leonardcohenforum.com

Plans for 2003 Leonard Cohen Nights are proceeding well. We hope to have Cohen birthday events in every major Canadian city. So far Edmonton, Calgary, Victoria, and Toronto are definite with many others tentative. We also are encouraging events in the US, Europe and elsewhere. If you are interested we would like to assist you in any way we can in organizing an event in your own city. The more events the merrier!

This is what we have planned so far for the Edmonton event: The event with be MCed by radio station CKUA host Bob Chelmick http://www.chelmick.com/robertchelmick.html and will begin at 4 PM on Sunday September 21st with two hours of performances by well known local musicians including Chapman stick player and singer Dale Ladouceur followed by the same wonderful Montreal theme dinner as last year followed by open mic performances. The venue will be the Hellenic Canadian Centre.

If interested in any of this you can Email me Kim.Solez@UAlberta.CA . More details will be appearing at: http://www.leonardcohennights.org

I just wanted to say this was a really nice event. I flew in from LA and met up with a friend I first met in Montreal, Bob Parkins (Parky). Did a grand tour of the Canadien Rockies. We topped off our grand tour with a visit to Dr. Kim's excellent event. Most of the attendees seemed rather new to Leonard Cohen, as evidenced by the fact that Nancy White and I were the only ones who could answer the trivia questions. I am really excited by the fact that these events are introducing "Our Minstrel" to a new audience.

Keep up the good work Dr. Kim I am glad to see this growing.

Valeire

Hi Dr. Kim!

It's good to see that Valerie gave you such a good review. I think it wonderful that you are encouraging new fans. Many there be many Cohen Nites to come!

Kim

How did the event go this year - were you satisfied with how it turned out? Having fond memories of last year's event, I was thinking of you all at the time (even though I was preoccupied with our event 'down under' ).

Cheers
Andrew (Darby)

Thanks, Andy! The event was a great success, attended by about 150 people. Very good vibes from it and a good basis for continuing events year after year with dissemination to other cities. Our emcee Bob Chelmick has enthusiastically agreed to emcee in 2004 as well and we are already heavily into plans for that event on Saturday Sept. 19th. This would also allow me to attend other events in other places on the 20th or 21st much as you attended ours in 2002.

You can see the pictures from our event at
http://cnserver0.nkf.med.ualberta.ca/mi ... es2003.htm

I will be working further on updating the
http://www.leonardcohennights.org/ site later this month. Of course the easiest form of Leonard Cohen Night is a gathering in a private home between friends. There are almost no costs that way and I could imagine that that would be the way in which Leonard Cohen events might begin in many cities.

Eventually the meetup site http://leonardcohen.meetup.com will also be a catalyst for local gatherings. Evelyn is working now to try to make as meetup happen in New York City. They have come close several times. You can see at http://leonardcohen.meetup.com/members/ that they have 23 members but still no actual meetup has occurred! At the moment a meetup in New York which would help prepare for the June gathering is what would excite me the most!

All the best. - Kim