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It’s hard to plan for the future without being a little nostalgic about the past. The Cantos Music Foundation is doing a little bit of both these days as it hosts its first ever fundraiser and pays tribute to one of its most valued volunteers. Chairman emeritus Hal Wyatt is no stranger to the Calgary volunteer community, having just received the lifetime philanthropist award through the Generosity of Spirit Awards held earlier this month. As a strong advocate for the Calgary arts community, Wyatt will be honoured with an evening of music, including Latin super-group Bomba, jazzers Sheldon Zandboer and Kathy Shane, organist Irene Besse and Mount Royal College pianist protégé Jan Lisiecki, all performing at the Cantos Music Foundation. The tribute and fundraiser is just a part of a bigger picture, according to executive director Andrew Mosker.
“Instead of just having a party this year, we wanted to expand the evening,” says Mosker. “We’ve never had a fundraiser before, but we wanted to make sure to thank the people that support us, particularly Hal, and invite the community to come down and see what Cantos is for themselves.”
The evening also alludes to a ramping up of Cantos’s image as the organization plans to launch a capital campaign in 2008. There are big things in the works at Cantos, and though Mosker isn’t able to go into too much detail, he’s sure that in the coming months it will become apparent to Calgarians that Cantos can and will be an epicentre for creativity. Cantos even hopes to become an international cultural hot spot — an exciting prospect for an organization that has sometimes struggled to solidify its role in the Calgary artistic community. Not so much anymore, as Mosker claims Cantos has seen more than 30,000 people come through its facility in the last year. No one can deny the organization’s complete uniqueness in terms of its people, programming and, most of all, its collection.
“It’s like building a new bridge or an LRT station in Calgary,” says Mosker. “The whole idea with this fundraiser and the capital campaign is to make our resources more accessible to our community and to the rest of the country. Our vision is to become a national catalyst for culture, to connect people with music and allow them to have a real authentic experience.”
The fundraiser takes place Monday, November 26 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Cantos Music Foundation. Tickets are $50 and available at the door or by calling the office. For more information on the Cantos Music Foundation, check out www.cantos.ca or call 543-5115.
