JUNO-nominated artist Barbra Lica is fast rising Canadian vocalist and songwriter and has been receiving accolades for a unique approach that stresses subtlety, grace and storytelling. Based in Toronto, Barbra’s live show captivates audiences all over North America with her genuine warmth and confident stage presence. A seasoned act on the Canadian and American club and festival circuits, Barbra Lica has performed everywhere from New York City’s legendary Birdland to Toronto’s prestigious Koerner Hall. She has also headlined at festivals across the continent including Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, Vancouver International Jazz Festival and Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival, and opened for the likes of Christian McBride, Pat Metheny, Bob Dorough, and Terence Blanchard.
Barbra’s debut album That’s What I Do (Triplet / Universal Jazz Japan) was released to widespread acclaim in 2012, ranking her in Canada’s Top 5 Jazz singers on the CBC, as well Top 5 up-and-coming Toronto jazz artists on blogTO. Her band made their Japanese debut live at the Tokyo International Jazz Festival in 2015 for over 1000 audience members. Her first album with Justin Time Records, I'm Still Learning, was released September 2016 and subsequently nominated for a 2017 JUNO Award in the category of “Best Vocal Jazz Album”. Barbra is currently promoting her newest project entitled, You're Fine (Justin Time Records). This album is a collaborative effort between Toronto and Nashvillebased musicians, seamlessly blending jazz, country and folk influences. It includes Barbra's touring band of up-and-coming musicians from across Canada with special guests and country music legends, Paul Franklin (Vince Gill, Shania Twain, Toby Keith) on pedal steel guitar and mutli-instrumentalist Wanda Vick Burchfield (Taylor Swift, Trisha Yearwood, Jason Aldean). "You're Fine" was recorded at Addiction Sound Studios in the heart of Nashville with award-winning Canadian engineer David Kalmusky (John Oates, Journey) and highly-respected Canadian producer/bassist Marc Rogers (The Philosopher Kings, Nikki Yanofsky). This is Barbra’s most ambitious and personal offering to date – it promises to break all the rules while searching for commonalities between musical genres, human experiences and two sides of one border.
Erin Propp & Larry Roy
There is nuance in the everyday. in its layers of love, joy, and hurt, and in its emotional currents ever present. Erin Propp and Larry Roy reach into the everyday and blur the edges, creating works that are at once deeply personal and achingly relatable. These are songs that take it all in, that read between the lines, that hear the subtext, that feel it, that say it out loud.
Their music rings true with nuance and power, with rare clarity and precision. Erin and Larry’s musical abilities are tools of exacting expression, expertly honed. They reach in to resonate. calling the listener inside, sounding the overtones of our shared experience.
Erin and Larry’s album, We Want All the Same Things, is their long-awaited second release, following their 2012 debut stunner, Courage, My Love (2012). Courage was met with praise and acclaim, winning Best Jazz Album of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards (2013), and a Juno nomination in the category of Vocal Jazz Album of the Year (2014).
Erin Propp and Larry Roy can do it all, from charming intimate jazz club sets, to moving concert hall performances, and We Want All the Same Things is certainly poised to bring them there and back again.
We Want All the Same Things is the music that was meant to follow up their touching debut, Courage, My Love. The eight years in between have been a steady motion of honing their craft to speak this new volume of musical perception.