Inspired by the imagination of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman is an original musical that celebrates the birth of show business & tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
“…show business? I’ve never heard of it.” “‘Cause I just invented it.” Hugh Jackman stars as P.T. Barnum in this feel good musical inspired by the world famous circus founder. Also starring Michelle Williams, Zac Efron and Zendaya. Premieres 12/25/17.
Announced today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau will take to the WE Day Canada stage, July 2, 2017 on Parliament Hill. Alongside previously released speakers and performers, including Barenaked Ladies, Marc Dupré, Nelly Furtado, Hedley, Tom Jackson, Governor General of Canada David Johnston, Alex Nevsky, Lilly Singh, Les Trois Accords, Margaret Trudeau and more. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau will address tens of thousands of young people and their families expected in attendance at the live, public, outdoor celebration.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is taking over WE’s Instagram today. Follow along here.
Also announced today, a special guest will make a surprise appearance on the evening of July 2. This extraordinary Canadian musical and cultural icon will take to the WE Day stage for an emotional and unforgettable moment. Follow WE’s social channels for ongoing updates.
Taking place July 2, 2017 from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. EDT on Parliament Hill, WE Day Canada — the first-ever outdoor festival WE Day event of its kind — will inspire young people and their families across the country to unite, step up and build a stronger and more caring and compassionate future Canada over the next 150 years. Ready to build a stronger future together, exceptional Canadian youth paired with iconic national celebrities and thought leaders will take to the WE Day Canada stage of the free public event for an evening of epic performances, inspiring speeches and incredible celebration.
For more than 20 years, WE has empowered young Canadian change-makers from coast to coast. WE Day — launched in Canada in 2007 — is a powerful global series of life-changing events that bring young people together through service to celebrate the impacts they have made on their local and global communities. As a Canada 150 signature event, WE Day Canada will close out the long-weekend celebrations by setting the stage for the next 150 years.
The full list of WE Day Canada hosts, performers and speakers announced to date includes:
Hosts: Tyrone Edwards, Jus Reign, Maripier Morin, Kardinal Offishall, Nicolas Ouellet and Chloe Wilde
Performers: Mustafa Ahmed, Barenaked Ladies, Marc Dupré, Nelly Furtado, Hedley, Tom Jackson, Celebrity Marauders, Alex Nevsky, Lilly Singh, The Tenors, and Les Trois Accords
Speakers: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, and Sara Abdessamie, Hannah Alper, Dalal Al-Waheidi, Annie Bartlett, Jeffrey Beausoleil, National Chief Perry Bellegarde, Émilie Bierre, Amelie Boissoneau, Caleb Burt, Michel Chikwanine, Michael “Pinball” Clemons, Kaiya and Aiyana Leonard La Couvée, Roméo Dallaire, Alexandre Despatie, Hassan Guillet, Chris Hadfield, Rick Hansen, Aqsa Hussain, Camille Ingles-Fortier, Governor General of Canada David Johnston, Sinthusha Kandiah, Craig and Marc Kielburger, Simon Keith, Tracie Leost, Massi Mahiou, Connor McKiggan, Elliot Miville–Deschênes, Hani Al Moulia, Ashley Murphy, President Natan Obed, Penny Oleksiak, Steve Patterson, Chantal Petitclerc, Anya Pogharian, Joannie Rochette, Mila Solaja, Tedario Speranza, P.K. Subban, Jacob Tremblay, Margaret Trudeau, Masai Ujiri, Dr. Stanley Vollant, and Pearl Wenjack.
Canadians from across the country can take part in WE Day Canada by watching the event roll out live on WE’s Facebook page. WE Day Canada will also be taped for a special broadcast airing Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 7 p.m. EDT on CTV and Friday, July 14, 2017 at 9 p.m. EDT on MUCH.
Nine Inch Nails performed at the old Roadhouse in Twin Peaks as the house band of sorts, at the request of old friend, series creator, David Lynch.
Zveki put together this fantastic mashup of music from Phil Collins, Michael Jackson, and The Weeknd. The track blends together Starboy, In the Air Tonight, and They Don’t Care About Us, re-titled as They Don’t Care About the Starboy in the Air.
All photos taken by Mini’s Memories. You can contact her at minismemories@hotmail.com
Based in Toronto, Crow’s Theatre has been a leading force in the Canadian theatre landscape, recognized for provocative and award-winning new theatre work. One show in particular this year will be attracting a lot of attention.
A&R Angels is a rock-fable by Kevin Drew, co-founder and de facto bandleader of Canada’s baroque-pop collective Broken Social Scene. A now prolific music creator in Canada and internationally – Drew has written the book and songs of A&R Angels and is also co-starring in the premiere with a talented ensemble, including punk rock band Billy Talent’s energetic and multi-talented front man Ben Kowalewicz.
Straddling our world and the afterlife, Loud Angel (Kevin Drew) and Soft Angel (Ben Kowalewicz) have been pulling people back from the brink with their music for decades. But times have changed. The appreciation of the well-crafted song has languished, and with it the A&R Angels’ powers of persuasion. The past 12 suicides they’ve been tasked to prevent … have not gone well. Have they lost their touch? Or have we all stopped believing in a song’s power to pick us up from rock bottom? The A&R Angels have only one shot left before being eternally benched by the higher-ups: can they write that killer song that will give life to the living?
The production will open on November 20 and run until December 9, and for tickets, go here.
It’s Grammy time! If you are a voting member of The Recording Academy your deadline to submit music via their Online Entry Process is as follows:
July 3: Member and Media Company First Round submissions OPEN. (For releases from October 1, 2016 to September. 30, 2017)
July 17: Member and Media Company First Round submissions CLOSES.
July 31: All Members must be active in order to submit product for GRAMMY consideration.
August 9: Member and Media Company Final Round submissions OPEN.
August 23: Member and Media Company Final Round submissions CLOSES.
September 15: All Members must be active to receive a FIRST-round ballot.
November 15: All Members must be active to receive a FINAL-round ballot, and the opportunity to purchase GRAMMY Awards Telecast tickets.
If you are NOT a voting member but you are a “Registered Media Company/Record Label” with The Recording Academy, you are invited to submit music for consideration, but are ineligible to vote in the GRAMMY Awards process.
Want to become a voting member? Click here! It only costs $100 to become a member/voter!
Ramin Djawadi, a musician most known for composing the music for Game of Thrones, shared his thoughts around how he scores a soundtrack for such a varied series. Like the very best of musical directors and instrumentalists, he continues to stride the line between introducing the audience to a new theme song or background music, but in such a way as to not overwhelm the audience and being a distraction to the action onscreen.
The biggest challenge was just finding the right tone for the show, that when you hear the score, that you know this is Game of Thrones. From the beginning, we knew we wanted themes, but we also knew that we couldn’t have too many themes right away, because there’s obviously a lot of characters. There’s a lot of different houses, there’s a lot of plots. And if you convolute it too soon, I think it actually would have been confusing for the audience.
Mark Knopfler is a British singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer. He is best known for having been the lead guitarist, lead singer and songwriter for the rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded with his younger brother, David Knopfler, in 1977. He is also a quite spectacular, mixing brooding ballads and smoldering songs about wanting your MTV and the sultan of swing.
Hamilton Uptown/Atlantic Records has announced today’s release of an official companion visual to “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done),” directed by Tomás Whitmore and executive produced by Robert Rodriguez and Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed by K’naan, Snow Tha Product, Riz MC, & Residente of Calle 13, and featured on the groundbreaking #1 album, “THE HAMILTON MIXTAPE.” The visual was introduced this morning by HAMILTON’s Pulitzer Prize, Tony, GRAMMY and Emmy Award-winning creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on NBC’s TODAY. The “Immigrants” video is streaming now via http://www.today.com and the official HAMILTON YouTube channel.
The “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)” visual arrives in time for an exclusive sweepstakes presented in association with Prizeo.com. Fans can enter the contest for as little as $10; with all proceeds benefiting the Immigrants: We Get The Job Done Coalition, an alliance of immigration-focused non-profits throughout the US assembled by The Hispanic Federation. One grand prize winner will be flown and housed with a guest for the long awaited Los Angeles opening of HAMILTON, the star-studded after party, and meet and greet with Miranda. For complete details, please see www.prizeo.com/Hamilton.
In addition, Miranda – with help from Stephen and Ayesha Curry – has also unveiled the #Ham4All Challenge, inviting fans, fellow artists, athletes, and other luminaries to support and raise funds for the Immigrants: We Get The Job Done Coalition by making a donation and singing their favorite song from HAMILTON and then challenging others to do the same. Entrants can then share their video across social media tagging #Ham4All, http://www.prizeo.com/Hamilton, and the subject of the challenge.
Miranda will continue to support the “Immigrants” visual as well as the Prizeo campaign and #Ham4All Challenge with a much-anticipated appearance on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers, set for Thursday, June 29th (check local listings). As if all that weren’t enough, “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)” also kicks off a special “Rise Up Eyes Up Wise Up” playlist created by Miranda and featured on the official HAMILTON Spotify.
“THE HAMILTON MIXTAPE” made a groundbreaking debut atop the SoundScan/Billboard 200 upon its release last year, entering the overall chart at #1 with 187,000 total album equivalent units – the greatest sales week for any compilation since 2012 and the first compilation to hit #1 since 2014.
Executive produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Craig Kallman, Riggs Morales, and The Roots’ Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson & Tarik “Black Thought” Trotter, “THE HAMILTON MIXTAPE” was an immediate sensation, rocketing to #1 on the iTunes Store’s “Top Albums” chart on its first day in release. “THE HAMILTON MIXTAPE” sees songs from the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical covered and remixed by a remarkable cast of contemporary artists. Superstars contributing to the one of its kind collection include Sia, Usher, Common, Alicia Keys, Wiz Khalifa, Chance The Rapper, The Roots, Regina Spektor, Busta Rhymes, Nas, Miguel, Ben Folds, Queen Latifah, Ashanti, Ja Rule, Kelly Clarkson, Jill Scott, and Jimmy Fallon. “THE HAMILTON MIXTAPE” further includes two previously unreleased HAMILTON demos, “Valley Forge” and “Cabinet Battle 3.”
“THE HAMILTON MIXTAPE” – which has received a wide array of praise from publications including Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone and Complex, to name a few – was also heralded by a series of high profile television performances, with Kelly Clarkson offering an emotional rendition of “It’s Quiet Uptown” on NBC’s TODAY and The Roots teaming with Busta Rhymes and Joel Ortiz for an anthemic “My Shot” on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
The winner of the 2016 GRAMMY Award for “Best Musical Theatre Album,” “HAMILTON (ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING),” is available now in stores, DSPs, and streaming services. The 3x RIAA platinum certified album made a stunning arrival on the Billboard charts upon its initial digital release, coming in at #1 on the “Top Broadway Albums” chart, #3 on the “Top Rap Albums” chart, and #9 on the “Top Current Albums” chart. This impressive debut stands as the biggest first week sales for a digital cast recording and the second biggest first week sales ever for any cast recording, behind only “RENT” in the Nielsen SoundScan era. What’s more, “HAMILTON” debuted at #12 on the overall SoundScan/Billboard 200 based on strong album sales, track sales and over 2.1 million streams across all digital service providers. The cast recording’s success was exclaimed as “an eye-popping debut” by Billboard, noting other achievements including the “Largest Debut Sales Week for a Digital Cast Album” and “Highest Charting Cast Album Since 2011.”
The best-selling cast album of 2015, “HAMILTON (ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING)” continued to make chart history in the weeks and months following its arrival. The album eventually ascended to the #1 spot on Billboard’s “Top Rap Albums” – the first and only cast recording to ever reach the chart’s pole position. Fueled by HAMILTON’s triumphant night at the 70th Annual Tony Awards, “HAMILTON (ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING)” climbed to #3 on the overall SoundScan/Billboard 200, marking its first week in the top 10, the highest charting cast recording in five years, and one of only three cast recordings to ever reach the top 10 in the last half century. To date, “HAMILTON (ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING)” stands the 10th best-selling cast recording of the Nielsen SoundScan era.
Produced by Alex Lacamoire, Bill Sherman, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson & Tarik “Black Thought” Trotter, founding members of the GRAMMY®-winning hip-hop band, The Roots, “HAMILTON (ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING)” marks the first album to be mixed and mastered at the legendary Atlantic Records Studio in New York City.
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Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.
Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com
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