Nathan Sloniowski Trio Benefit Concert
A benefit concert at the Carleton Place Gallery featuring The Nathan Sloniowski Trio is raising funds for the Carleton Place Youth Centre. Nathan (guitar and vocals), Bill Serson (drums) and Barry Buse (bass and vocals) will be performing songs from Nathan’s acclaimed solo album, The Lost Love Letter to a Small Town.
Nathan also plays with The Ragged Flowers and The Maywoods so may sneak in a couple of tunes he contributes to those bands. Tickets for the Sat. Dec. 6, 7PM show are available at Ticketsplease.ca or at the gallery, and all funds raised from tickets and performance-night edibles prepared by youth centre volunteers go directly to the centre.
“I approached Ginny Fobert, the owner and human cultural spark-plug at the Carleton Place Gallery about doing a Christmas benefit,” said Nathan. “I’d played there earlier this year with The Ragged Flowers, and it’s a magical place for a show among the paintings and sculptures. Ginny was instantly supportive, and suggested that the band direct funds from our concert to the Carleton Place Youth Centre, which her research showed is often overlooked by local fundraisers.”
Ginny set up a meeting for Nathan to meet with Sharon Ruth, the Executive Director of the Carleton Place Youth Centre, and Nathan was “blown away by the programming there,” with after-school drop-ins Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, evening crafts and cooking programs, summer camps and special outings throughout the year for 8 to 15 year-old children. The gallery is also supporting Three-Fifty Squares, a special holiday exhibition featuring a diverse selection of original 12×12 $350 artworks and sculptures, with 10% of all proceeds also being donated to the Youth Centre.
Nathan’s original compositions blend the groove of Jesse Winchester with the down-to-earth wit and wisdom of John Prine. In his latest album, The Lost Love Letter to a Small Town, Nathan spins artfully crafted tales of neighbourly kindness, hopeless romanticism, community rivalries, guitar obsession, and aspirations for a better world that starts with the world we create at home.
Carleton Place’s Barry Buse and Bill Serson from Arnprior make up the band’s rhythm section. “Barry and Bill helped me launch the album at a sold-out folkus concert series show in 2024, and we played another sold-out show to kick off last Fall’s Music at MERA Series in McDonald’s Corners,” said Nathan. “They’re incredible musicians.”
Barry’s a road-tested bassist who’s played gospel and blues legend Diunna Greenleaf, and toured North America and Australia with stops at major festivals from Ottawa BluesFest to the Tremblant International Blues Festival with Trevor Finlay. Bill teaches percussion at Arnprior’s Main Street School of Music, and his students have gone on to study music at the university level then launch amazing careers. He is a two-time Canadian Snare Drum Champion and brings a highly musical mastery influenced by legends like Buddy Rich and Steve Gadd.
“Bill and Barry are also well-known throughout the Ottawa Valley for their blues band Redneck Limousine,” said Nathan. “Though they like to tease me that I use up all their feelings when we play my acoustic repertoire, I’m really grateful whenever we get to play together and I think they have a lot more feelings than they let on!”
Concert presenters have shared their own feelings about the band. Violet Bova from the folkus Concert Series wrote that “Nathan’s voice is as haunting as the tale he just told. It’s enough to tempt tears to start falling,” while Peter Cochrane, from Music at MERA said, “The band was tight and Nathan was in the groove. It was a great live show and a wonderful kick-off to our Fall series.”
