Multi-Juno award winner, multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and educator Phil Dwyer will be putting on a performance at Milner Gardens this weekend with top amateur musicians from the Island, Vancouver and Calgary.
For the past seven years Dwyer has been running the Phil Dwyer Academy of Music and Culinary Arts (PDAMCA) from which the Phil Dwyer Music Festival emerged. The festival expanded over the years and last year ran for a month in Qualicum Beach with daytime and evening concerts featuring performers from all over North America. This year Dwyer decided to take a break from running both the camp and the festival, except for a “very scaled down version” of the camp, and the result will feature those musicians at Milner Gardens this weekend.
Dwyer said his camp and festival was being run primarily by just himself and his wife and needed to be restructured to spread the work out.
“I decided I just didn’t have it in me to do that again this year in such a big format, so I thought I’d take a year off to kind of figure out how to make it work so it didn’t drive me into an early grave,” he laughed.
Dwyer has had a very busy summer, performing in Toronto, for CBC radio, and recording his own music. His recently composed violin concerto was recorded in July with an 18-piece jazz band and a 21-piece string quartet. It is set to be released in the fall.
The seven musicians that will play at Milner Gardens’ Music in the Garden this Sunday play at a very high level, Dwyer said, and will be joined by Dwyer’s friend and prominent Vancouver drummer Joe Poole. Poole has studied with Oscar Peterson and many of Canada’s top musicians and is known for his unique musical style.
The Phil Dwyer Adult Jazz Intensive Ensemble will play this Sunday Aug. 7 at Milner Gardens from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $20, $15 for members, youth and VIU students available from Milner Gardens or Coastal Community Credit Union Branches.
For more information visit www.milnergardens.org or call 250-752-8573.
For more in Phil Dwyer visit www.phildwyer.com.
