Measha Brueggergosman – Spirit in Her Voice, from Bill Kendrick’s Prince Edward Island-based Island Images, focuses on the 24-year-old Fredericton-born singer who is on the cusp of becoming a major voice in classical music. The performing arts documentary combines live performances with doc coverage of Brueggergosman’s art and life. Kendrick produces and directs the $700,000 production, which will air on CBC’s Opening Night in fall 2003.

Shooting started Sept. 19 in Fredericton, where performance director Alan Burke captures Brueggergosman with the Baptist Church choir she sang in as a child. The crew also traveled to Toronto to shoot a performance at the newly renovated Roy Thomson Hall and wrapped mid-December just outside Munich, Germany, where Brueggergosman studies music.

With funding from TechPEI, the LFP and EIP, Spirit in Her Voice moves into post in late January at Salt Water Communications in P.E.I.

Island Images currently has another project in post at the same facility, Bed and Breakfast Dream, about opening a B&B by the sea at Salutation Cove, PEI.

The one-hour, $120,000 doc is funded through TechPEI and a licence fee from Home & Garden Television Canada, which will air the show in the spring. Kendrick writes, produces and does camera work, with the assistance of production manager Richard Games of Salt Water.

Marriage of music in Moncton

Moncton, NB-based Dreamsmith Entertainment is also producing a performance documentary for CBC’s Opening Night, to be aired by the public broadcaster in early 2003. Rick LeGuerrier of Moncton’s West Street Pictures and Timothy M. Hogan of Dreamsmith produce the 90-minute doc, Flying on the Moon – The Ludmila Story, which documents the talent and achievement of classical pianist Ludmila Knezkova-Hussey.

After marrying Bernard Hussey and moving to Bathurst, NB in 1991, Knezkova-Hussey helped develop a classical music scene by organizing an international performance competition in the city. Maurice Andre Aubin directs multi-camera footage of the 2002 competition lensed by DOP Daryl Gray.

Principal photography on the $390,000 doc started in early summer and took the crew from Bathurst to Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. The program is written and directed by Christine McLean (Frontiers of Construction), with W. James Hogan executive producing.

In addition to developing variety and performance docs about the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival, held in Fredericton each fall, LeGuerrier’s West Street is also in development on Trio for the CBC. The variety special features singer/songwriters Kim Stockwood, Damhnait Doyle and Tara MacLean. The concert, to be shot in New Brunswick in the spring with Gemini-winning producer Jac Gautreau (The East Coast Music Awards), will mark the first time the three musicians have played together.

Cultural harmony in Canadian rhythms

Jac Gautreau has another performing arts project in the works, as creative director for Drum! A Musical Tribute, coproduced by Halifax-based Topsail Entertainment and Brookes Diamond Productions, going to camera in the spring. [Drum! is to be directed by Alexandre Franchi, a recent Canadian Film Centre grad who was recognized at the 2002 Saatchi & Saatchi/Playback First Cut Awards.]

The one-hour performing arts special for the CBC unites musical performances from four cultures, celebrating ‘differences in rhythms, but a sameness of spirit,’ says producer Brookes Diamond. Diamond, who says he usually works on live performances, teams up with Topsail’s Mike Volpe on the $1-million-plus production to air in early July.

Magic Cat’s Bedlam

Also in production for CBC’s Opening Night is Tucked into Bedlam, a one-hour, $350,000 performing arts production from producer/director Susan Levine’s Halifax-based Magic Cat Films and New Media, due to air on March 20, with second window going to Bravo!.

When Levine first saw Tomas Kubinek perform on stage in Chester, NS, she knew the Czech-born, Toronto-based performer could attract a wider Canuck audience. Although Kubinek’s performances have won him critical acclaim in the U.S. and Europe, Levine says he is lesser known at home.

For Tucked into Bedlam, Kubinek came up with a screen adaptation of his live performance Bed. It is a fantastical, dream-like account of a traveling performer who, after being on the road for too long, gets stuck in his hotel room and begins to retreat into his imagination. Kubinek stars with Toronto performer Edith Tankus and Halifax performer Neil Marquis.

Geoff LeBoutillier of Halifax prodco Lowenbe Holdings executive produces, with funding from CBC, the LFP, the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, Bravo! and the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation. Shot on Super 16, filming took place Oct. 28 to Nov. 7 and the production is currently in post at Salter Street Digital in Halifax with Trudeau editor Dean Soltys.