Women of the Bow Valley concert brings all-female crew, new releases to the stage

Soulful, jazzy, smooth, indie.

The musical styles of five female Bow Valley artists may differ, but there’s far more that brings them together than sets them apart.

In an all-female night of music on June 14, singer-songwriters Irene Poole, Ellen Braun, Nurdjana de Rijcke, Julie Chang, Mari Rosehill – among others – are stepping onto an artsPlace stage for the Women of the Bow Valley concert.

“There’s a special energy when women are singing together and to share that with an audience is such a gift really. Not only are we singing with the audience and including them, but we’re also singing with each other, and they get to witness that connection,” said Braun.

The night will feature individual performances of original songs and some covers, along with collaborations between the vocalists and an all-female band.

“I’ve met with someone who’s still finishing writing a song, so it’s really cool to hear songs that have never been performed before,” said de Rijcke.

The vocalists will perform three songs each, with the four final songs being a collaboration between all the artists.

“[There] is a whole lot of harmonizing and just playing along on each other’s tunes, which has been really cool, so you get a bit more familiar with each other’s repertoire and style,” said de Rijcke. “It was really nice just to have all these voices in one room.”

Making up the rest of the crew is Daniella Rubeling (piano), Bev Soriano (drums), Melody Stang (bass), Carlyn Reilly (vocals) and Sam Hindle on sound.

As the event’s main organizer, de Rijcke thought up the idea for the multi-artist concert during a time in her own musical journey when she began to slow down, taking on fewer gigs to give her voice a break.

The change gave her the space to brainstorm new opportunities for collaboration.

“It was a bit more of a shift from like gigging a whole lot and then shifting that towards more relationship building and just having fun with musicians in town,” she said.

“I love making music, but one of my other favourite things is just to hang out with other musicians because it’s usually a really fun, supportive and good environment, and there’s so many talented women in the Bow Valley,” said de Rijcke.

With busy music schedules and personal lives, bringing together 10 women for the showcase was no easy task.

“Everyone’s at different stages in their lives, from sort of just starting out to Nurdjana and I have older kids, Julie has a newborn. We’re all kind of at different places in our lives, but this is something that we share [and] all of that disappears when we’re all singing together,” said Braun.

The concert is a unique musical showcase in the Bow Valley, displaying the diversity of local female artists as the group joins each other on stage for the first time.

“Just from a perspective of what the music scene around the globe looks like, women are still really underrepresented,” said de Rijcke.

“I do think it’s important to create opportunities for each other where we support each other, but also where there’s just more places for us [to] play and where we can play our own songs that we’re not always able to play in a bar, maybe because it’s too quiet or too loud.”

De Rijcke and Braun emphasized the value of being able to come together and share their experiences as women in the music scene.

“I find it more with women than with men, people will often compare artists or try to create this tension between where people are in terms of rankings, and I think that it’s something we sometimes do culturally – we pit women against each other and so it’s really nice to come together … [The concert is] somehow doing the opposite of that,” said Braun.

“It’s not about who’s the most successful … we all just understand we’re all doing this beautiful thing together.”

Braun also expressed gratitude to artsPlace for providing a welcoming space for artists to play and perform over the years.

“We’ve all either had shows or played open mics there. It really does feel like home to all of us, so it’s really nice to come together,” she said.

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. The position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.