When Okanagan Life publisher John Paul Byrne expanded his passion from the printed word to music scores, it’s no surprise that magazines were his focal point. In 1991, he took a walk just a few blocks from the magazine conference he was attending in New York to see his first Broadway musical (Les Misérables). He then set to work, composing one of his early songs, Power of the Printed Word, which has a mesmerizing rock beat powerful enough for centre stage. Paul was determined... Read More
The Salmon Arm Roots & Blues Festival is the largest and most musically diverse festival in the BC Interior. The event began in 1992 as a small indoor festival, a result of the grassroots Shuswap Coffee House collective of the 1970s and 80s, which by 1991 had coalesced into the not-for-profit Salmon Arm Folk Music [...]
Pulling out a chair and waving his hand in welcome, Nigel Brown is the quintessential gentleman. Quietly gracious, his grey-blue eyes sparkle with humour, but from the moment he begins speaking, it’s clear this is a man who takes his mission—and his coffee—seriously. “They have the best Americano in town,” he says of the very [...]
Dragon’s Den tough guy Kevin O’Leary was a bit hard on 10-year old Teagan Adams, but as Teagan sees it, O’Leary “wasn’t as bad as I’ve seen him before.” Teagan had even written a jingle to sing on the show. When he finished the song, O’Leary jokingly advised him “not to quit his day job.” [...]
A monstrous amount of scientific evidence is showing that the human brain is most active when listening to or playing music. So it seems fitting that this column appears in the music issue of Okanagan Life because from my musical perspective …