Beach United Church welcomes father-son duo Christopher & Simon Dawes on Saturday, December 20th at 4:30pm as they usher in the season with a dynamic program featuring jazz duets on the guitar and organ based on well-known Holiday favourites.

All proceeds help support Beach United’s music and community programs. As always, our concerts are pay-what-you-can, with a suggested minimum of $15.

CHRISTOPHER DAWES is a Toronto-based freelance performer, conductor, media professional, and consultant who performs throughout Southern Ontario and beyond with many of Canada’s finest musical institutions. Chris currently serves as Director of Music to Rosedale Presbyterian Church in Toronto, as Collaborative Accompanist and Coach to the orchestral and choral conducting programs of the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, and as a Director of Canada’s Summer Institute of Church Music.  Chris’ graduate work in the area of Music Criticism and musical genre has led to occasional blogging and podcasting under the banner Ideas About Music, speaking at conferences, and eventually founding the Celtic-crossover band Chroí in 2013.  He is at best a hobbyist jazz player, albeit with interest renewed by recent developments in his son Simon’s musical career.

SIMON DAWES, middle son to Chris and Marcia, is a talented multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter, and first-year jazz guitar student at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, where he studies with Harley Card.  His musical interests have ranged from folk and classical to hardcore, but he can now mainly be found drumming for the Kitchener-based indie band Amanda Braam and the Paper Cranes, and tearing up the Toronto youth jazz scene at jams and other venues in Toronto, Guelph and Kitchener/Waterloo.