The Sunshine Coast’s Inspirito Vocal Ensemble, with conductor Sarona Mynhardt and accompanist Toby Aldren, present two performances of Stars I Shall Find, at Calvary Baptist Church in Gibsons on Saturday, Nov. 27 at 6 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 28 at 3 p.m. The concerts will feature internationally acclaimed flutist Bernard Blary, the ensemble’s own Gwen Gingerich on percussion, and the debut of 10-year-old soloist Evy Fuller, of Gibsons. The narrative of the program will share the ensemble’s journey over the past 20 months, “how our voices were suddenly silenced, how we faced the challenges, and how we grew closer together even though we were apart,” said Mynhardt. Tickets are available at inspiritovocalensemble.ca.
Shari Ulrich
Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, Juno winner, and one of the Coast’s favourite Bowen Island residents, Shari Ulrich, performs an afternoon concert at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons on Sunday Nov. 28 at 2 p.m. She will be joined by Cindy Fairbank on piano and accordion. Get tickets through the Playhouse website.
GG honours
Alberta author Norma Dunning has been awarded the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction for her book, Tainna: The Unseen Ones, published by Madeira Park’s Douglas & McIntyre, (one of Howard and Mary White’s publishing companies). Tainna, pronounced da-e-nn-a, is a collection of short stories about modern-day Inuit characters. The book “is both vivid and raw but infused with a sparkling poetry and the wisdom of the old ways,” wrote the award program’s peer assessment committee.
Audiobook release
Coast performer and writer Caitlin Hicks has just released an audiobook version of her 2015 debut novel, A Theory of Expanded Love. The book was selected as a Best New Fiction pick for iBooks just after it was released. Filmmaker and artist Gordon Halloran edited Hicks’s reading of the audio version, curated the music, and produced the soundtrack. The audiobook is distributed by Findaway Voices.
Christmas craft shows
The 52nd Annual Roberts Creek Christmas Craft Fair runs this weekend, featuring local artisans, door prizes, gift-basket raffle, and goodies. Friday, Nov. 26, 5 to 9 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 27 and Sunday, Nov. 28, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $2.
Gibsons’ St. Bart’s Church Annual Holiday Food and Gift Bazaar will be held Saturday, Nov. 27, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Holiday baking, jams, and preserves, local arts and crafts, collectibles, chocolates by Hooray.
Potter Clair Wilkening and chocolatier Christabel Watson are having a Pottery and Chocolate Pop-Up Holiday sale at Wilkening’s home studio at 1244 Roberts Creek Rd., Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 27 and 28, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
On Sunday, Nov. 28, St. Hilda’s Church in Sechelt is holding a fundraising Pre-Christmas & Mini-Bake Sale. Handmade items, gifts for all ages, lots of Christmas ornaments, toques, shawls, Christmas baking. It runs from 9 to 10 a.m. only, just prior to Sunday services.
More live music
The Sofa Kings play the Roberts Creek Legion on Friday, Nov. 26 at 8 p.m.
Charlotte Wrinch will play some originals and covers at Persephone in Gibsons on Saturday, Nov. 27 from 4 to 6 p.m.
The Billy Hillpicker Band kicks some bluegrass butt at the 101 Brewhouse in Gibsons on Saturday, Nov. 27 starting at 8 p.m. Reserved table seating. Tickets at eventbrite.ca.
The Topher Trick offers up original hip-hop, folk, pop and storytelling at Batch 44 in Sechelt on Saturday, Nov. 27, 8 to 11 p.m.
Poppa Greg plays the Pender Harbour Legion in Madeira Park on Sunday, Nov. 28 at 2 p.m.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
