Toronto Actor and Musician Raoul Bhaneja Set To Host The Maple Blues Awards

Performers include Shakura S’Aida, Matt Andersen, Dawn Tyler Watson and Jack de Keyzer
Blues Summit Five to feature Washington DC based Sirius Radio’s Bill Wax at Keynote Brunch

Raoul Bhaneja, a Toronto actor and musician most noted for his work performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet solo and his blues band, Raoul and the Big Time is set to host the 14th annual Maple Blues Awards on January 17, 2011 at Koerner Hall in Toronto.

A cast of some of the best National blues musicians will be performing at the ceremony, including Tom Lavin (Powder Blues Band, British Columbia), Shakura S’Aida (Ontario), Dawn Tyler Watson (Quebec), Matt Andersen (New Brunswick) and Jack de Keyzer (Ontario), all backed by The Maple Blues Band featuring Gary Kendall, Michael Fonfara, Teddy Leonard, Al Lerman, Tom Bona, Chris Whiteley, Pat Carey and Chris Murphy. Following the ceremony will be the popular after-party, featuring live music. Tickets for the Maple Blues Awards are $20 – $28 and can be purchased at The Weston Family Box Office, located in The Royal Conservatory building at 273 Bloor Street West, Toronto or online at https://tickets.rcmusic.ca/public.

The Maple Blues Awards is Canada’s national blues awards program. Its goal is to promote blues music across Canada, and to recognize outstanding achievement in the field. Each year, the Maple Blues Awards recognizes a leader in the blues community with the Blues With A Feeling Award (Lifetime Achievement Award). This year the nominees are Alec Fraser, Danny Brooks, Ellen McIlwaine, Joe Murphy, Ken Whiteley, Michael Fonfara, Paul James, Rita Chiarelli, Stephen Barry, Terry Wilkins, and Tom Lavin.

The Maple Blues Awards will be wrapping up the biannual Blues Summit, a weekend of panels, discussions and workshops for blues artists, promoters, agents and festivals. On Sunday, January 16 the keynote speaker for Blues Summit Five is Bill Wax, the host of Sirius Radio’s popular program, B.B. King’s Bluesville, which can be heard all over the United States and approximately 200 miles on each side of the border into Canada and Mexico. The program audience is just above 2 million listeners per week. The keynote brunch is held at The Delta Chelsea Hotel at 11:00am.

Now in its 25th year, The Toronto Blues Society is a non profit membership organization dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the Blues. Koerner Hall at The Royal Conservatory is a 1,135-seat venue designed in the tradition of the classic “shoebox” venues of Europe, built without compromise and with a mission to provide acoustic perfection for music of all genres.

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For more information contact:

Sarah French
Sarah French Publicity
sarah@sarahfrenchpublicity.com
416-566-4188

Barbora Kršek
The Royal Conservatory

barbora.krsek@rcmusic.ca
(416) 408 -2824 x265

Jordan Safer
The Toronto Blues Society
info@torontobluessociety.com
(416)538-3885