Banff Midsummer Ball

The Banff Centre, a home for working and developing artists in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, hosted its 30th annual signature fundraising event last weekend: the Midsummer Ball Weekend.

It began Friday morning with a friendly golf tournament and reception at the Fairmont Banff Springs. That evening, after checking into the lodge-style residences at the centre, guests were treated to an array of fine food - sushi, bison, seared tuna included - and a wine and scotch bar, before an intimate musical performance. Juno-award winning jazz pianist Hilario Duran played a three song set with bassist Roberto Occhipinti and drummer Mark Kelso, head of percussion at Toronto’s Humber College.

Between songs Occhipinti, who is an alumna of The Banff Centre, remarked on the pleasures of playing in Alberta saying, “The Banff Centre is the crown jewel of Canada … and I would hazard that in this resource-based economy, we can all appreciate that art is the ultimate renewable resource.”

The performance was followed by several pieces from the musical Loulou, a work in progress by Kelly Robinson, theatre arts director at The Banff Centre and director of creative development for Mirvish Productions. Broadway stars Hugh Panaro and Carly Street were joined by the centre’s opera students.

Following the program, The Banff Centre’s board chair Jeff Kovitz asked Alberta Minister of Culture and Community Sprit Lindsay Blackett to do a reverse ribbon-cutting, which would signify the closing of Donald Cameron Hall. The building will soon be replaced by The Kinnear Centre, a structure designed by Diamond & Schmidtt Architects and set to open next summer.

“If there’s a camera and a microphone, I’ll do it,” the Minister quipped before hopping onstage.

Saturday morning brought a fresh-faced and excited crowd to three keynote sessions. In the first, prima ballerina-turned-filmmaker Veronica Tennant, O.C. showed excerpts from her film Shadow Pleasures, a work done in partnership with Michael Ondaatje and filmed in Toronto’s Distillery District. Tennant manages to capture both the intense energy of her subjects - dancers - and the intimacy of the words to which they are performing, poems and paragraphs by Ondaatje. It is a rare and beautiful sight, leaving the viewer’s heart thudding in time to the score. The second session featured well-known pianist and organizational coach Michael Jones, who spoke eloquently about personal leadership and played songs for reflection. Author and Banff Centre alumna Maria Coffey capped off the morning with stories of travel and transcendence. A prolific author and recent guest of the Oprah Winfrey show, she and her husband Dag now lead small paddling trips to Croatia, Antarctica, Vietnam and other places.

After lunch, the group split into the three separate tours; some sneaking behind-the-scenes looks at film engineers, ballet dancers, and opera singers at work, others touring the new building, and still others toured visual artists’ studios with Berlin-based critic Jan Verwoert.

The evening’s gala attracted around three hundred guests, clad in black tie and ball gowns. Guests included former Premier Peter Lougheed, Alberta's Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Relations Maria David-Evans, Former MLA and current chair of the Western Financial Group Jim Dinning, Pat and Sherrold Moore, Margot and David Kitchen, Ian and Judy Griffin, Murray and Heather Edwards, Glen Sather, president of the New York Rangers, Matt Fox, president of ConocoPhillips Canada, John Lau, president of Husky Energy, and Mary Hofstetter, president of The Banff Centre. The master of ceremonies was Angela Knight of CBC Radio. A four course meal was served, including candied salmon salad, duck confit on brioche, veal tenderloin, and blueberry panna cotta. A performance by the Eric Friedenberg Orchestra had guests dancing late into the evening.

Published in National Post, July 25 2009