Toronto Actor and Musician Raoul Bhaneja Set To Host The Maple Blues Awards

Toronto Actor and Musician Raoul Bhaneja Set To Host The Maple Blues Awards
Maple Blues Awards Will be Held on Blue Monday, January 21

For Immediate Release: September 13, 2012; (Toronto, Ontario) – Blue Monday, typically thought to be the most depressing day of the year will be anything but as Raoul Bhaneja, a Toronto actor and musician most noted for his work performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet solo and his blues band Raoul and the Big Time, is set to host the 16th annual Maple Blues Awards on January 21, 2013 at Koerner Hall in Toronto.

A yet to be announced cast of some of the best National blues musicians will be performing at the ceremony, all backed by The Maple Blues Band featuring Gary Kendall, Michael Fonfara, Teddy Leonard, Al Lerman, Tom Bona, Chris Whiteley, Pat Carey and Chris Murphy. Following the ceremony will be the popular after-party, featuring live music. Tickets for the Maple Blues Awards are on sale now for $35 - $65 and can be purchased at The Weston Family Box Office, located in The Royal Conservatory building at 273 Bloor Street West, Toronto or online at https://tickets.rcmusic.ca/public.

After many years of performing the duties of co-chairs of the Maple Blues Awards nominating panel, both Brent Staeben and John Valenteyn have stepped down to focus on their many other commitments in the blues community. The Toronto Blues Society is happy to introduce a new steering committee for the nominating panel that includes Deborah Cartmer, Program Director at CFBU FM radio in St. Catharines, Yves Trottier, Program Director at Dawg FM and Paul Norton, Programmer at CFRO FM and CITR FM radio in Vancouver.

The Maple Blues Awards is Canada’s national blues awards program. Its goal is to promote blues music across Canada, and to recognize outstanding achievement in the field. Each year, the Maple Blues Awards recognizes a leader in the blues community with the Blues With A Feeling Award (Lifetime Achievement Award).

The Maple Blues Awards will be wrapping up the biennial Blues Summit, a weekend of panels, discussions and workshops for blues artists, promoters, agents and festivals. On Sunday, January 20 the keynote speaker for Blues Summit Six is Holger Petersen, who in addition to being the president of Stony Plain Records, is also the host of CBC Radio’s popular program, Saturday Night Blues, host of CKUA’s Natch’l Blues and programmer of the Galaxie Blues channel.

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