Video

MB Live Sessions

By Cara Luft

MB LIVE SESSIONS
Presented by Manitoba Film & Music
Featuring Cara Luft www.caraluft.com
Thursday June 25 at 7PM
www.manitoabamusic.com/mblivesessions

Manitoba Film & Music and Manitoba Music are working together for a weekly concert series. Featuring 12 online performances, MB Live Sessions spotlights stellar local talent and supports artists impacted by COVID-19. Each virtual concert will be set in the artists homes, offering a unique glimpse into their creative lives in this era of physical distancing.

‘Canadian Folk Heroine’ is the tagline on Cara Luft’s web site. That’s a pretty cheeky claim to live up to, yet it’s a perfect way to describe Cara. She’s an award-winning musician, singer and songwriter, a plucky performer with an impish sense of humor and a founding member of two Canadian folk super-groups: The Wailin' Jennys and The Small Glories. To quote the roots magazine No Depression, “Luft has a rich tradition in folk music – it’s safe to assume that she knows her stuff – and upon listening it becomes quite clear that she is indeed a formidable songwriter and performer... [The] lovely Ms. Luft continues to hit her stride and sets the bar for the talented few who’ll follow in her footsteps.”

Born into a folk musical family in Calgary, Alberta, Cara played with dulcimers and autoharps while her peers played with Barbies and Nintendo. Music was an integral part of her growing up experience. Her great-grandfather was a vaudevillian tenor, her grandfather a jazz/big band guitarist and music teacher, her mother and aunt performed professionally in their teens, and her parents as a duo. These roots inform and charge Cara's musical being, and underscore her depth and commitment to music and to song.

Over the course of her career she has been asked to represent Canada in various international songwriter exchanges and collaborations. From touring with one of America's top bluegrass guitar players to co-writing with Britain's Folk Singer of the Year, from representing Canada in the annual Banjo Babes Calendar celebrating female banjo players to collaborating with her own folk-singing father. Cara has covered the gamut of interesting musical experiences.

In 2011 she branched out into instructing at music camps for adults and teens, discovering an immense joy and skill in helping others tap into their own creativity. Since then she has become a sought-after instructor on the North American camp circuit, often having to turn down offers due to touring schedule conflicts.

Luft has a spirit that drives her to connect with people, and for this she is loved everywhere she goes. She is one of Canada's hardest working musicians, armed with amazing tenacity, vision, energy and a contagious hilarity. Reviewers of her live shows talk about her superb musicianship, her humourous anecdotes, her ability to switch between styles, her accomplished songwriting, and the charm of her stage presence. Cara’s the real deal, there’s nothing pretentious about her. And that sense of honesty, integrity, personality and spontaneity permeates both her music and her live shows.
The series will be produced by Manitoba Music with support from the production team The Village Idiots.

www.manitobamusic.com/mblivesessions

Watch more videos