N.L. artists step up to support Trinity Hall after L.A. fire forces producer to cancel show
Benefit concert for performance art centre scheduled in Winterton next weekend
After raging Los Angeles fires disrupted a planned concert on the Avalon Peninsula in support of a performance arts centre, a musical community has stepped up to host two concerts and raise funds to keep its lights on.
Greg Wells, a Grammy award-winning producer who grew up in Peterborough, Ont., is one of thousands of people who have lost their homes. The fire also cancelled his trip to Winterton, N.L., and a screening at Trinity Hall of blockbuster Wicked, a film he worked on.
In response, Trinity Hall chair Rhoda Hedd said the community has stepped up to support Wells's passion project.
"There was so much unmeasurable love shown to him and his family. And one of his really, really good friends who he has befriended now over the past little while, came up to the plate. And Alan Doyle said to us, look, 'What can I do?'" Hedd told CBC Radio's Weekend AM.
Trinity Hall will be home to two benefit concerts this weekend that will be hosted by Doyle and feature artists Darcy Scott, Amanda Stone, Courtney Wicks and Rachel Cousins.
Hedd said tickets for the first concert sold out within minutes when they went on sale.
"We don't really know how much we will raise because not only are people buying tickets to see Alan's shows, but they're also asking us, 'We cannot attend the shows, but how can I donate?'" said Hedd.
"Most of the funds will be used to keep the lights on at Trinity Hall, to keep the door open, to keep the expenses paid for that we need to."
'Heart-wrenching'
Hedd was messaging Wells over text when the fire reached his L.A. home.
"All of a sudden he interrupted us and said, 'Our neighborhood is on fire.' And I thought he was probably joking at the time because sometimes we would do that," she said.
Hedd messaged him to tell him to stay safe and then turned on the television and saw the scenes of destruction of the Palisades and that people were being told to evacuate.
Hedd said she didn't hear from Wells until the next day, when he sent her two photos, one of a blackened burned tree and rubble and the word "Gone."
The images were "heart-wrenching," she said.
"I had just been there a few weeks before and I saw the beauty of that place that I had not seen before," said Hedd. "All you could see in that picture was black. The black mass of it really, really hit me hard."
Hedd is hopeful she will get to see Wells soon, but she doesn't know when that might happen.
"When he cancelled his trip, he said maybe I can come back now in a month or so. Now we don't know exactly when that will be, and I guess he doesn't know himself yet," she said.
While Wells's home studio has been lost, Hedd said he also has a space in Santa Monica where he'll try to continue working.
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With files from Weekend AM