NO HAY BANDA To Tour Steven Kazuo Takasugi's Theatrical Octet SIDESHOW Across Canada This Fall

Canada's leading experimental music collective, NO HAY BANDA, is set to tour Steven Kazuo Takasugi's theatrical octet Sideshow this fall to Montreal (0ctober 31), Toronto (November 2 & 3), and Victoria (November 5), with a final stop in Vancouver as part of Music on Main's Modulus Festival on November 8. See more information below, or visit nohaybanda.ca for more details.

Sideshow is an hour-long theatrical work for chamber octet, electronic amplification, and playback. Based on the dark sideshows of Coney Island's amusement parks in the early part of the 20th century, Sideshow merges music theatre and chamber music performance in an uncanny spectacle. The work is also a meditation on virtuosity, entertainment, business, and the sacrifices one makes to survive in the world.

Sideshow was originally composed over the course of six years (2009-2015) for NYC's Talea Ensemble. Montreal's NO HAY BANDA was the second ensemble ever to perform Sideshow, and has been the only group to present it in Canada.

Says NO HAY BANDA's Noam Bierstone: "In Sideshow, music does not accompany the theatre, but rather, music is the theatre, transforming the musicians into actors themselves. Every single movement performed by the musicians is exploited as a theatrical tool, and enhanced with extra-musical facial expressions and actions. Sideshow is programmatic, representational, provocative, humorous, strange, grotesque, and extreme; it is a unique and audacious work that deserves to be experienced by live audiences across the country.

"No Hay Banda's Sideshow tour through Canada is a particular delight for me," adds Takasugi. "It is obvious to many in our field that Canadians have an especially healthy and vibrant appreciation for eccentricity and 'thinking outside the box' when it comes to contemporary music. And No Hay Banda's members are virtuosi in this regard, always open and enthusiastic for the strange, the unfamiliar, and all that which defies convention. They bring a particularly visceral interpretation to Sideshow, that you feel it cracking and simmering in your bones."

Sideshow on tour will be performed by:
Jeff Stonehouse, flute
Lori Freedman, clarinet
Yves Charuest, alto saxophone
Geneviève Liboiron, violin
Jean René, viola
Émilie Girard-Charest, cello
Daniel Áñez, piano
Noam Bierstone, solo vocalizing percussionist
with
Steven Kazuo Takasugi, composition, staging
Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière, electronics

SIDESHOW TOURING DATES:

Montreal, QC
Monday, October 31
Doors at 7:30pm, show 8:00pm with opening act Sola Nkani
La Sala Rossa, 4848 boul. Saint-Laurent
Tickets ($15-$20): casadelpopolo.com

Toronto, ON
Wednesday, November 2 & Thursday, November 3, 8 pm
The Array Space, 155 Walnut Ave.
Tickets ($15-$20): https://www.tickettailor.com/events/productionsnohaybanda/755630

Victoria, BC
Saturday, November 5, 8 pm
Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, University of Victoria, MacLaurin Building, B-Wing
Tickets at the door ($10-$20):
https://finearts.uvic.ca/music/calendar/events/guest-concert-no-hay-banda/

Vancouver, BC
Tuesday, November 8, 7:30 pm
THE ROUNDHOUSE, 181 Roundhouse Mews
Part of Music on Main's Modulus Festival
Tickets: Musiconmain.ca

The concert run time is approximately 60 minutes, with no intermission.

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