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The Citizen, 2008-11-20, Page 27THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2008. PAGE 27.Entertainment Leisure& Music, music, music The Blyth United Church choir brought the music to the festivities as one of the performing groups for the special Saturday night lighting ceremony in Blyth Memorial Hall to kick off the holiday season. (Vicky Bremner photo) Michelle Wright, Canada’s country music queen, will be stopping into Blyth on her way across the province in December, playing a show on her I’m Dreaming Of A Wright Christmas tour. On Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. Wright will bring her unique Christmas show to Blyth’s Memorial Hall. This will be the fifth consecutive Christmas Wright has been on the road in Canada. “We love to come home and we love to do it at Christmas because we get the snow and a little time to connect with family,” she says. Her Christmas album,A Wright Christmas, was released in Canada in 2005 and the rest of the world in 2007 and she has spent her holidays on the road ever since. She calls her annual Christmas tour “a success story,” but something she wasn’t quite ready to do 10 years ago. Wright says she was worried about falling into a typical Christmas concert routine where traditional Christmas songs were sung in a traditional format. She says her Christmas shows are eclectic, technologically-exciting and fun for the whole family. “We have a set that looks like a little winter wonderland, so when people walk in, it really makes them feel good,” she says. “The music though, is something we really enjoy, because we play everything from jazz to rhythm and blues to reggae to pop to country, because we play the music on the album, which has a very broad approach to Christmas music. Some of it is traditional and some of it is our artistic licence we took with it, so that’s something interesting and then there are some of my country hits I’ve had over the years.” The artistic licence Wright and her band takes with some traditional songs like Joy To The World is something she is particularly proud of. She says her shows are exciting, and a totally new take on what a Christmas show should be. However, in new musical arrangements and a fresh take on a holiday concert, the true reason for the season is not lost on her she says. Being a Christian, this makes her Christmas shows all the more special to her, she says. “Christmas, being the birth of Christ, if I’m going to stand on the stage and make records about it, for me, it had to be real. It had to be legitimate,” she says. “That’s not the case with everybody and that’s cool. What other people do doesn’t matter to me, but for me, that’s how it had to be.” Since Wright has such a deep belief in Christmas and such a personal connection to her holiday tour, she is hoping to return to the studio to record a second Christmas album, a follow-up to A Wright Christmas, sometime in 2009. In addition to a possible Christmas album, Wright says she also hopes to record a new album of Motown influenced country music, or vice versa, she isn’t quite sure yet. However, she knows her new material will be a combination of the two, which she says were her greatest musical influences over the course of her life. Wright was born in Chatham, but grew up in Merlin, Ontario, a small farming community. Her rural upbringing, as well as her parents both being country performers led to a heavy country influence. But with her hometown being just 45 minutes away from Detroit, Michigan, the influence of Motown music was heavy on her as well. Wright has enjoyed significant success south of the border, where she now lives, but her largest fanbase has generally been in Canada. Over the years, she has sold just under two million albums in North America. “I feel like I have such a privileged life on so many levels and one of the great things that I get to do is be right in the thick of things here in Nashville all of the time,” she says. “Anytime of the day or night that I want to get involved in music that’s going on in this community, it’s just a step away for me. I also have the privilege of travelling and coming home to Canada a lot and bringing my music to Canadians.” Wright says being a Canadian musician can often seem like a hard life. It sometimes seems that Canadian artists can only appeal to Canadians, but in her case, she says, that wasn’t true. She appealed to both Canada and the United States, but knew she could always rely on Canada for support. “For me, being a Canadian has proven to be a tremendous advantage,” she says. “I’ve travelled everywhere, but Canada has definitely sustained me. When the U.S. wasn’t playing my records as much, Canada was always there for me.” Wright is set to embark on her Ontario-based Christmas tour on Dec. 3, beginning in Sarnia and wrapping it up in Sudbury on Dec. 19. In early 2009, Wright plans to embark on an international tour that will see her play in Scotland and France among other countries. After the tour is when she hopes to focus on writing and recording her new material for release later in the year. Tickets for Wright’s stop in Blyth are available for $40.50 each by calling the Blyth Festival box office at 519-523-9300 or 1-877-862-5984 or at the festival’s website at www.blythfestival.com Join the Blyth Festival Singers on Dec. 7 as they add a touch of brass to their ever popular Christmas concert at North Street United Church in Goderich. Their theme this year is Sing Nowell! and the Singers capture the many moods of Christmas in sometimes joyful, sometimes contemplative and sometimes brassy renditions of old favourites and new treasures. The Blyth Festival Singers also join together in a few numbers with their special musical guests, the members of the Kincardine Brass Band. The Kincardine Brass Band, founded in 2001 by a nucleus of brass playing friends, is a unique arrangement of brass instruments, fashioned after the British style brass bands. This intergenerational band plays a variety of music including marches, arrangements of traditional tunes, sacred pieces, and some popular music. Band director, Nancy Ross of Goderich, is a UWO graduate with degrees in music and education. A part-time elementary school music teacher, Ross also plays trombone in two bands, directs three handchime choirs and a handbell choir and performs handbell solos. A winner of the coveted Adair Trophy for best performances at the Stratford Festival for the Performing Arts, the KBB also performs annually in Kincardine’s Music in the Park series and recently provided extra music for Walkerton’s five performances of the Living Christmas Tree. The band was also honoured to participate in the Hannaford St. Silver Band’s Festival of Brass as part of the Community Showcase Concert in Toronto. The programme starts at 2:30 p.m. and is followed by a reception. Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for children under 12. They are available from the Blyth Festival Singers, Westcoast Photography, Goderich, the Dutch Store, Clinton, Snyder Concept, Wingham, Tasty Nu Bakery, Zurich, Nifty Korners, Seaforth, The Village Bookshop, Bayfield, Brussels Citizen Office, and Don McCaffrey, Exeter, 519-235-0301 or at the door. Wright Christmas comes to Blyth, Dec. 13 ONTARIO BALLET THEATRE “The Best Family Event this Holiday Season” Sunday, December 7 at 3 pm BLYTH MEMORIAL HALL Adult $27.30 ❅Children (12 and under) $15.75 Box Office:(519) 523-9300 or 1-877-862-5984 Happy 55th Anniversary Lloyd & Lillian Love and Best Wishes, your family and friends CONGRATS By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Festival Singers ‘Sing Nowell’ TOLL-FREE 1-877-513-5333 Learn how to talk to others about their smoking.