ottawa Jazz Festival, Ottawa Bluesfest, Vancouver Jazz Festival, London’s Sunfest, Nova Scotia Multicultural Festival, North Country Fair (Alberta), Detroit Institute of Arts, Harrison Festival of the Arts, and UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples NY.

Prashant uses ethnic flutes and acoustic and electric guitars, voice and percussion instruments – music without borders – an original and natural blending of genres and musical cultures sometimes using simple live looping and/or bed tracks.