Sarah Kurtis - appreciation from the silent arts lover

Last night I went to see singer Sarah Curtis perform accompanied by the charismatic and delightful guitarist Joel Schwartz at Tranzac

Tranzac ironically stands for 'Toronto Australia and New Zealand Club', though I am not sure where the 'r' comes into it.

The performance was great and I find her music to be very smooth and soothing and apparently it's somewhat of a mix of folk and blue grass. Kurt's comparison to Sarah Harmer was pretty spot on.

As a brief tangent, why are so many Canadian chanteuse called Sarah, be it Harmer, Slean, Kurtis of McLachlan?

As I listened I realized that despite having been gung-ho supportive of and working for the arts for as long as I can remember music is my Achilles heel. My interactions with the arts are focused on the visual arts, writing and museums with a pinch of design, all primarily visually based pursuits. You could say my realm of the arts is predominantly a silent one.

My interest in music has always been transient and superficial, I think I've dabbled in listening to everything relatively equally, and for some reason tunes have never spoken to my soul or assisted in shaping my identity as it has for other people.

Being asked what music I was into when I was at high school almost constituted a form of torture. I could never really answer the question, not because I was trying to avoid the classification that comes with it at that age, but more because I could never commit sufficiently to anything in particular. Music for me tended to be more like my 'life sound track' changing according to my context and mood and didn't really hold any consistency of style.

That being said, one of my few regrets is that I do not know how to play a musical instrument. I imagine I will eventually do something about this and can already see myself, in my twilight years, hammering away at the piano keys practicing my scales whilst simultaneously causing other people aural pain.

So with all of that in mind I have to say I did indeed enjoy last night's show. I can't go into detail about the skill level of the musicians or the complication of the composition, but I can say I liked it, and on a gloomy evening filled with rain it suited the context perfectly.