Latest news with #Footprints
Hamilton Spectator
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Latin jazz ensemble brightens up Glenhyrst Coach House
The Latin Jazz Ensemble of the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) performed an array of tunes during an intimate concert at the Glenhyrst Art Gallery Coach House on Saturday, May 3, 2025. Bandleader Rubén Vázquez, an accomplished piano player who currently sits on the faculty at the Oscar Peterson School of Music and Humber College, was performing with eight of his students from the RCM. 'These are my students; I've had this class for about 20 or 25 years at the RCM now, and I would like to introduce the amazing people who are playing with me here this evening,' said Vázquez. 'On guitar, Greg Papinko; on bass, Colin Flint; on drums, David Grad; Aldo de Jong on clarinet; Lyanne Schlichter on flute; Adam Aucoin on trumpet; and our great percussionists, Julian Alvarado on the bongos, and Joyce Humbert on the congas.' Throughout the evening, the nine-piece ensemble delivered a dynamic mix of cha-cha-cha, bossa nova, Latin funk, and Latin jazz standards. With pieces like Wayne Shorter's 'Footprints,' Consuelo Velázquez' 'Bésame Mucho,' Tito Puente's 'Oye Como Va,' Pablo B. Ruiz' 'Sway,' Victor Daniel's 'La Vida es un Carnaval,' and Chuck Rio's 'Tequila,' the set had plenty of upbeat numbers for the audience to enjoy and move along to. As well, the repertoire featured an original composition by Aucoin called, 'Arabian Skies.' He also arranged Clifford Brown's 'Sandu' with a twist of funk. During intermission, Derek Bond, one of the 20 or so people in attendance for the evening, said he was enjoying the performance. 'It's wonderful because traditional Latin jazz music is not performed a whole lot, and it's very, very difficult to do well. The rhythms are very complex; you've got all kinds of calling rhythms and cross rhythms, and you have to consider what the bass will be doing and what the piano will be doing against what's happening with the other instrumentalists as well,' he said. 'They really have a nice variety of repertoire; they did some standards that many people who listen to jazz would know, and some newer stuff as well. It was also nice to see that the trumpet player had an original composition in there too.' Later, as the ensemble wrapped up with Herbie Hancock's 'Watermelon Man,' it was Brantford resident Maria LeBlanc, who was first to call for an encore. Afterwards, she said the performance was 'fabulous.' 'My favourite was of course, 'Tequila,' she said, with a laugh. 'We didn't know all of the pieces but they were just terrific. I've been to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto to see a couple of different things, but to get a taste of that here in Brantford was really wonderful. Where else would you get nine people playing live music in a tiny venue like this? I'm surprised they weren't sold out.' Kimberly De Jong's reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at .
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ingrid Andress Will 'Never' Perform National Anthem Again. How She's Moving on After Botched Performance (Exclusive)
Ingrid Andress admits she was nervous when she appeared on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry this month. No wonder: It was her first time to sing on a stage after her drunken performance of the national anthem went viral last July and led to a month in rehab. Of course she wanted nothing to go wrong with this comeback. But one verse into 'Lady Like' while accompanying herself on piano, the 33-year-old artist abruptly stopped singing. 'Hold on,' she said, yanking off her right boot as she explained to the crowd that her high heel was interfering with her piano play. 'I couldn't hit the pedal!' Days later, she's lamenting the glitch to PEOPLE, annoyed that it occurred 'the one time I'm coming back to redeem myself.' Ah, well. Worse things could have happened. 'Truly! Worse things have happened!' Andress says with a hearty laugh — something that shows itself frequently now, eight months removed from the botched anthem that she calls 'my worst nightmare come true.' Related: Ingrid Andress Says She Was 'Crying Every Day' During Rehab Stay: 'I Felt So Raw' (Exclusive) The Opry actually wasn't Andress' first stop as she re-enters public life. That was reserved for a Denver Avalanche hockey game on Feb. 28, where she delivered a redemptive performance of 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' This time she nailed it. She calls that 'the second anthem,' then corrects herself: 'the last one.' After what she's been through, she's not about to tempt fate. 'I'm never performing that song again — ever,' she says, her tart wit fully intact. That chapter is closed, but it's left her feeling vulnerable. The next chapter is beginning slowly. So far, Andress has released one new single, 'Footprints,' her first new music in over a year, and she's booked just two shows, in April in her home state of Colorado. 'I wanted to do some Colorado shows for my fans, just to ease back in,' she says. 'I didn't want to do like, 'We're back, baby!' and pretend nothing's changed. No, let's start small and see how we feel.' Related: Ingrid Andress Returns to Spotlight to Sing National Anthem 7 Months After Fumbled Performance, Rehab Check-In The performance at the Opry, where she's appeared several times before, offered her a first sample, and she says, 'It was really nice to be back in a familiar setting. The Opry is very welcoming, and everyone wants you to do well.' Indeed, the reception was warm enough for her to risk a brief allusion to her viral moment. 'I'm definitely not a perfect person — as we've all found out,' she playfully told the audience when she introduced 'Footprints.' The comment evoked a ripple of sympathetic laughter. Despite all the upheaval of the past year, Andress says, she still feels like 'who I am, at my core, is still me.' What has changed is new healthful behaviors. Alcohol, she now understands, is a hindrance, not a help. Instead, she's learning how to process her feelings rather than numb them, to take better steps to self-care. Perhaps most important, she's learning how to give herself grace when she makes mistakes. In therapy, she says, she realized that, growing up in a strict Christian household, she had somehow come to believe that making mistakes meant 'I had failed as a human being.' One reason she selected 'Footprints' as her first single, she says, is that its lyrics mean something so different to her now than when she wrote them two years ago. Initially, she thought the tender ballad was presenting herself as a role model, encouraging her four siblings to successfully takes risks just as she had. But, she says, 'It felt more meaningful for me to release it now when I feel like, 'Hey, you can royally f--- up and still keep going.' Discovering that herself, during her time off, was crucial. 'Resilience is probably one of the best superpowers I've been granted,' she says with obvious pride. Andress says she deliberately chose to restart her public life, six months after rehab, only when she 'got to a place of like, oh, I enjoy myself. I like who I am, separate from anything that I do.' But at heart, she also knows her artistry is part of what defines her, and she remains passionate about her music. She admits she had a fleeting moment during her downtime when she thought about abandoning the stage and turning exclusively to songwriting, which is what brought her to Nashville over a decade ago. 'But then I remember how I got into being an artist,' she says, 'and I'd probably just repeat the same thing, writing more personal songs that are more my story, and then I would not want other people to sing them. And then we'd be back to where we are now!' Related: Ingrid Andress 'Felt Like America's Punching Bag' After Drunken, Botched National Anthem: 'My Worst Moment' Better, she's decided, to focus on new ways to manage her life. That includes a fitness routine — tennis and yoga are go-to pursuits — and other healthful habits. 'Hydration and sleep and activity do wonders,' she says. 'And cross-stitching … It's very therapeutic.' What about therapy itself? 'Once a week, baby!' she enthuses. 'We're keeping it moving.' These days, life also means being single. 'I would probably not know what to do with another romantic human at this point,' she says with a laugh. Andress is adjusting to life without alcohol, as well, and she takes her guidance from the 12-step approach: 'I am very much a 'one day at a time' person.' She refuses to think of alcohol as the enemy. 'You have to take ownership of the fact that you're still choosing to do that to yourself,' she says. 'So, to me, I don't want to give that kind of power to anything. At the core of everyone's substance abuse is a human struggle.' Now that she's on the other side of surviving her 'worst fear,' Andress is finding so much of her music sounds different to her now. 'Footprints' is hardly the only song with fresh meaning. Her signature anthem, 'Lady Like,' for example, has become less a proclamation of her power — and her flaws — and more a statement of fact: 'At first, I was like, this is who I am, and hear me roar. Now when I sing it, it does resonate on such a deeper level because I feel even more comfortable saying it.' Several songs on her last album, 2022's Good Person, also resonate differently to their maker. Of course Andress sees the irony in the title now, given the impression so many people were left with after that fateful day last July. But more significantly, she says she's setting aside the question that she poses in the title song. Is she a 'good person'? 'Oh, I still don't know what that means,' she says with a laugh. Then she quiets to give herself a long moment's thought. 'I try to be, and I think at my core I am,' she says, but she adds, 'I try not to look at things anymore based on good or bad. It's just like, it is. It just is. And that opens up a whole other fun place to go with your brain.' Read the original article on People
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Seacoast food pantries: 'We need community to step up' amid federal cuts
PORTSMOUTH — Local food assistance programs are bracing for a trickle-down impact and calling for community support after the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut $1 billion in funding, including a $1 million grant utilized by the New Hampshire Food Bank. The cuts come as the Trump administration is making steep reductions in federal spending. Neither Gather, a Portsmouth-based food pantry and mobile market service, nor Footprints, a market inside the Mainspring social services hub in Kittery, Maine, directly rely on any federal funding. Both, however, utilize federally funded programs to obtain the goods they distribute throughout the Seacoast and southern Maine region, causing concern among their leaders about how the nonprofits can properly serve clients amid a growing need for assistance. Anne Hayes, executive director of Gather, and Megan Shapiro Ross, executive director of Footprints, are seeking the public's help in providing monetary donations and food and volunteering their time to help meet increasing food insecurity. More: USDA plans big cuts to food bank, school food programs 'The stress level is going up,' Hayes said Thursday. 'What I would say is, the government is stepping back, clearly, so we need the community to step up. That's where we get our funding. This is a very compassionate and generous community here on the Seacoast, and we've been so grateful for people's support.' In 2024, Gather served 1.7 million pounds of food to people from 119 municipalities in New Hampshire and Maine, according to Hayes. Since 2021, the Portsmouth pantry has seen an 80% bump in demand, which Hayes predicts will increase this year. Potential trouble looms on the horizon. Roughly 15% of the food Gather gives out is from the New Hampshire Food Bank. With the statewide organization's federal funding slashed, paired with the impact the Trump administration's tariffs could have on Canadian food imports, Hayes worries what the future holds. 'Their cuts will be our cuts,' she said of the New Hampshire Food Bank. Last year, Gather received 2.4 million pounds of in-kind food donations and roughly $3 million in financial donations through individual gifts and corporate sponsorships. More: Exeter food pantry expands hours to serve increased demand An average of more than 10,000 people were served every month at Gather last year. Threats to Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs, in addition to cost of living increases across the board, could result in even more people using Gather's services, Hayes added. 'It's sort of well hidden in the Seacoast better than other places in New Hampshire,' she said of food insecurity. 'It's only going to get worse. I'm worried about people and how they're going to make it through this.' Footprints moved into Mainspring on Kittery's Shapleigh Road this year and has already served 125 new households this year through its market and home delivery program. The Kittery agency had over 28,000 shopping visits from 651 households at its former Old Post Road headquarters in 2024. Shapiro Ross projects Footprints will see a 97% year-over-year increase in households seeking food assistance in 2025. But the nonprofit's ability to serve more locals could be hurt by cuts to various federal programs. Footprints uses The Emergency Food Assistance Program, the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 'Reductions in TEFAP or LFPA funding mean fewer USDA food deliveries and less locally sourced produce, forcing us to rely more heavily on purchased food and community donations," Shapiro Ross said in an email Tuesday. "At the same time, cuts to SNAP can push more families toward food assistance programs as households struggle to afford essential groceries." She wrote, "The impact of federal cuts is best measured not just in funding losses but in real consequences, such as decreased food supply, leading to potential shortages of key staple items, increased demand as more families turn to us for support, and a greater strain on nonprofit agencies, requiring more local fundraising and community assistance to fill the gap. Without adequate support, food pantries like Footprints will face more challenging choices about stretching limited resources while ensuring that no one in our community faces food insecurity.' Zach McLaughlin, superintendent of schools in Portsmouth, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recent programming purge does not directly impact the city school system's food service. But the district is keeping an eye on how nonprofits like Gather are being hit and how Portsmouth students could be affected in and out of school. 'We are concerned about students whose families rely on these resources to have proper nutrition,' he said. 'We know that students that are going without the right types of food are less likely to achieve academic success. It pushes us to try to think creatively about how we might be able to fill the gaps for those students. That in turn can mean that the cost of having these students healthy and ready to learn is just being shifted from the feds to our local budget.' Recent district data shows just under 14% of Portsmouth SAU 52 students qualify for free and reduced meals, according to McLaughlin. Lisa Jacobus, a social worker employed at Portsmouth Middle School, has heard from families recently who are struggling to afford eggs local grocery stores. 'Food insecurity continues to be a growing problem, especially as housing costs increase,' Jacobus said. 'In Portsmouth, we have many working-class families who do not qualify for free and reduced lunch yet 50% to 70% of their income goes towards their rent or mortgage, making affording school lunch or groceries extremely challenging.' Shapiro Ross encouraged residents of the Seacoast and southern Maine region to support Footprints' cause. 'The impact of this crisis extends far beyond food assistance. As more households struggle to afford groceries, the ripple effect will increase demand for utility assistance, housing support, and other essential services — putting greater strain on local nonprofits and community resources,' she wrote. 'Families facing food insecurity are often forced to make impossible choices between paying rent, keeping the lights on, or putting food on the table. The reality is clear: Without increased local support, families will face even more significant challenges in accessing basic necessities." She added, "It will take all of us together to share resources and get involved through financial support, volunteerism, advocacy, or any other avenue that you can share to support the well-being of each of us.' At Gather, which conducts 40 mobile markets a month predominantly in low-income and elderly housing neighborhoods, clients register with the nonprofit before coming in to shop at the West Road food pantry, oftentimes on the same day. In february alone, the nonprofit took its mobile market to stops in Dover, Farmington, Hampton, Hampton Falls, Portsmouth, Rochester, Seabrook and Somersworth. Milk, eggs and bread are free, in addition to non-perishable items, vegetables, fruits and other goods. Gather additionally supplies its clients with pet food and personal care items, if needed. Gather supports local children from low-income families through its neighborhood-style 'Meals 4 Kids' traveling service during school vacation periods. All are welcome at Gather. With the turn some federal programs are taking, however, Hayes said now is the time to support Gather's open-door policy. 'It's starting to tick up a lot over the past few weeks because people are getting nervous,' Hayes said of Gather's clientele. 'And when people are nervous, they want to make sure people who are there to support them. There's people who never thought they'd need to use a food pantry that we expect to see in the coming months.' This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Seacoast food pantries: Federal cuts hit as need for help surges
USA Today
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
After viral 'drunk' national anthem, Ingrid Andress returns to sing 'Star-Spangled Banner'
After viral 'drunk' national anthem, Ingrid Andress returns to sing 'Star-Spangled Banner' Show Caption Hide Caption Ingrid Andress talks about the making of Lady Like Ingrid Andress, the country music star who sang the national anthem before the MLB Home Run Derby, talks about the making of Lady Like. After her performance of the national anthem at the MLB Home Run Derby went viral for all the wrong reasons last year, Ingrid Andress is back to try it again. The 33-year-old singer returned to perform "The Star-Spangled Banner" during a recent Colorado Avalanche hockey game, as she shared in an Instagram clip posted on Friday. "We're back baby," she captioned the video. Andress also dropped a new single on Monday titled "Footprints." In an Instagram post about the new song, she reflected on how she was taught "that 'failure' was not an option" growing up. "As I've gotten older and experienced more life, I think the most human thing on earth is failing," she said. "It's getting kicked off, feeling the sting of it, but getting back on the same damn horse anyway. The sister, daughter, and human I want to be is resilient. Without the mistakes in my life, I would not be the person I am today, and I sure as hell wouldn't have the stories to pass on about my journey. We have to talk about our mistakes in order for our success to make sense." Ingrid Andress says she was 'drunk' during national anthem performance, will check into rehab "Footprints" is a "reminder to all the people I love the most, and also to myself, that I'm out here trying my best at this 'life' thing, and if there's any helpful guidance anyone can take from it, it's all worth it," she added. The track includes the lyrics, "Through the years, I'd make mistakes so you wouldn't have to make 'em. / And I took chances every day so you'd know when to take 'em." Ingrid Andress national anthem video In July, the Grammy nominee went viral as footage of her delivering what critics dubbed the "worst national anthem performance of all time" at the MLB Home Run Derby spread on social media. Who is Ingrid Andress? What to know about national anthem singer, 4-time Grammy nominee In a statement the following day, Andress admitted she was "drunk last night" and would be "checking myself into a facility" to get help. "That was not me last night," she said. "I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much for that rendition. I'll let y'all know how rehab is I hear it's super fun." Andress went dark on Instagram and X between that statement and her Friday post, where she shared the clip of herself performing at the Colorado Avalanche game. The video ended with the singer celebrating backstage as the person filming told her that she "sounded great." But reactions to the latest performance were mixed on Instagram, with one comment saying she "rocked it," while another said that this time was "just as bad."
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
After viral 'drunk' national anthem, Ingrid Andress returns to sing 'Star-Spangled Banner'
After her performance of the national anthem at the MLB Home Run Derby went viral for all the wrong reasons last year, Ingrid Andress is back to try it again. The 33-year-old singer returned to perform "The Star-Spangled Banner" during a recent Colorado Avalanche hockey game, as she shared in an Instagram clip posted on Friday. "We're back baby," she captioned the video. Andress also dropped a new single on Monday titled "Footprints." In an Instagram post about the new song, she reflected on how she was taught "that 'failure' was not an option" growing up. "As I've gotten older and experienced more life, I think the most human thing on earth is failing," she said. "It's getting kicked off, feeling the sting of it, but getting back on the same damn horse anyway. The sister, daughter, and human I want to be is resilient. Without the mistakes in my life, I would not be the person I am today, and I sure as hell wouldn't have the stories to pass on about my journey. We have to talk about our mistakes in order for our success to make sense." Ingrid Andress says she was 'drunk' during national anthem performance, will check into rehab "Footprints" is a "reminder to all the people I love the most, and also to myself, that I'm out here trying my best at this 'life' thing, and if there's any helpful guidance anyone can take from it, it's all worth it," she added. The track includes the lyrics, "Through the years, I'd make mistakes so you wouldn't have to make 'em. / And I took chances every day so you'd know when to take 'em." In July, the Grammy nominee went viral as footage of her delivering what critics dubbed the "worst national anthem performance of all time" at the MLB Home Run Derby spread on social media. Who is Ingrid Andress? What to know about national anthem singer, 4-time Grammy nominee In a statement the following day, Andress admitted she was "drunk last night" and would be "checking myself into a facility" to get help. "That was not me last night," she said. "I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much for that rendition. I'll let y'all know how rehab is I hear it's super fun." Andress went dark on Instagram and X between that statement and her Friday post, where she shared the clip of herself performing at the Colorado Avalanche game. The video ended with the singer celebrating backstage as the person filming told her that she "sounded great." But reactions to the latest performance were mixed on Instagram, with one comment saying she "rocked it," while another said that this time was "just as bad." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ingrid Andress sings national anthem again after viral song, rehab
