Thursday night’s Conflunce Concerts show at Heliconian Hall was titled Songs from Toronto and consisted of songs by Toronto singer-songwriters arranged for a larger ensemble by Andrew Downing.  And by larger ensemble I mean various combinations of string trio, double bass, guitars of sundry varieties, vibraphone and piano.  To further spice things up some of the songs were sung by Teiya Kasahara who is a rather different Fach than the average singer in this genre.

I have very limited exposure to Toronto’s singer-songer writer community (I didn’t even know it was a “thing”) and so it’s hard to assess where last night departed from some sort of norm or not or to assess whether arranging for a larger ensemble enhanced the experience or detracted from the intimate nature of someone singing their own stuff in their own way.  FWIW I do have a fair bit of experience with singer-song writer music from the British isles and Atlantic Canada and I know that can work pretty well with a band.  Think Liza Carthy or Billy Bragg for example.

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