July 5, 2020

FP NEWSLETTER Vol. 54 www.fusionpresents.com Page of 1 3

FP NEWSLETTER

JULY LIVE STREAM ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULEFRI JULY 3 DAVID SYMONS’s WHICH WAY IS UP - SINGLE RELEASE (Official Lyric Video)

SUN JULY 5 SUNDAY NIGHT JAM with SAMI GHAWI & FRIENDS @ 8pm

MON JULY 6 MONDAY NIGHT RADIO with The 9th Brothers @ 8pm

WED JULY 8 MUSIC LESSONS with SAMI & MYLES @ 8pm

FRI JULY 10 DAVID SYMONS’s WHICH WAY IS UP - ALBUM RELEASE (CLICK TO PRE-SAVE NOW!)

SUN JULY 12 SUNDAY NIGHT JAM with SAMI GHAWI & FRIENDS @ 8pm

MON JULY 13 MONDAY NIGHT RADIO with The 9th Brothers @ 8pm

WED JULY 15 MUSIC LESSONS with SAMI & MYLES @ 8pm

SUN JULY 19 SUNDAY NIGHT JAM with SAMI GHAWI & FRIENDS @ 8pm

MON JULY 20 MONDAY NIGHT RADIO with The 9th Brothers @ 8pm

WED JULY 22 MUSIC LESSONS with SAMI & MYLES @ 8pm

FRI JULY 24 FP ARTIST SHOWCASE feat. RANJ SINGH & SAMI GHAWI @ 7pm (City of Surrey)

SUN JULY 26 SUNDAY NIGHT JAM with SAMI GHAWI & FRIENDS @ 8pm

MON JULY 27 MONDAY NIGHT RADIO with The 9th Brothers @ 8pm

WED JULY 29 MUSIC LESSONS with SAMI & MYLES @ 8pm

Welcome to the July edition of the FP Newsletter, Vol. 54, our monthly publication giving you all our news.

To kick things off, FUSIONpresents surpassed its target and raised over $1100 for our Black Lives Matter fundraiser last month! We are so grateful to our beautiful community for helping us support the Black Lives Matter organization in the US and Black Youth Helpline here in Canada, as well as raise awareness throughout our social media to end systemic racism in North America and around the world. All funds were split equally between the two organizations.

We also would like to take this important opportunity to acknowledge that the land on which FUSIONpresents is based and headquartered is the traditional and unceded territory of Coast Salish peoples, specifically the Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo, and Tsawwassen First Nations.

As we cruise through the summer months, many of our venues have re-opened, exercising social distancing protocols and limited capacity and we are planning on re-introducing live music very soon, maybe even as early as the first week of August in some venues. In the meantime, we continue with our weekly scheduled live stream programming and have made some updates on www.fusionpresents.com to make it easier for you to find our wonderful online live music show archives. On that note, FUSIONpresents continues its work with the City of Surrey and Surrey Civic Theatres to showcase the artists we love and work with through the FP Artist Showcase. Our fourth showcase featuring Surrey artist Ranj Singh takes place on Friday June 24 at 7pm on the City of Surrey’s YouTube channel! Be sure to tune in.

The 10-yr running Sunday Night Jam continues to be so much fun, with new artists and hundreds of viewers joining us every week. Please contact us today if you’d like to participate and sing your songs live! We’ll make sure that you’re all set up with Live Streaming so we can have you on the program!

Our weekly live stream Music Lessons series continues on Wednesdays and we’ve already covered so much ground with basic music theory and an introduction to piano, guitar and drums! Check out our past lessons here and tune in on Wednesdays at 8pm on FP’s Facebook for more fantastic information to help you speak the universal language of music!

Monday Night Radio with The 9th Brothers is every Monday at 8pm, chronicling FP’s history from its inception in 2002 till today. The program includes demo, live, and studio recordings from our past and present catalogue as well as live interviews with those amazing people that helped FUSIONpresents become what it is today.

Finally, we’d like to welcome Max Parker to the FP team, and can’t wait to share with you the amazing new programming and content we are developing with him.

Follow us on our favourite social media platform

FP ARTIST SHOWCASE Our hour- long l ive music shows

featur ing the art ists were love and work with. Our next FP Art ist

Showcase features Surrey art ist Ranj Singh on July 24, sponsored by Surrey Civ ic Theatres and the City of Surrey.

We offer onl ine lessons in guitar, piano, drums and production. Contact us to book a session.

ONLINE MUSIC LESSONS

MONDAY NIGHT RADIO with The 9th Brothers

Chronicl ing the history of FUSIONpresents f rom 2002 t i l l today!

FP SHOWS

MUSIC LESSONS with Sami & Myles

Let’s start f rom the very beginning on Piano, Guitar, Bass & Drums

SUNDAY NIGHT JAM

The 10 yr legendary jam cont inues onl ine every Sunday! Al l musicians are

invi ted to part ic ipate! Send us a message and we’ l l get you on!

July 5, 2020

FP NEWSLETTER Vol. 54 www.fusionpresents.com Page of 2 3

FP NEWSLETTER

David has been singing forever, beginning in the family home in the suburbs of Montreal, but it wasn’t until one particular day in 2010 when a bank teller quite innocuously asked him what he did for a living, that for the first time in his life and without hesitation he heard the words, “I’m a singer” tumble from his lips in response. From that moment onward, David has embraced what he now humbly considers to be his chosen calling. 

It was through the confluence of two unrelated occurrences that same year that would embolden him to make such a claim. The first was his successful audition and acceptance into Vancouver’s well respected City Soul Choir. Under the direction of Brian Tate, David has become a regular soloist, singing in front of this extraordinary 100+ gospel/soul inspired choir. He counts, having the honour of soloing with the renowned Linda Tillery of the Grammy nominated Cultural Heritage Choir  at a sold out Black History Month concert, as one of his more memorable choral experiences.

Later that same year David serendipitously met Sami Ghawi, and the two soon discovered sharing an unmistakable chemistry both in spirit and performing together. Most recently, the two performed as Featured Artists in the Surrey Civic Theatre sponsored FUSIONpresents Artist Showcase.  

David’s musical influences range from the inescapable inspiration of the Beatles, to the soulful stylings of Stevie Wonder, and the blues inspired vocals of Eric Clapton to the infectious groove of Peter Gabriel. These and so many more have served to inform his musical palette. 

David is thrilled to be releasing his debut album “Which Way is Up” on July 10th, co-produced by FUSIONpresents.

BC ARTIST HIGHLIGHT :DAVID SYMONS It’s hard to imagine that the Beatles disbanded 50 years ago and maybe it is just as hard to

fathom that their drummer Ringo Starr will soon be turning 80.

Richard Starkey was a lad from Liverpool, England. He grew up with health complications and hospitalizations but pulled through mostly unscathed to eventually be swept up with the UK skiffle craze of the 1950s in his teenage years. He took up drumming and soon developed a great interest in Rock ’n Roll music like many others his age. He was already a successful drummer locally before being asked to join the Beatles in 1962. His humour and swing on the kit endeared him to the fans, and to his fellow lads, he seemed a perfect fit. 

Of course as history has shown, the Beatles went on to unprecedented world-wide fame and Richard Starkey would be known throughout the planet as Ringo Starr, drummer of the Beatles. After the band’s short-lived 8 year career as probably the greatest musical group to ever exist, Ringo, like his fellow bandmates, took up a solo career and even tried his hand at movie acting. With around 20 solo albums and film roles starring alongside the likes of Peter Sellers and his wife Barbara Bach, he kept fairly busy post-Beatles. In 1989, Ringo started his All-Star band project which currently still exists, with numerous personnel changes over the years. Ringo looks fit as a fiddle and not a day over 64. Didn’t I once hear him say, “it used to be coca-colas and reefer but now it’s blueberries and broccoli.” Like his fellow Beatle, McCartney, he is strictly vegetarian and well off the sauce. Peace and Love to that. He is still in the spotlight and will celebrate his 80th with an online concert/fundraiser featuring McCartney, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr, and others on July 7.  I'm sure it'll be a fab show. Sit back and let the evening go!

RINGO AT 80 by D.M. White

BRUCE’S CORNERI believe that when history looks back at the year 2020 there will be an asterisk. It’ll be like; ”Oh yeah, it happened in 2020. Doesn’t count.” Everything was cancelled. Sports events, including entire seasons, music events, including award shows and concerts are cancelled. Civic holidays, including Canada Day are just a day off. Vacations are cancelled because there’s nowhere to go. We can’t cross borders and until recently weren’t allowed to leave the province and discouraged to even leave home. Go shopping and we have to stand on dots and can only go in one direction. Go to a restaurant and the servers are wearing Hazmat suits. Get your haircut and they check your temperature before you can sit down.

When you do venture out to a store or a doctor’s office (on those rare face–to–mask visits) you can feel like a virus cesspool. People have different levels of self-lockdown protection strategies. Some wear masks, gloves and religiously adhere to social distancing while others shake your hand and try to go in for a hug. I don’t wear protective gear so am unsure whether I should be ashamed for not participating even though I try to maintain distance and try to be cognizant to their level of concern. The media makes it feel that people are not taking this all seriously as they report new cases like they used to report body counts during the Viet Nam war. But the truth is people have lost their jobs, some their savings and have been living for months in what for a lot of people is a 1-bedroom apartment, so I don’t think we should be too hard if they want to go to the beach for a day out.

I have been surprised how many movies and books are about pandemics. Was not aware that that had been such a common theme. In a book I’m reading, the Influenza Flu of 1918 was mentioned. It was caused by the H1N1 virus. It was thought 500 million people had been infected which was 1/3 of the world’s population. Obviously, no firm details on the exact number of deaths, but it is thought it was around 50 million. With no vaccine or antibiotics to combat the flu, people were encouraged to practice the same things we are doing today with distancing and hand washing. Interesting to compare the numbers from then to now. I do miss the live music. Looking forward for this whole thing to be over. In the meantime, I am going through all of my CD’s and bringing back a lot of great memories. And of course, there are still plenty of ways to watch old videos and concerts on your TV. Stay safe.

by Bruce Connick

David Symons - Which Way Is Up (Official Lyric Video)

July 5, 2020

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FP NEWSLETTERLEARN MORE ABOUT OUR

PROFESSIONAL MUSIC SERVICESFUSIONpresents is proud to have offered the highest quality services in professional artist development, music entertainment, and creative music services for nearly 18 years. We have entertained thousands of delighted guests, mentored hundreds of aspiring artists, and collaborated with countless amazing people. We love what we do and are passionate to do more of it. Contact FUSIONpresents

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FP FOOD FOR THOUGHT Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot. To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!

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Helping artists do what they love. 778-892-7625 or 604-800-0989

info@fusionpresents.comwww.fusionpresents.com

QUALITY LIVE ENTERTAINMENT

CREATIVE MUSIC SERVICES

FP ARTIST SHOWCASE

FP ORIGINAL MUSIC RELEASES

A debut album of Montreal-based early childhood educator Nadine Ghawi. The

album is inspired by Nadine's work in an infant-toddler classroom and includes 15

reimagined classics and daycare favourites like "Row, Row, Row Your

Boat," and "The Wheels on the Bus." A sibling collaboration, the album features musical arrangement and production by

Nadine's brother, Sami, with back-up vocals by younger sister, Christine. With colourful instrumentation and pleasing

harmonies, the album is meant to be enjoyed by children, parents, and

caregivers alike.

LISTEN NOW!

SING WITH NADINE : Songs for Babies and Toddlers

DAVID SYMONS: Which Way Is UPA debut album of Vancouver-based singer/songwriter David Symons. A

reflective collection of 8 songs (7 originals and 1 cover), co-produced by

David Symons, Sami Ghawi, Bill Bukingham and Ronnie Way and

featuring some of Vancouver’s finest live musicians.

ALBUM RELEASED JULY 10 on all streaming platforms.

To order your copy of Which Way Is Up on CD or Vinyl record, please contact us

PRE-SAVE NOW!