2023/24 Season of the Performing Arts Commences with BC Legend Roy Forbes

The Harrison Festival Society will launch the 2023/24 Season of the Performing Arts with iconic west coast singer, songwriter, and guitar wizard Roy Forbes on September 30th, in the Harrison Memorial Hall. 

Roy Forbes is one of Canada’s best loved songwriters and performing artists. He’s been at it for over fifty years now and has picked up some tokens of appreciation from his peers along the way. There is a street named after him in his hometown of Dawson Creek in Northern B.C. and a star on Vancouver’s Granville Street where the names of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame members are enshrined. Over the years, Roy has had a couple of Juno nominations and has a handful of WCMA awards on his shelf. In 2021, he received a CFMA ‘Producer of the year’ nomination for his work on his current album, Edge of Blue. 

Mainly, and more importantly, Roy is firmly etched in the minds of thousands, tens of thousands in fact, of music lovers across the country. Some remember a skinny kid who went under the name of Bim, others the more mature man who reclaimed his ‘real’ name. Some got to know him at festivals from Faro in the Yukon to Lunenburg in Nova Scotia, as Roy trod the boards from the seventies to a stellar finale performance at the fortieth anniversary edition of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. For others it was Roy as a member of a contemporary folk supergroup- UHF- where he joined forces with Shari Ulrich and Bill Henderson. Over the last five decades Roy has had a few brushes with fame and endured, becoming an organic part of Canadian music. 

The last few years have been a challenge. Having dealt with poor vision all his life, Roy was blinded by an accident in 2015. He may have lost his sight but not his vision. Roy adapted to his new reality relatively quickly, returning to touring, performing, and recording, and all the other things he does so well. 

As Roy began getting used to a life without sight. New songs began to emerge. Ten of those songs became the core of his current record, Edge of Blue, something like his 11th solo effort. 

Edge of Blue may just be the Vancouver singer-songwriter’s best yet- a summation by an artist who has been doing this for a long time. Edge of Blue is 10 songs full of wisdom, confessions, vulnerability, sensuality, self- reflection, and celebration. This is art song- memorable words, compelling compositions, spare production, and a voice every bit as original as when the “kid full of dreams” first hit the big city over fifty years ago- pure Roy Forbes. 
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Come hear Roy perform these newer songs alongside his back catalogue of great tunes in the historic Harrison Memorial Hall on Sept. 30th. Show starts at 7:30pm. 
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Tickets are now on sale at www.harrisonfestival.com.