“The Intimacy is Unparalleled” : Fredericton’s Upcoming Cold Snaps Music Series
Written for The Aquinian
(‘Dance’, by Incé Husain)
Launched by Emma Chevarie of Music Runs Through It and The Tipsy Muse Café, the Cold Snaps live music series aims to bring together the Fredericton community so long dulled by pandemic restrictions. The series will start in late February and run till the end of March.
Chevarie explains that the event unites the Fredericton community in multi-faceted ways - encouraging the public to experience live music, helping to establish the Muse’s patron-of-the-arts reputation outside Fredericton, and inviting local artists to perform with renowned musicians.
“It is (multi-faceted). It’s a real community event. We’re so excited to bring people together,” says Chevarie. “(The Tipsy Muse had) a funding opportunity through Factor Canada that had to be used up before the end of March. That was the inspiration at the start and then we dreamed big.”
The series aims to appeal to a variety of music-lovers, featuring pop, rock, jazz, opera, neoclassical, and francophone music. Renowned musicians include Canadian rock singer Joel Plaskett, Fredericton-born soprano Measha Brueggergosman, and Acadian artist Chloé Breault; their performances will be opened by folk-indie-rock artist Jason Anderson, string duo Pallmer, and bilingual vocalists Les Chanterelles, respectively. The shows span the Tipsy Muse Café, Charlotte Street Arts Centre, and Wilmot United Church.
Chevarie, and Rob Pinnock, co-owner of the Tipsy Muse Café, describe the intimacy of the settings.
“The intimacy is unparalleled [...] Measha is going to be reenacting her original recital (from when) she first started out. Jason Anderson fills the room with language and love,” lists Pinnock. “Joel Plaskett will be leading a songwriters circle (at the Muse). He’ll open the show with his songs and talk about his experience (writing them), and it will go around (a circle of local musicians: Josh Bravener, Colin Fowlie, Kylie Fox, and Dylan Ward) and they’ll each get a chance to (perform) and talk about their songs and maybe all jam together. It has that organicness to it.”
“The church (was) for Measha because she has such a large voice. She will fill those rafters,” says Chevarie. “We know how people respond to that, sitting in the balconies. It’s like being surrounded with sound [...] The Charlotte Street Arts Center gives us a beautiful atmosphere. We’re doing a cabaret-style setting with tealights on the tables.”
With the pause in live performances that came with the pandemic, musicians fathom the audience-performer chemistry of live music with renewed appreciation and novelty.
Duo Pallmer - cellist and vocalist Emily Kennedy and violist Mark Kleyn - feel a rekindled yet uncertain sense of the audience.
“I really don’t know (what audience-performer dynamic to expect). We’ve been trying to figure that out. I’m kind of excited that I don’t know.” says Kennedy. “It really does shift things (to) see the audience. You feel so surrounded by everyone. There’s more of an intimacy and a casualness to it, and feels less like you’re presenting and more like you’re sharing.”
“It’s been really obvious that the audience is an integral part of the music-making experience.” says Kleyn. “We love playing in front of people and we haven’t been able to do that too much. The feel (of our music for Cold Snaps) is coming back out into the community that we’ve missed.”
Chloé Breault anticipates fervor.
“I think there will be a nice chemistry between musicians and the audience,” says Breault. “Musicians have been wanting to perform for a long time, but audiences especially have been expecting performances. (Even) the performances I did for small audiences last summer - you could still feel the excitement. ‘Excitement’ is the word I would use [...] I perform every show I do as if it’s my last, now.”
Organizers and musicians emphasize the novelty of the music scene in Fredericton, the close-knit community entangling with the cultural diversity to abolish genres and normalize musical experimentation.
Pinnock and Chevarie explain its shape-shifting quality.
“‘Music in this area is a moving target, it's really hard to put a finger on a certain style,” says Pinnock.
“We want to give people space to evolve [...] We don’t want to be putting anyone in boxes (like genres),” says Chevarie. “(Genres) will exclude some listeners. If we can take away those labels and appreciate music for music's sake, we’re better off.”
Kennedy and Kleyn discuss the community’s role.
“I think this is an area where you can try almost anything. People are very welcoming and are keen to listen to different music.” says Kleyn.
“‘So many of the projects that are popping up here are so unique [...] It’s the support that unifies the Fredericton scene rather than a genre,” says Kennedy.
Breault speaks to cultural inclusion.
“Music doesn’t have a language,” says Breault. “Yes, there can be lyrics in a certain language, but (for anglophone events) I still sing in French and anglophones appreciate that. Initially (for Cold Snaps), I was thinking ‘oh my god I’m the only francophone with two anglophones (performing) in Fredericton’, but I own that (now), and I think it's cool that the (Cold Snaps) event decided to have cultural and linguistic diversity. It’s super cool to finally be going in that direction.” ♦
Tickets and more info on the Cold Snaps music series is available here: https://musicrunsthroughit.com/music-series/cold-snap-music-series/
Interview content from Chloé Breault was translated from French.
A modified version of this article appeared in The Aquinian on February 19th, 2022:
https://theaquinian.net/the-intimacy-is-unparalleled-upcoming-cold-snaps-music-series/