BC Business
Sarah McLachlan with the VSO | BCBusiness
Vancouver’s girl-rock icon experiments with a classical collaboration, a tribute to innocent days of teen worship and a rock-solid tribute to a classic African art form. Music // Sarah McLachlan with the VSO
In her 1986 yearbook from Queen Elizabeth High School in Halifax, young Sarah McLachlan is described as “destined to become a rock star.” Shortly after graduating, she signed a recording contract with Vancouver-based independent label Nettwerk. After a quarter-century, three Grammys and 40 million albums sold, McLachlan’s yearbook prediction looks eerily prescient. She’ll add another feather in her rock-goddess cap when she performs for the first time with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on Aug. 5. Led by guest conductor Leslie Dala, the full 70-member symphony will back McLachlan as she sings and strums some of her biggest hits. The performance kicks off MusicFest Vancouver, a 10-day world, jazz, classical and pop music festival at concert venues throughout the city. The Orpheum, August 5. ticketmaster.ca
In the three decades since Robert Mugabe assumed power in Zimbabwe his deadly combination of violence and vote-rigging has brought that country to the brink of collapse. One component of local culture that has remained strong, however, is stone (or Shona) sculpture. Sculptors carve elegantly stylized figures of people and animals out of native soapstone, serpentine stone and other materials. More than 300 pieces of Zimbabwean Shona sculpture are on display this month at Zimsculpt, an outdoor exhibition and sale set amid the greenery of VanDusen Botanical Garden. Among the master sculptors in town to speak and carve at the event is Patrick Sephani, internationally known for his slender, sensual figures of Zimbabwean women and girls cut from opal stone. VanDusen Botanical Garden, August 12 to September 25. vandusen garden.org
Long before Justin Bieber’s locks were sending tweens into a swoon, Elvis Presley’s oily coiffure was weakening knees across the globe. One 1956 show at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show required no fewer than 50 National Guard recruits to keep screaming fans in bobby socks from clawing the King to shreds. That era of innocent idol worship is fondly recalled in the classic musical Bye Bye Birdie, staged this month in Stanley Park as part of the summer’s Theatre under the Stars lineup. Heartthrob Conrad Birdie is a thinly disguised Elvis, just drafted and set to perform one last time on the Ed Sullivan Show. Harmless drama, fast pacing and hummable tunes make for a perfectly saccharine summer comedy, with nary a hint of contemporary, Gaga-esque controversy. Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park, odd days through August 19 (alternating with Anything Goes). tuts.ca