HARRY MANZ...HIS BELOVED SOLITUDE

 Journalist: Myriam Sainson  Date: November 7, 2011  Region: Sherbrooke

Rythmebeat.com attended the latest solo – voice and guitar performance entitled “Pot-Pourri Series: Harry Manz”, on Thursday, November 3, 2011, (8p.m.) on stage at Centennial Theatre in Sherbrooke (Lennoxville). The audience was primed and ready to welcome, once again, the one whom we have anxiously awaited to return, since his last appearance on the same stage, with ''Bread & Budda'', in 2009, and his companion guitarist Kevin Breit, a spectacle with magic in colors and rythmes that we will never forget.

This time, it is “Harry Manz, in the heart of his solitude” that I discover before and after the show, in a decor of contemporary metal structures, with lights both probing and intimate, under the watchful eye of the lighting technician who is perched high atop one of the structures. It is to be a performance of memories and observations, a prelude to his latest album which came out in the spring of 2011 – “Strictly Whatever” created together with guitarist Kevin Breit.

Through a maze of corridors, a backstage interview awaits with Harry Manz -- an invitation to find, once again, the man who has been charming us with his instrumentalist folk which combines, again and again, both the memories of his trip to India and all the spirituality that comes with it and which continues to resound in him each day. The memory of Vishwa Mahan Bhatt is still vivid. In his research to discover so much more, in a voluntary and lonely introspective of new discoveries of the modern world, he remains a perfectionist as a musician who continues to be grateful for his music and his instrumental ability ( banjo, sitar, harmonica, guitar lap steel of 20 strings), an unlimited passion, without compromise. His determination to go '' Deeper and Deeper'' brings him inescapably back to his roots in the Isle of Man and his childhood and teenager years spent in Canada.

In his “Pot-pourri'' style of folk, blues, country and Indian music, there is a sense of nostalgia which exists on stage as he shares with us stories, travels, moments, lasting impressions, trips, loves lost or those to keep...Alone on his travelling roadshows and alone on stage, Harry Manz is happy exploring his beloved solitude....

Included in the 2011-2012 program for Centennial Theatre, is a section called ''Unexpected Delights'' -- each encounter with an artist at any concert at the Centennial Theatre is a delight to enjoy...Quality, authenticity and originality of the performances are always there, with a kind and courteous welcome. The evening with Harry Manz was a vibrant example of this and as Luce Couture, director of the Centennial Theatre: ''When you step into Centennial Theatre, you will be treated to many surprises”.

Information: 819-822-9692 or www.centennialtheatre.ca

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Photo 1: A solo show with Harry Manz ( Photo: Harry Manz) 

Photo 2: An interview with a talented artist, a simple man yet a perfectionist

Photo 3: Lighting both probing yet somehow intimate

Photo 4: A room full of faithful fans, in the Centennial Lobby.

                          Photos Myriam Sainson