Category: What’s New

“St. Joseph Street” (Sneak Peek)

At long, long last I’ve finished off my new EP!! It’s called St. Joseph Street (named after the street I’ve lived on for the last 20 years), and it features some fantastic performances from: Bill McBirnie (Flute), Henrik Bridger (Bass), Dave Patel (Drums), Wendy Irvine (Vocals) and Peter A. P. Zakarow (Drums). I’ll post more info about the record in the coming days… In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek of St. Joseph Street:

 

Reaching Out Through Music – Fundraising Concert

I’ve been teaching guitar at the Reaching Out Through Music program one afternoon a week since last September. The program’s chief mandate is to offer private instruction to inner-city children and youth who cannot otherwise obtain music lessons for financial reasons. There’s a fundraiser for the program happening on Saturday, May 9th. If you’d like to lend your support, here are the details:

Time: Saturday, May 9th at 7:30 p.m.
Location: St Simon-the-Apostle Anglican Church
525 Bloor St East
Toronto, Ontario
M4W 1J1 (map)

Concert, Reception & Auction (including a week stay at an 18th century stone farmhouse in the south of France). Evening to be hosted by Classical 96.3’s Mike Duncan.

Performing Artists: ROTM Children’s Choir; St Simon’s Choir; Patti Loach, piano; Patricia Parr, piano; John Sheard, jazz piano; Jean Stilwell, mezzo-soprano; Alejandro Valdepenas, violin; Joaquin Valdepenas, clarinet.

Patrons $100 ($60 tax receipt), Adult $40, Seniors $30, Students $10. For tickets, call (416-923-8714) or e-mail (rotm@stsimons.ca).

Bandcamp

I just uploaded all of my albums to Bandcamp. I absolutely love this site — very clearly laid out and extremely artist and consumer friendly. Basically, Bandcamp let’s artists upload their tracks and then sell downloads directly (via PayPal) to their audience. Artists can also set whatever price (all the way down to zero) they’d like for their downloads. At this point, Bandcamp isn’t taking any sort of cut of the download, which I hope they change in the future. They need to make money to stay in business (they acknowledge this). One striking plus to Bandcamp’s downloads is that they come in a very wide variety of formats — MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and Apple Lossless. And they are completely DRM-free. So head on over to the Bandcamp site!

Jamie Bonk – Bio

Guitarist/composer Jamie Bonk’s most recent release is an uptempo single called, “Good To Be” (released June 2014). The nylon string guitar based track features several musicians Jamie has worked with in the past including Sonya Mitlewski (keyboards), Henrik Bridger (bass) and Dave Patel (drums). Jamie’s brother Randy directed and edited the “Good To Be” video.

In 2013, Jamie produced his first ever Christmas piece — an instrumental/vocal arrangement of “The First Noël”. The stellar vocals were done by Wendy Irvine with guitars by Jamie and keyboards and all orchestral parts played by Sonya Mitlewski. Jamie is currently working some additional Christmas music for a tentative Fall 2015 release date.

Jamie’s seventh album was Necessity (released November 2012).  On Necessity, Jamie returned with his signature guitar work, but with a subtle twist — on this album, he focused on the electric guitar.  The twelve all instrumental tracks on Necessity featured in addition to Jamie, Sonya Mitlewski (keyboards), Henrik Bridger (bass) and Dave Patel (drums).  Stylistically, this record created a seamless blend of wide variety of genres and contains some of the most virtuosic guitar playing Jamie had recorded.

Jamie’s sixth album was Side B (released June 2010).  As the title suggests, Side B showed a different side to Jamie’s music making — the focus on this record was electronic and orchestral textures.  Jamie has had a long time love of electronic-based music (he started out on his brother’s Roland Jupiter 4 back in the late ’70s) and ended up studying electro-acoustic/computer music in school.

St. Joseph Street (released September 2009) was Jamie’s fifth album. Named after the Toronto street Jamie has lived on for the last 20 years, this four song digital-only EP featured, in addition to Jamie’s own guitar playing, performances by bassist Henrik Bridger, drummers Dave Patel and Peter Zakarow, vocalist Wendy Irvine and flutist Bill McBirnie. St. Joseph Street drew on a multitude of styles including Jazz, Chill and Pop.

Jamie recorded his fourth album, 5 (released June 2007), over a three year period and was joined on the album by two outstanding instrumentalists, flugelhornist Jeff Oster and pianist Loren Gold. Jamie’s third album, My World (released August 2004), won two NAR LifeStyle Music Awards for: Album of the Year and Best Instrumental Album – Acoustic. My World blended Jamie’s fluid acoustic guitar playing with performances from keyboardist Sonya Mitlewski, guitarist Peter Janson and vocalists Ron Scott and Shelley Hamilton. The album featured a cover of the Bee Gees’ “Nights On Broadway” as well as the Ron Scott penned “If This Is Love” and the Janson/Bonk composition “Waiting For Winter”. My World spent two months (September and October 2004) at number one on the NAR Top 100 Radio Chart.

Jamie’s second album, A Perfect Tomorrow, debuted at number one on the New Age Voice (NAV) Magazine’s Airwaves Top 100 in 2000 and remained in the top 20 for six consecutive months. Jamie Bonk, Jamie’s self-titled debut CD, which was released in 1997 in Canada and in early 1998 in the U.S., also received considerable airplay. In addition to being NAV’s Radio Album of the Year for 1999, Jamie Bonk was NAV’s Airwaves Top 100 longest charting CD, staying on the charts for 18 consecutive months. Jamie Bonk was also the longest charting CD in the top ten (8 months) and the longest charting CD in the top twenty (14 months). To date, Jamie’s music has been played on over 700 radio stations worldwide.

Both Jamie Bonk and A Perfect Tomorrow have been played on many in-flight audio programs. Airlines that have programmed Jamie’s music include: Asiana, TWA, US Airways, American, America West and Canadian. Air Canada used Jamie Bonk in its entirety as boarding music during 1998. Additionally, Jamie’s music has been programmed by Pandora, Spotify, Sirius Satellite Radio, XM Radio, AEI Music, DMX USA, DMX Canada, Music Choice, Music Choice Europe, DX Radio Network, Galaxie/ExpressVu and Echo Star.

Jamie’s educational background includes a B.Mus in composition from Queen’s University (1987) and Classical guitar studies with Eli Kassner (teacher of Liona Boyd). At Queen’s, Jamie’s composition studies with renowned Canadian Contemporary Classical composer Istvan Anhalt and Professor Bruce Pennycook were instrumental in helping him win a silver medal in the electro-acoustic category of the C.A.P.A.C. competition (1986).

For six and a half years (1990-97), Jamie was an Associate Guitar Instructor at the Toronto Guitar Institute, teaching hundreds of students and in every style. In 2003, he became a contributing editor for NewAgeReporter.com. His artist-to-artist conversation series featured many top name artists in the contemporary instrumental genre. From 2005 to 2010, Jamie conducted an ongoing series of seminars for Apple focusing on digital recording. 2012 saw Jamie joining the faculty at Metalworks Institute where he teaches Guitar Musicianship and Songwriting Analysis. Jamie uses and is endorsed by Godin Guitars.