Kamloops This Week
The 13th annual Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition is planned for Saturday, March 5.
Registration forms are available at tru.ca/science/news/annual/popsicle.html.
The event is sponsored by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. and by Thompson Rivers University.
Entry is free and cash prizes will be awarded.
There are several categories available, from elementary students to professional members.
Another act named for summer festival
Singer-songwriter Amy Helm — yes, she’s Levon’s daughter — released a chart-topping debut album, Didn’t It Rain, this year to glowing reviews.
The solo release wasn’t her first foray into the music business, however; she has recorded with the group Ollabelle and worked on her late father’s shows and recordings until his death three years ago. Levon’s drumming can be heard on three tracks on the album.
Next year, Helm will be on the road and one of her stops will the Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival, bringing along her band The Handsome Strangers.
Also recently announced for the event is Canadian indie-folk-roots band Great Lake Swimmers — Tony Dekker, Erik Arnesen, Miranda Mulholland, Bret Higgins and Joshua Van Tassel.
The band’s been recording and performing for more than a decade and, in agreeing to come to the festival, told organizers it wants to do more than perform so it will front some of the workshops that help make up the weekend.
The festival runs from Aug. 19 to Aug. 21 at the Salmon Arm fairgrounds.
Stay classy, enter
contest
The Piano Hero contest sponsored by CBCMusic.ca and IciMusique.ca is back.
The competition, open to any pianist, will accept videos of musicians performing a classical piece beginning on Monday, Jan. 11.
The top prize this year is a Steinway-designed Boston professional upright piano, plus a trip for two to Montreal from April 21 to April 24, where the winner will have private lessons with pianist David Jalbert and a video-recording session produced by the CBC/Radio-Canada.
Videos can be submitted online at http://music.cbc.ca/#!/Piano-Hero.
The public will be able to vote for their favourite performer after the competition begins. The online voting site is cbcmusic.ca/pianohero. Also judging will be classical pianists Angela Cheng, Jan Lisiecki and Yannick Nezet-Seguin.