Archive

Graham Maycock: Flowering ambition with another concert

February 16, 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Graham Maycock has given himself a time line to achieve enough success to know if music is to be his life. In this, he has been doing reasonably well. Now, with another concert coming up on Friday, February 24, at Westminster United Church in the Orangeville church’s newly renovated interior, Mr. Maycock is climbing a steady ladder.

We last featured Graham for his first concert in October, 2016, at the Orangeville Opera House. Naturally, we were interested in hearing how that went.

With a decent house of a 160 tickets sold, he told us, “The October concert was great. There was a lot of love in the room. When I walked out on stage, I gasped seeing so many people. It was really special like nothing I had ever experienced before. So many people supporting us.”

Mr. Maycock performed at the Victorian Christmas Gala for Theatre Orangeville, singing his own pieces and accompanying himself on the keyboard. We noted at the time his use of his falsetto voice and asked him about that.

“It’s a tool,” he commented. “I use it a bit throughout my album. The last little while, I still go there sometimes but not as much. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It just started early on but I like to change things around – I’m always looking for new ideas.”

While Graham does perform solo quite a bit, he loves to play with his group and, for the Westminster concert, he is bringing his good friends and fellow musicians, with whom he performs regularly: Dave Joseph is on guitar with Erick Bruck playing the drums and Branson Giles on bass.

When last we spoke, Mr. Maycock had recently begun to read philosophy and was deeply impressed with the thinking he encountered through his research. Since  then, he has continued his studies by reading on his own and watching university professors lecture on YouTube.

His latest interest is in the theories around the “collective morality.”

What appeals to him is the ideas about: “Where we grow together, we have social obligation.” This may be understood as the determination in societies for caring each for all, the self- declaration to attend to the needs of every citizen by all the others.

“What I’m learning in philosophy is in my music too,” he informed us, “combining my passions.”

He reported good progress in his music life. “There’s a good build-up in my studio – I’m teaching and I love teaching, sharing the passion, passing on what you love.”

Even if his level of success is not yet overwhelming, he insists, “You just have to stay optimistic.”

To prove this, he had news: “We got a spin on CBC Saskatchewan on one of their Sunday shows.”

He was also happy to add, “We have show coming up in Toronto, opening for a band, Jason Wilson and the Perennials. We’re playing with the Trio [himself, Dave Joseph and Erick Bruck]. They are a jazz reggae band. It will be a lot of fun.”

In keeping with his philosophical studies, he informed us that “some of the proceeds from the concert at Westminster will go back into the renovation fund for the church. We wanted to support that, too.”

He went on to talk about the upcoming concert: “We’ll be playing the whole album and some of my own new songs. We’re really happy to have Branson Giles on bass joining in with some of the songs.

“The show is good for all ages,” he assured us. “We played a show in St. Catharines and people of all ages came and it was great.”

Graham and the trio playing with him at Westminster next Friday, February 24 at 8:00 p.m. will be performing music to please all of you. Tickets are available at Aardvark  Music and Culture on Broadway, as well as at the Church office. The telephone number there is 519-941-0381 or you can drop in.

Readers Comments (0)