Iconic, Indigenous, LGBTQ Canadian artist, Ferron, leads the way in a very strong lineup of women performers coming to Courtenay’s Old Church Theatre including Connie Kaldor, Irish Mythen, Pharis Romero, April Verch and Suzie Vinnick.
“Ferron’s mainstage set at this summer’s MusicFest was stunning,” reminisces Vancouver Island MusicFest artistic director, Doug Cox. “As was her pre-pandemic sold-out show at the Native Sons Hall. I am so happy she is willing to come play for us again in this intimate setting!”
She will be performing live at the Old Church Theatre on Sept. 23.
When Ferron was 15, she hit the road alone. She had a single shopping bag with a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a waitress uniform, and a Leonard Cohen LP. Little did she know then, but one day her own songs would be compared to Cohen’s for their depth of word craft, intimacy, and wisdom.
“Ferron is no diva. She is a real salt of the earth singer who approaches her art with both sleeves rolled up, ready to dive in,” reads a press release. “She walks her talk with heart exposed, and performs with a courage and commitment that few other artists ever muster. The songs don’t sound composed and sung as much as they feel wrung from the sweat and toil of hard-fought experience.”
In Ferron’s world, the contents of her songs appear as if they’re lived out on the canvas of her life and not just inside the confines of her art. Ferron illuminates the human experience in a way that few artists are capable of. Like fellow Canadian Cohen, Ferron has such self-possession and intuitive command of her material that she can deliver lines that a less experienced singer would never be able to pull off. The weight, poise and gravity that she communicates with each word, each carefully annunciated phrase, is something to marvel at.
With a touring career spanning three decades, the legendary Canadian folk singer Ferron has made her ‘comeback’ in 2008 with the release of her 14th record, Boulder. The release includes inspired performances by mentees Ani DiFranco, Samantha Parton (Be Good Tanyas), The Indigo Girls, and Jd Samson (Le Tigre), and helped generate new awareness for Ferron’s music among the younger generation.
In 2009 the long-awaited documentary, Ferron: Girl on a Road was screened worldwide at film festivals and on television.
Ferron’s songwriting tends to be about finding one’s place in an often-hostile world, and she’s clearly created a supportive community of players and listeners alike. And her message has not gone out of date.
“Maybe it was naive, but when I was younger, I really thought that we could change… Well, the world,” she says. “I don’t know any more what that means, but we all thought things could change through music and through the heart. My trust was in what the heart says, so I was writing songs to that end, and trying to learn how to be a better being—how to analyze my own stuff and make sense of it on kind of a harmonic level.
“Sometimes people think I’m singing about love, but really I’m singing about the cosmos. But wherever you can grab it is where you grab it.”
Grab your tickets for Ferron and all the other shows at www.oldchurchtheatreshows.com