Christmas benefit concert at the local gallery raises funds for the Carleton Place Youth Centre
CARLETON PLACE — A holiday benefit concert at the Carleton Place Gallery will raise funds for the Carleton Place Youth Centre. The Nathan Sloniowski Trio will headline the show, with Sloniowski on guitar and vocals, Bill Serson on drums and Barry Buse on bass and vocals. The group will perform songs from Sloniowski’s solo album The Lost Love Letter to a Small Town.
Sloniowski also performs with The Ragged Flowers and The Maywoods and may include a few songs from those bands. Tickets for the Sat. Dec. 6, 7 p.m. show are available at Ticketsplease.ca or at the gallery. All proceeds from tickets and performance night refreshments prepared by youth centre volunteers will support the centre.
“I approached Ginny Fobert, the owner of the Carleton Place Gallery, about doing a Christmas benefit,” Sloniowski said. “I played there earlier this year with The Ragged Flowers and it is a magical place for a show among the paintings and sculptures. Fobert suggested that funds from our concert support the Carleton Place Youth Centre, which her research showed is often overlooked by local fundraisers.”
Fobert arranged a meeting between Sloniowski and Sharon Ruth, the executive director of the Carleton Place Youth Centre. Sloniowski said he was impressed by the programming, which includes after school drop-ins on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, evening crafts and cooking programs, summer camps and year-round outings for children aged eight to 15.
The gallery is also supporting Three Fifty Squares, a holiday exhibition of original 12 by 12-inch artwork and sculptures priced at $350. Ten per cent of proceeds will be donated to the youth centre.
Sloniowski’s songwriting blends the warmth of John Prine with the easy groove of Jesse Winchester. On The Lost Love Letter to a Small Town he shares stories of neighbourly kindness, romantic optimism, small town friction, guitar fixation and a hope for a better world that begins at home.
Buse, from Carleton Place, and Serson, from Arnprior, form the rhythm section. “Buse and Serson helped me launch the album at a sold out concert series show in 2024 and we opened last fall’s Music at MERA series with another sold out show,” Sloniowski said. “They are incredible musicians.”
Buse is a veteran bassist who has performed with gospel and blues singer Diunna Greenleaf and toured North America and Australia with Trevor Finlay, including festival stops at Ottawa BluesFest and the Tremblant International Blues Festival. Serson teaches percussion at the Main Street School of Music in Arnprior and many of his students have gone on to study music at university then build careers in the industry. He is a two-time Canadian snare drum champion.
“Buse and Serson are well known across the Ottawa Valley for their blues band Redneck Limousine,” Sloniowski said. “They like to tease me that I use up all their feelings when we play my acoustic songs but I am grateful any time we get to play together.”
Concert presenters have also praised the trio. Violet Bova from the folkus concert series wrote that “Sloniowski’s voice is as haunting as the tale he just told. It is enough to tempt tears to fall.” Peter Cochrane from Music at MERA called the show “a great live performance and a strong start to our fall series.”
Media Release submitted.
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