Brilliant acoustic guitarist Don Ross and talented singer-songwriter Brooke Miller return to the Waverley Hotel in Cumberland on Sept. 29.
In 1988, Don Ross won the U.S. National Fingerstyle Guitar Competition.
This earned him a fair amount of media attention back home in Canada, and within days he was scouted to record for Toronto-based independent record label Duke Street Records. He recorded his debut for the label, Bearing Straight, which was released in 1989.
Don won the fingerstyle competition in the USA for a second time in 1996. To this day, he is still the only player to have won the competition twice.
Signing with Narada Records in 1999, Don released his first completely solo-guitar CD, Passion Session. Recorded in a series of overnight sessions in Berlin’s Passionskirche (The Church of the Passion), the CD has gone on to top many of the “all time best acoustic guitar recordings” lists in publications like Acoustic Guitar Magazine.
Some of the compositions on Passion Session, such as “Michael, Michael, Michael,” “Klimbim,” and “Tight Trite Night” have become standards in world guitar repertoire. Huron Street (2001) and Robot Monster (2003) followed, showcasing the depth of Don’s compositional history as well as his ongoing interest in electronic music, through collaborations with Berlin composer Christoph Bendel.
Don has toured regularly since 1989, across Canada, the USA, a dozen European countries, Japan, Taiwan, China, Australia, Russia and India. He has played with symphony orchestras in Canada and Germany, and collaborated live and on recording with Andy McKee, and Toronto bassist Jordan O’Connor.
He also composes scores for television, radio and film, and does production and recording engineering for a variety of other musicians. In addition to acoustic guitar, Don also plays electric guitar, slide dobro and lapsteel guitar, voice, piano, keyboards, bass guitar and drums.
Don grew up in Montreal, lived for many years in the Toronto area, spent the past several years in Halifax, and now is based in both Montreal and Berlin.
Brooke Miller’s career began on Prince Edward Island in a loud punk band as the lead guitarist and vocalist at the ripe old age of 12. She later connected with music by the likes of Bruce Cockburn, Rickie Lee Jones, The Police and Joni Mitchell.
She has toured throughout Canada, the U.S., Europe and Japan. Brooke has just released her fourth CD, her first to be distributed nationally in Canada through DEP/Universal. It features Brooke on acoustic and electric guitars and vocals with an array of guest musicians from Toronto and Halifax.
Brooke’s tunes have been heard in recent feature films (The Year of Getting to Know Us), and on hit television shows (The L Word and Women’s Murder Club). She won the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals’ 2007 Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award.
Brooke and her family live in Halifax.
Tickets for the Sept. 29 gig at the Waverley are available at Bop City, the Waverley Hotel or by phoning 250-336-8322. Doors open at 9:30 p.m.
— Cumberland Village Works