The All-City Jazz Band plays at a previous Arts in the Park season in downtown Whitehorse. The summer concert and arts series begins May 31 with performances at MacBride Museum and on air at CJUC with visual artists showing off their work at Yukon Artists @ Work. (Joel Krahn/Yukon News file)

The All-City Jazz Band plays at a previous Arts in the Park season in downtown Whitehorse. The summer concert and arts series begins May 31 with performances at MacBride Museum and on air at CJUC with visual artists showing off their work at Yukon Artists @ Work. (Joel Krahn/Yukon News file)

Arts In The Park kicks off May 31

The sounds of summer will return next week at MacBride Museum

Who said you need a park to host Arts in the Park?

The annual music and arts festival will kick off May 31 in Whitehorse, but it will not be in its usual location at LePage Park with construction work planned there over the summer.

Instead, free live performances will be held every Friday from 12:15 until 12:50 p.m. at MacBride Museum, while on-air performances can be heard Monday to Thursday from noon until 1 p.m. and Wednesday evening from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on CJUC 92.5 FM.

Finally, art installations, demos and activities will feature at the Yukon Artists @ Work space on Fourth Avenue and Wood Street each week from Wednesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Typically, Arts in the Park would feature local noon-hour performances and a weekly evening performance on stage at LePage Park downtown. At the same time, each week a visual artist would also be on hand at the park, working on a project, providing demos of the work, answering questions and often involving their audience in the project.

With the summer session slated to run until July 9, a long list of local performers and visual artists are slated to entertain with a variety of musical genres, spoken word performances and more.

Kicking off the first week from May 31 until June 4 will be Linda Leon as the Artist in the Window at Yukon Artists @ Work, with BJ Maclean and Bob Hamilton performing at MacBride on June 4.

For those listening on air, the noon performances will feature Kevin Barr (May 31), Drea Naysayer (June 1), Claire Ness and Brigitte Jardin (June 2) and a Yukon Composers Show with Andrea McColeman, Emily Tredger, Annie Avery, Connie Penner and Erica Mah (June 4).

Garbage Man will perform on-air the evening of June 3.

A full line-up for the summer is available on the Music Yukon website.

Plans are also in the works to bring a mini concert series to long term care facilities in Whitehorse.

In Dawson, Arts in the Park live shows are planned at the Palace Grand theatre as well as being broadcast on CFYT 106.9 FM through the summer.

Contact Stephanie Waddell at stephanie.waddell@yukon-news.com

Music