Will Gillespie & Brian Tremblay: 2 Northern Troubadours - Timmins Museum NEC - TIMMINS

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About

Folk/Roots Singer-Songwriters Will Gillespie and Brian Tremblay are teaming up and hitting the road on tour across Northern Ontario during Ontario Culture Days in October 2025 to perform new, original songs in old, familiar styles, telling stories from different unsung chapters in the history of Northern Ontario, from their respective concept Folk albums:

"MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush"

(Will Gillespie)

&

"In the Tracks of the Black Bear"

(Brian Tremblay)

Singer-Songwriter Will Gillespie performs his entire original Northern Ontario History-themed concept album song-cycle : "MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush" LIVE! Performing it as a kind of Campfire Cabaret, taking the audience on a musical journey back in time to a lost world of prospectors, pioneers, bootlegger-bandits, high-graders, dogsledders and moonshiners... written in several different historically-inspired, period-appropriate styles from Bluegrass to Ragtime to Concert Hall, Hot Jazz, Barrelhouse Blues, Waltzes and MORE!!

While he sings, projected backdrops of original Northern Ontario landscape paintings by visual Artist Susan Robinson and historical photos from the collection at the Timmins Museum National Exhibition Centre of the real people, places and events Will will be singing about play on a screen behind him.

Opening the show is Sault Ste Marie's own Folk, Roots and Country Troubadour Brian Tremblay, performing songs from his own Northern Ontario history-inspired concept album: "In the Tracks of the Black Bear" with Lynn Eckroth playing some percussion and singing with him.

Brian's father worked for the Algoma Central Railway before and after the war. His uncles and cousins also worked for the railway. His siblings were born in Northern Ontario rail towns like Hawk Junction and Chapleau. Trains run in the Tremblay family blood. Tremblay has written new songs inspired by the ACR, combined with traditional railroad songs that so many will sing along with. In the Tracks of the Black Bear celebrates the Algoma Central Railway, the people who built it and the people who worked on it.

This tour is made possible thanks to the support of the Ontario Arts Council

#ArtsAddValue

www.willgillespie.ca

www.briantmusic.com

https://www.willgillespie.ca/2-northern-troubadours

Links

• 2 Northern Troubadours - website willgillespie.ca
• Will Gillespie - website willgillespie.ca
• Brian Tremblay - website briantmusic.com

Organizer

Will Gillespie & Brian Tremblay: 2 Northern Troubadours

Singer-Songwriters Will Gillespie & Brian Tremblay separately, individually each wrote, recorded and released their own unique concept album of new, original Folk songs about a different unsung chapter of Northern Ontario history.

Will Gillespie grew up in the small gold-mining town of South Porcupine, Northern Ontario and created: "MINE! True Stories and Legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush." It celebrates the local Folk heroes behind the legends of the Porcupine Gold Rush of 1909, taking the listener on a musical journey back in time to a world of prospectors, pioneers, bootlegger-bandits, high-graders, dog-sledders and moonshiners.

Brian's father worked for the Algoma Central Railway before and after the war. His uncles and cousins also worked for the railway. His siblings were born in Northern Ontario rail towns like Hawk Junction and Chapleau. Trains run in the Tremblay family blood. Tremblay has written new songs inspired by the ACR, combined with traditional railroad songs that so many will sing along with. In the Tracks of the Black Bear celebrates the Algoma Central Railway, the people who built it and the people who worked on it.

Partners

Timmins Museum National Exhibition Centre timminsmuseum.ca