2008
August 5

Calender of Events

Limited seating - Reserve early
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An evening with Mary Barry unfolds like a story: there’s a beginning, a middle, and, just when you think you’ve figured out the plot, a surprise twist. It finishes with all the loose ends tied up. The audience leaves with the satisfied feeling that the story has been well and truly told. The show has a flow to it, moving easily through blues and ballads, swing and bossa nova, all originals. There are a few covers–a blues medley of Key to the Highway/Centrepiece/Twisted or a “chanson classique”, perhaps Les Feuilles Mortes/Autumn Leaves, done in both French and English. An encore might feature a chorus or two of Danny Boy or even an Italian operatic aria O Cessate di Piagarmi. If you are lucky and the mood strikes her, Mary will bring on her puppet companion, Hanna Banana, to perform Fish and Chips with it’s deathless chorus – “greasy fingers and greasy lips”. Most of the songs, however, are Mary’s own take on the world. January, which won her a songwriting award, uses winter as a metaphor for lost love. Basse Ville chronicles the old town of Quebec City the tourists don’t see, where pover ty lurks behind the picturesque. Never Never recounts a tale of unrequited love while Another Time remembers a love that was once requited. Pourquoi c’est comme ca? is an existential question from a writer who shares a birthday with Kierkegaard, Marx, and Mohammed. Looking for a Genie in the Bottom of a Bottle counsels against “seeking the answer in the bottom of that decanter”. Over the course of an evening, Mary Barry explores life with all its joys, sorrows and absurdities. Carrying out the true task of the artist, she takes your experiences and reflects them back to you in the form of cleverly crafted, articulate songs. What remains constant is the voice and the vision; the unique art of Mary Barry.

MARY BARRY
BIOGRAPHY

Newfoundland's Jazz Chanteuse Mary Barry is an award-winning singer/songwriter and a graduate of Vancouver Community College's Jazz Program. She is a bilingual artist whose music has been described as “…a gold mine of nuggets for collectors of original jazz and blues” and “New Orleans jazz spiced up with a Maritime sauce”. Barry's third independent recording entitled Red Eye Tonight, which features musical giants Brian Way, Patrick Boyle, Bill Brennan, Gary Davis, Rick Hollett, Mark Peddle, and Gary Tilley, was released to rave reviews and won her both Female Artist of the Year and Jazz/Blues Artist of the Year at the 2007 Music Industry Awards of Newfoundland and Labrador. Throughout her career, Mary has performed and recorded with stellar musicians such as Elmer Gill, Jeff Johnston, Jim Vivian, John Nugent, Miles Black, Chris Mitchell, Bruce Dixon, Dave Burton, Rick Kilburn, Graham Ord, Craig Scott, Jean Pierre Zanella and Jesse Zubot. Barry's performances include the Vancouver, Victoria, Halifax, Montreal and St. John’s Jazz Festivals, Le Centre Culturel Francophone de Vancouver, the Banff Centre for the Arts, le Festival d’Ete in Quebec City, the Magnolia Springs Alabama Jazz Festival and Le Festival International de Musique de Femmes in Paris, France. Barry is an acclaimed songwriter, having won several songwriting awards. She was a semi-finalist in the 2006 International Songwriting Competition, the only Canadian to make it that far in the Jazz category. Barry's second CD These Days, which won her Female Artist of the Year and an ECMA nomination for Jazz Recording of the Year in 2005, also features four award winning songs. As an educator, Mary has been teaching music workshops for over twenty years in a variety of settings, including festivals, conferences and as a visiting artist in the schools. In May of this year, Mary was invited to teach at the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Last summer she was selected to present a workshop in her vocal method Vocal Express at Festival 500’s Phenomonen of Singing International Symposium, followed by a visit to the Vinland Music Camp in Gros Morne National Park, where she mentored the songwriting class, gave vocal workshops and performed her original songs to an enthusiastic group of all ages. In 2005, Mary was chosen to be the Gros Morne Musician in Residence, spending ten days in the national park performing and teaching workshops, while composing her personal tribute to the community, a piece entitled Over Bonne Bay. Mary Barry lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland where she also works as a writer, broadcaster, voice-over artist and teacher. This summer she is touring the summer festival circuit to promote her latest release “Red Eye Tonight”.

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