Trio Bembe rocks the house

A couple of weeks ago, the Western Canada Music Industry conference was held in Whitehorse. While focused on discussions of marketing, recording and venue management, you can't have a music industry conference without music. Some 50 different bands and musicians came up to the Yukon to show their stuff. Every club, bar, public space in town had scheduled performances through most of the days and all of the evening of the conference. If you weren't at a PVL (industry talk for "performance venue location" or club, bar and public space, see I talked to these people) within a few minutes of 7 pm, you weren't getting in at all.

Rodrigo Munuz

Scott Senior

Amber Epp, of Winnipeg, got in touch with us and we offered to billet her Trio Bembe during their stay in the North. She, Rody Munoz and Scott Senior, all also members of the larger Papa Mambo, deliver Latin music with power, enthusiasm and a catholic sense of what Latin includes. They're looking at working up a Romanian folk tune to add to the repertoire. During the day they took in workshops and meetings and through the evenings they wowed Whitehorse audiences with their energetic performances. But in the morning through relaxed breakfasts they turned the house into a PVL, singing, strumming and using the pots and pans as the percussion section.

Amber Epp

The highlight of the conference was the Sunday night awards ceremony. Joy and I attended and sat through the opening jokes and reminiscences of the industry seniors, and then, YAHOOO, Trio Bembe took the award for best World Music for their album Oh my soul. A great finale for an exciting weekend of terrific music. Next time we're in Winnipeg we'll be looking for Trio Membe and Papa Mambo.