Anna-Lisa Kirby sings Leonard Cohen at the Park, March 31 2012

SATURDAY, MARCH 31
8 PM
PARK THEATRE
(698 OSBORNE ST.)

SOLD OUT!!

Over the past decades, Leonard Cohen has taken his place as a cultural icon. His songs, with their disturbing lyrics and singable melodies, have moved into our consciousness as a signature of our time—anxious, tough-minded, and surprisingly vulnerable.

Over the past couple of years, Anna-Lisa Kirby has been bringing crowds to their feet with her powerful performances of “Hallelujah” and “Bird on a Wire,” two of Leonard Cohen’s signature songs. Last year, she performed a full concert of Cohen’s work to a packed house at the inaugural Tarbut Festival of Jewish Culture, and the response was resoundingly positive. For this concert, she revisits that material, and explores even more of the poet-songwriter’s repertoire. Expect to be pulled in with compelling arrangements of “Suzanne,” “Famous Blue Raincoat,” “Tower of Song,” and “Dance Me to the End of Love.”

Anna-Lisa has the voice and dramatic intensity to do justice to Cohen’s brooding lyrics, and the simplicity of these songs offers ample room to showcase her extraordinary band: Steve Kirby on bass, Jimmy Greene on saxophone, Derrick Gardner on trumpet, Will Bonness on piano, Larry Roy on guitar, and Quincy Davis on drums.

“Anna-Lisa Sings Leonard Cohen” heats up the Park Theatre on March 31, 8pm. Last year’s sold-out concert is a good indication that tickets will fly!

Anna-Lisa Kirby cut her teeth as a singer in the 1990s in New York jazz clubs, and has performed across Canada and in Europe. Since 2003, she has been performing and teaching in Winnipeg where she is a frequent featured artist with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, the Oceanic Jazz Orchestra, the Third Nation Ensemble, and the U of M Jazz Studies faculty. She is a Jazz Vocal Instructor at the Marcel A Desautels Faculty of Music, and Coordinator of the Jazz Studies program.