Who: Allison Crowe
When: Thursday, Dec. 27, 8 p.m.
Where: MY Millennium Place
Tickets: $22/$19
Last year’s show in Whistler during the holidays will be a hard act to follow for Allison Crowe.
Not that the singer/songwriter’s soulful voice and piano isn’t up for it, especially after her success at the Lennon Northern Lights Festival, where an encore performance was demanded. Her song Halleluiah is also being looked at for a major motion picture.
Why this year’s trip to Whistler to perform both at an intimate solo performance at MY Millennium Place and on the mainstage during First Night celebrations may fall a little short (a few heart beats short) of last year’s is because something much more momentous than Christmas and New Year’s Eve took place.
“I got engaged in Whistler last Christmas Eve,” Crowe explains.
Her fiancée, Angus McAlpine, flew from Newfoundland to spend the holidays with Crowe last year. His marriage proposal was planned beautifully; however, his flight wasn’t.
Thirteen hours late, McAlpine dragged himself into Whistler at 4 a.m. His luggage lost, he had nothing, but four words.
“He proposed to me at 4:30 in the morning,” Crowe said, laughing. “He had it all planned. He had dinner reservations. The whole thing.”
McAlpine will accompany Crowe on her next visit to Whistler with even more glad Tidings.
She will perform songs from her albums Tidings and The Little Bird on Thursday, Dec. 27 at 8 p.m. at MY Millennium Place as well as Monday, Dec. 31 during First Night celebrations in Village Square.
Crowe returns home to Canada from Europe, where she was a hit sensation at the John Lennon Northern Lights Festival in Scotland. Her performance, labeled “ awesome” and “ spine–tingling” by the festival director, brought down the house — an audience which included John Lennon’s family alongside the Queen’s Master of Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.
A few songs to look forward to in Allison Crowe’s Tidings showcase include a jazzy rendition of In the Bleak Mid Winter and a gospel-driven O Holy Night, rounding off a night with songs of joy, peace and redemption. Her renditions of songs by The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Sarah McLachlan also join the lineup.
Tidings was originally created as a one-hour television special aired on Chum’s A-Channel network three years ago. Chum TV will re-air the special on Christmas Day this year at 8 p.m. The special became an album, with the Toronto Sun giving it four stars, something it has bestowed upon only one other holiday release — The Christmas Collection from Frank Sinatra.
“The high concept seasonal sampler is a triumph,” raved Joseph Blake of the Victoria Times Colonist.
Crowe’s Tidings concert Dec. 27 at 8 p.m. at MY Millennium Place is part of the Real Canadian in Whistler series, a program celebrating Canada through performing and visual arts and cultural activities.
Tickets for the MY Place event are $22 for adults and $19 for students and seniors. For tickets, call 604 935 8410, visit Millennium Place or ticketmaster.ca .
