Heads up guitar aficionados! The Carleton is pleased to welcome masters of the instrument – Don Ross & Julie Malia (aka Jule Malischke) – to our stage on Sunday, April 13th. Prepare to be blown away at 7 PM and tickets are $30 + HST.
Don Ross was born and raised in Montreal and has lived in various parts of Canada over the course of his life. The son of a Mi’kmaw Indigenous mother and a Scottish immigrant father, he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Music) degree from Toronto’s York University and started working full-time as a musician in 1988. That year he won the US National Fingerpick Guitar Championship for the first time, and also played with his quartet Eye Music at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
Concentrating his touring primarily in Canada at the start of his career, Don went on to sign with Sony Music/Columbia Records (Canada) in 1994, releasing three CDs for the label. US-based Narada Records also licensed two pieces for the Masters of Acoustic Guitar CD in 1997. Meanwhile, Don won the US National Fingerpick Guitar Championship for the second time in 1996. To this day, he is still the competition’s only two-time winner. Don began touring more internationally at this point in his career, concentrating especially on Germany and other central European countries.
Don has just released new solo album, WATER. It is his 18th solo album, and his 21st including collaborations. For this new recording, Don decided to launch a Kickstarter fundraising campaign and do the release 100% independently. He managed to raise his financial goal in 28 hours, and was able to make many musical concepts come true as a result. The album features collaborations with legendary guitarist/songwriter Bruce Cockburn, fretless bass wizard Michael Manring, Washington State-based guitarist/composer Sean Hall, singer/guitarist Brooke Miller, Prince Edward Island-based quintet The Atlantic String Machine, and even one piece with the 70-piece City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. The album features cover art by luminary Mi’kmaw visual artist Alan Syliboy of Millbrook First Nation in Nova Scotia.
In 2021, Don won the prestigious Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts, administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Don currently lives in Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Julie Malia is a guitarist, singer, songwriter, lecturer at the Carl Maria von Weber Music School in Dresden, as well as organizer and artistic director of the Giengen Guitar Festival in Germany.
She effortlessly moves between different styles of concert guitar, complex fingerstyle arrangements, vocalisms, and her songs that she sings with great passion and poetry.