Wednesday 18 November 2015

Rare Opportunity to meet Hadley and Maxwell at the Art Gallery of Hamilton Friday

Social Media Influencers Night


Friday, November 20
6:00 p.m.

 



 are you experienced? exhibition artists Hadley+Maxwell

You and your guests are invited to attend a special social media influencers event on Friday, November 20 from 6:00 to 7:00pmbefore our public artist talk begins. Wander 8000 square feet of immersive and spectacular contemporary art installations, with the freedom to snap away and share your pics with your followers.  Meet the are you experienced? exhibition artists Hadley+Maxwell, curator Melissa Bennett and catalogue contributors Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick! Cash bar.

6:00 to 7:00 p.m. | Social Media Influencers event, by invitation only
7:00 p.m. | Artist’s talk, open to the public
8:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. | Exhibition tour with the speakers
See a short video interview with Hadley + Maxwell filmed earlier this year at the Hamilton Art Gallery. George Socka. https://youtu.be/ODPAZsKDt2g


A RARE OPPORTUNITY TO MEET HADLEY + MAXWELL. ALWAY IN DEMAND, THE CANADIAN ARTISTS ARE NOW BASE IN BERLIN

Hadley+Maxwell’s installations, performances and writings, employ diverse media to rework iconic images and traditional forms as they are expressed in pop-cultural, artistic and political movements. They cut into reified narratives via direct touch, transposition and refiguration, putting into play the absences cast in relief.
Hadley+Maxwell have been collaborating since they met in Vancouver, Canada, in 1997. Public presentations of their work have included solo exhibitions at Artspeak (Vancouver), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Kunstverein Göttingen (Germany), Smart Project Space (Amsterdam), and Project Art Centre, Dublin, and group exhibitions at galleries and festivals including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Kunstraum München, the Power Plant (Toronto), the National Gallery of Canada, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, La Kunsthalle Mulhouse (France), Witte de With (Rotterdam), the 4th Marrakech Biennale and the 19th Biennale of Sydney. They are currently working on a major public art commission for Waterfront, Toronto. Hadley+Maxwell live and work in Berlin, Germany.




123 King Street West | Hamilton ON | L8P 4S8
Visitor Info
T: 905.527.6610 | F: 905.577.6940

E: info@artgalleryofhamilton.com 

Monday 16 November 2015

Christmas Season Comedy Music Edition of the popular Sunday Jam

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 15, 2015

Jay Martin
Sunday Jam: The Comedy and Music Edition
A great holiday package of Laughter and Music.

Sunday, December 27, 2015 Show Time :4:30 pm
Seven 44 Restaurant and Lounge TORONTO, ON


Its two Jays and an Arthur and many others in between for the holiday Sunday Jam which will be held late afternoon and evening, Sunday, December 27 at the Seven 44 Restaurant and Lounge in midtown Toronto (Mt. Pleasant and Eglinton Avenue).  The Sunday Jam features two of the hottest Caribbean and African Canadian comics in the business along with Toronto’s king of reggae and a talented guest artiste!

Comedians Jay Martin and Arthur Simeon will perform on stage as will Canadian reggae pioneer Jay Douglas and his All Star Band.  It’s laughs. It’s reggae, ska, soul and R and B. It’s for everyone (over the age of 19). 

Jay Martin has the ability to engage and entertain audiences with his clean yet hilarious comedy routines, Martin has carved a niche that no other comedian can fill quite like him. His skill and range in a number of areas has coined him the nickname of Canada’s Renaissance Man, and he wears it well.

Martin has had the opportunity to host & open for a number of top acts such as Russell Peters, Kirk Franklin, Jamie Foxx, and Cedric The Entertainer. He has also produced a number of successful shows over his 10-year career like the Jay Martin Uptown Comedy Series, the Trinidad vs. Jamaica Mother’s Day Show, and Three The Hard Way.
 
Arthur Simeon

Arthur Simeon is a stand-up comedian based in Toronto. The 32-year was born and educated in Uganda. He moved to Canada as a teenager where he turned to stand-up comedy to make a living. In June 2007, he headlined the Nubian Disciples of Pryor comedy showcase at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto. Two years later he made his debut appearance at Just for Laughs as part of the Homegrown Comedy Competition. In 2010, he was featured as the cover story of NOW in Toronto. He has appeared at the Halifax Comedy Festival for CBC Television, as well as the Winnipeg and Cottage Country Comedy festivals.

He is a fan favorite on the CBC Radio hit show The Debaters. 

Jay Douglas and his All-Stars on stage at Seven 44

Toronto audiences know Jamaican born Jay Douglas as a founding member of The Cougars and as the man with the golden voice.   A dynamic singer and animated performer, Jay Douglas commands the stage with a wide-ranging arsenal of R&B, Soul, Top 40, Motown, popular hits from the past four decades, contemporary big band classics, blues and Caribbean traditional favourites.
 Douglas has shared the stage with a veritable Who's Who of major stars, including R&B legends Fats Domino, Joe Tex, Percy Sledge, Freda Payne, Dorothy Moore, Cissy Houston, bluesman Roscoe Gordon, The Manhattans, Peaches and Herb, reggae legends Freddie McGregor, Burning Spear, Toots and the Maytals, Sly and Robbie, Ziggy Marley, Ernest Ranglin, The Blues Busters, calypso king The Mighty Sparrow to name but a few/

Also singing on the bill is Toni Anderson.  A gifted gospel singer she has sung with Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Patty La Belle, Sting, Paul Anka, Tom Cochrane, Gregory Isaacs and Barrington Levy. She is also known for her roles in Da Kink in my Hair (UK), and Disney’s The Lion King in Toronto.  Toni also released her soulful, jazzy, reggae, album “You are the One” that was nominated at the Canadian Reggae Music Awards for best album of the year.

Jay is bandleader of the All Star band, which is backing the show. The M.C for show is Danae Peart, station manager of Toronto’s ---Vibe FM and DJ Henry of Henry’s Records will provide music for the after-party.

The Sunday Jam: The Comedy Edition Show is produced By SWA Associates in partnership with JN Money Transfer. Tickets are $35.00 in advance and $45.00 at the door.
For info & tickets: Call 416 573- 1375 or email sandra.whiting@ bell.net

Ticket Outlets:
Seven 44 Restaurant //744 Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto,  (416) 489-7931
A Different Booklist//746 Bathurst Street 416-538-0889
Henry’s Records//130 Shorting Rd, Scar 416-297-5585
JN Money Services/1633 Eglinton Ave. W 416-784-2075
Online:

MEDIA CONTACTS
Sandra Whiting 416 573-1375
Release issued by Stephen Weir, 416-489-5868 Stephen@stephenweir.com


Friday 13 November 2015

Tings Go Better With Sponsorship. Off-the-Wall ideas for the Caribbean Carnival


SPONSORSHIP AND THE CARIBBEAN FESTIVAL

I am not involved in the search for a new sponsor of the annual Toronto Caribbean Carnival. If I were I would probably be promoting the philosophy of thinking outside the box. Recognizing that there aren't many companies that can committed to investing BIG money in the annual festival this year, I would push the idea of finding two companies willing to join together and invest a SMALLER serving of money to feed to the Caribbean festival rather than coming up with the whole roti!

Might not be that hard to partner two competing companies to support and market a festival that attracts over a million, young hip urban people to downtown Toronto. There are also millions who watch it all on TV, online and of course through social media. This is the perfect place to launch a new slogan for the festival and its two NEW non-alcoholic drink partners.
I am suggesting that Jamaican bottlers Desnoes and Geddes Lrd work with Atlanta based Coca-Cola to be the presenting sponsor of the parade under the banner TINGS GO BETTER WITH COCA-COLA. (of course truth be told D&G produces one of Jamaica's best-known exports, Red Stripe beer, but sold off the rights to Ting to the UK's PepsiCo in 1999. Oops, but hey, I am just the ideas man!).

Tings Go Better With Coke!



OTHER SPONSORSHIP BIG IDEAS AND BIG PARTNERS

Friday Night's Pan Aleve!


I believe the Festival should work to get a drug company to sponsor the annual Friday night Steel Drum competition at Lamport Stadium. Now loud music can cause headaches, so, with this sponsor target we will have to change the name of the event to Pan Aleve!
Party Downy



Big name Soca Stars make big money in Toronto  in terms of royalties and appearances when their music is used on the road.  Machel Montano and singer Angela Hunte  can give back to the parade and enhance their brand by working with fabric softener maker Proctor and Gamble to sponsor the festival's final event of the year - the Island Family Picnic

The pair could donate a new tag line to the island family gathering.  This event is often called "THE LAST LAP". With their star power and P and G dollars, the new line could be Party Downy!



Highway 407 is now billing drivers with American licence plates who travel on the privately owned freeway. The highway could sponsor a carnival event and put their brand in front of over 250,000 US visitors who drive to Toronto every summer for the big party.  To cut costs they can team with Pizza 
967- Oh- 4 -OH - 7 Hey Hey

Pizza to sponsor the Malvern based Kiddies Parade.  

Of course it will mean having to move the Junior Carnival Parade a bit north to 407. 2,000 kids will love dancing along the slow lane of 407 one Saturday in early July. The young revellers  will have no trouble remembering the catchy slogan they should adopt. 967- Oh- 4 -OH - 7 Hey Hey.

Tuesday 3 November 2015

Susan Pedersen wins the Cundill Prize!


Inline image

The Guardians wins Cundill Prize in Historical Literature
Susan Pedersen wins coveted $75,000 US grand prize
                    
November 3, 2015 – The winner of the 2015 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature at McGill was announced last night at a gala awards dinner held in Toronto. Now in its eighth year, the Cundill Prize is the world’s most lucrative international award for a nonfiction book.  The Guardians took home the top prize of US$75,000. 

Dr. Susan Pedersen is a professor of history at Columbia University in the US.  She was born in Japan to Canadian missionaries. She continues to be a Canadian citizen.

Susan Pedersen’s The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire is a riveting work of global history.  At the end of the First World War, the Paris Peace Conference saw a battle over the future of empire. The victorious allied powers wanted to annex the Ottoman territories and German colonies, Woodrow Wilson and a groundswell of anti-imperialist activism stood in their way. The countries reluctantly agreed to hold and administer those allied conquests under the new League of Nations. The Guardiansenables us to see the League with new eyes, and in doing so, appreciate how complex, multivalent, and consequential this first great experiment in internationalism really was.
There were three international finalists in the running for this year’s prize. The three are American historianSven Beckert for his book, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Alfred A. Knopf), Canadian historianSusan Pedersen – The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford University Press) and German philosopher Bettina Stangneth – Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer (Bodley Head).  The finalists were selected from 159 submissions received from publishers worldwide.
In addition to the winner, the two remaining finalists were each awarded a “Recognition of Excellence” prize of US$10,000. 
Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton: A Global History is an epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality to the world economy, and its making and remaking of global capitalism. “Cotton is so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible, yet understanding its history is key to understanding the origins of modern capitalism” writes Sven Beckert. The award winning historian tells the story of how European entrepreneurs and powerful statesmen recast the world’s most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to change the world.
Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer provides the world with, for the first time, a true understanding of the Manager of the Holocaust, Adolf   Eichmann.  Hamburg-based philosopher Belinda Stangneth has used previously unmined archival sources, particularly Eichmann’s own compulsive notes made in exile, in conjunction with a recently discovered series of taped conversations to give a  chilling portrait  not of  a  reclusive, taciturn  war  criminal  on  the  run in Argentina,  but  of  a highly  skilled manipulator with an inexhaustible ability to reinvent himself, an unrepentant mass-murderer eager for acolytes to discuss past glories and political plans for the future.
“Celebrating the vital work of historians and the role of history in our societies is fundamental to the core values of the Cundill Prize.  McGill University is proud to administer the Cundill Prize and we are delighted with the quality of the books that were entered,” said Prof. Hudson Meadwell, who serves as Administrative Chair of the Cundill Prize. “Each year we see growing interest in this Prize.  The Prize will continue to identify and to reward those works that shape our historical understanding of the world.”
This year’s Cundill jury includes Anthony Cary, British Commissioner of the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan; David Frum, author and editor for The Atlantic; Chad Gaffield, University of Ottawa Professor of History and University Research Chair in Digital Scholarship; Maya Jasanoff, Coolidge Professor of History and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University  (Liberty’s Exiles:  American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World); and author Anna Porter, (Buying a Better World: George Soros and Billionaire Philanthropy, The Ghosts of Europe) winner of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
About the Prize: The Cundill Prize in Historical Literature at McGill is the world’s most important international nonfiction literature prize. It was established in 2008 by McGill alumnus F. Peter Cundill, who passed away in January 2011. The prize is administered by McGill University’s Dean of Arts, with the help of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC), and is awarded annually to an individual who has published a book determined to have had a profound literary, social and academic impact in the area of history.  
Contacts:
TORONTO:
Stephen Weir & Associates
Stephen@stephenweir.com
416-801-3101 416-489-5868
www.mcgill.ca
Cynthia Lee,
McGill University
cynthia.lee@mcgill.ca 
514-398-6754
For more information: www.cundillprize.com
Follow us on Twitter: @CundillPrize    
www.mcgill.ca

STEPHEN WEIR
Stephen Weir & Associates | stephen@stephenweir.com
109 Castlefield Avenue, Toronto, ON
CANADA. M4R 1G5
Tel: 416-489-5868 | cell: 416-801-3101
www.stephenweir.com twitter: sweirsweir