SUNDRE – An entertainer who’s equal parts storyteller and musician recently took to the stage at the Sundre Arts Centre with some down-to-earth heartfelt tunes that stirred the soul.
Among the titles performed by Martyn Joseph on Friday, April 26 was a piece commissioned by the BBC called Albert’s Place, which explores the experience of working class struggles and features the lyric, “The measure of a country’s prosperity is not the wealth that it holds, but in the absence of poverty and equal opportunity for us all . . . and Albert’s Place has seen it all.”
Joseph shared his moving acoustic ballads before a crowd of about 80 people with the facility’s table-and-seating arrangement that can accommodate roughly 130.
The visit to Sundre was his third after last hitting the stage in 2017 and 2012, and was also part of a larger tour promoting his latest album, This is What I want to Say. Among the other planned stops before heading south of the border were in Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa.
The Sundre Arts Centre, which also hosts drama productions and dance recitals as well as other community functions, is run by a non-profit group of volunteers under the banner of the Sundre & District Allied Arts Society.
The organization’s efforts keep the facility’s doors open courtesy of donations and ticket sales as well as funding from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Canada Arts and Culture Recovery Program, with the Town of Sundre having also contributed to the flooring project completed just last year.
