From Luminato to NXNE

Toronto’s Sultans of String — from left, Drew Birston, Chris McKhool, Kevin Laliberte and Eddie Paton (percussionist Chendy Leon, not show) — performed at David Pecaut Square last night as part of the festival’s daily free concert series. The talented instrumental crew jumps from one festival to another when it steps out at The 918 on Friday as part of NXNE. The 17th annual indie music fest is storming Toronto stages all week (through June 19) with an astonishing 650 bands; a 5-day wrist band is yours for $50.

MoMA Masterpieces Dazzle at AGO

MoMA Director Glenn Lowry is obviously biased but when he describes Abstract Expressionist New York as a “killer exhibition,” he’s not exaggerating. Lowry and MoMA curator Ann Temkin joined AGO CEO Matthew Teitelbaum this morning to kick off a media preview of the summer blockbuster which opens Saturday (May 28) and runs until September 4.

Drawn entirely from The Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, Abstract Expressionist New York features more than 100 major works from Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, among others. For anyone interested in contemporary art the show is a must; to see Pollock’s Number 1A, above, on a computer screen is one thing, but to stand in front of the nearly 9′ wide canvas is to be washed away by the intensity of the artist’s expression. What’s more, there are 13 Pollocks in the show, which lend real insight into how the artist’s style evolved from the 1930s through the 1950s.

The exhibition also features stunning, large-scale works by lesser known talents like Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, David Smith, Clyfford Still, and Canadian-born Philip Guston. Several other works by Guston accompany Patterson Ewen: Inspiration and Influences up on the Gallery’s fifth floor until June 19.

Wildlife Strikes Hard

Toronto rock outfit Wildlife pulls into Sneaky Dee’s Thursday (May 26) for one last local show before hitting the road for points south and west. The indie alt-rock quintet is touring behind Strike Hard, Young Diamond, a 12-track collection that’s being favourably compared to Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, among others.

In fact, the comparisons are so pervasive I couldn’t not bring them up when I sat down for coffee with frontman Dean Povinsky, above centre, yesterday. But the singer and songwriter took the grilling in stride: “Sonically I don’t think we sound like Arcade Fire,” he says, “but the emotional space a lot of our songs fill is similar to the space their music fills.”

“We’re just so close to our music that I don’t really hear the similarity. I love Arcade Fire, everybody loves that band, they’re incredible. They write wicked songs and they sound really BIG, which is something we aspire to. I don’t always see or hear it but I’ll take it as a compliment, we could do a lot worse.” READ MORE

Slow Burn Ignites InsideOut

Despite a successful career as a still photographer shooting pro sports, live music and celebs, it’s filmmaking that really excites Toronto’s Christine Chew, left. Her latest short, Slow Burn, debuts at the InsideOut LGBT Film Festival Saturday (May 28) and Chew is thrilled to be showing to a hometown crowd, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox no less.

Slow Burn is a quirky dramedy, a lesbian Western about a mysterious woman who wants to mark a transition in her life with a new tattoo. Two sultry female tattoo artists face-off for the right to ink the sexy stranger. It’s all very tongue in cheek, not laugh out loud funny but sly and ironic.

“I always wanted to make films,” says Chew, “but I thought I needed to wait awhile before I was ready to play with others.”

“When you’re shooting stills you’re much more in control at every stage,” she observes, “but film is one of the most collaborative art forms, which makes it the most exciting and also the most challenging.” READ MORE

All Aboard For The Railway Children

Theatrical producer Rob Richardson isn’t shovelling coal when he says that Roundhouse Park is the best site in North America for the debut of British hit show, The Railway Children. With its turntable track changer and ample green space, Roundhouse Park has everything the play needed to permit the erection of a giant white tent into which an old-fashioned steam engine could be pulled and withdrawn at critical points during the show.

The train in question is a 200-plus year old locomotive nicknamed Vicky, which was shipped by sea from the U.K. to Montreal and then by truck to Toronto. Together with her coal tender, Vicky tips the scale at 86 tons, an incredible load for a site that stands directly above the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Sorting out the load-bearing capacity of the site was one of Richardson’s first orders of business when David Mirvish approached him last year about the possibility of bringing The Railway Children to Toronto. The show is part of the Mirvish subscription package but the company is not directly involved with the production of the show. Richardson’s company, Marquis Entertainment, was responsible for virtually all of the local logistics. READ MORE