member Trevor Tchir

Trevor Tchir (pronounced cheer) is pleased to announce the release of his fourth album, Sky Locked Land.  Many of Edmonton’s finest musicians are featured on the album, including his brother, Stephen Tchir, Lane Arndt, Jordan Faulds, and Shannon Johnson.  It also features long-time friends and collaborators Pierre Chrétien, of Ottawa’s Soul Jazz Orchestra, on organ, and Peter Webb, helping with harmonies.  Other contributors include Bramwell Park, Volya Baziuk, Allyson Rogers, Steve Badach, Mickey Vallee, Kristy McKay, and Al Bragg.  Sky Locked Land was recorded by Terry Tran at Riverdale Recorders, Edmonton.      Tchir unites the sounds and images of Canada’s rural and urban spaces. Over the past twelve years, he has played his original songs to audiences across the country. His music tells stories of the people who work and love in its  pulsing cities and austere hinterlands.  In reviewer Mary Christa O’Keefe’s words, "Tchir's lyrics are populated with characters who are both universal and intimate…In Tchir's hands place, time and relationships become characters, too, with their own agendas and idiosyncrasies...His allegiance is to the time-honoured art of evoking emotion through storytelling."       Tchir was born in St. Albert, Alberta, where, as a teen, he first heard the music of Bill Bourne, who was an early inspiration and, over two summers, Tchir's guitar teacher.  Tchir left Alberta at seventeen to work as a page in the House of Commons and to study political science. In 1997, he began playing regularly at Sandy Hill's Dunvegan Pub, where he would meet musical friends Bill Barnes, Peter Webb, Pierre Chrétien, Chris Lochner, and poet Kristy McKay, among others. These were years of fruitful creative collaboration, spawning Tchir's first release, The Way I Feel Today, recorded in March 1999 by Webb in his Nelson Street basement studio-apartment. Tchir continued to play Ottawa Valley venues such as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Black Sheep Inn, Cajun Attic, National Library Auditorium, and the Ottawa Tulip Festival, sharing the stage with acts like Drums and Tuba, Garnet Rogers, Jacob Two-Two, Richard Wood, Emm Gryner, Julie Larocque, Peter Webb, and Purple.    In 2001, Tchir released November, whose songs center on themes of devotion, ecological responsibility, and the place of spirituality in a world increasingly bent on economic and technological efficiency. Tchir often returned to his Western home, playing with groups like Five O'Clock Charlie, a band featuring his brother Stephen Tchir on guitar. From 2001-04, Tchir co-hosted Ottawa's popular Café Nostalgica weekly open stage with poet Kristy McKay, now his wife.  These Thursday nights helped to spring the careers of notable Canadian acts like Soul Jazz Orchestra, John Carroll, Rozalind MacPhail, and Melissa Laveaux. In September, 2003, on the second anniversary of the open stage, Nostalgica recorded a live collection of music and poetry: Thursday Heroes - Live at Café Nostalgica. During his tenure as host of Nostalgica, Trevor completed his Master's in Political Philosophy, focusing on the cultural theory of the influential Canadian writer, Charles Taylor. He continued to play regularly around Ottawa, backed by Webb and members of the funk-jazz fusion band SoulJazz Orchestra.    In 2005, Tchir released Wooden Castles Fall.  Its closing song, “Athabasca,” was recently featured in Leslie Iwerks' film, Downstream, shortlisted for the 2009 Academy Award for short documentary, about the environmental health hazards of Alberta oil development.  Tchir returned to Edmonton in 2005. In the spring of 2006, Trevor embarked of his first Canadian tour, a 25 show journey by car, bus, ferry, and jetplane from Edmonton to St. John's, Newfoundland, hooking up with old bandmates in Ottawa, sharing bills with Pete Webb in Ontario and Alberta, and former Nostalgica Café regular, Amelia Curran, in Halifax.     Tchir holds a PhD in Political Philosophy from the University of Alberta and wrote his thesis on Hannah Arendt’s analogy between performing arts and political action.