Courtney Wing invites his listeners into a compelling world of carefree and unpretentious humanity. Adept instrumentation and a strong and resonant vocal style backed by an 11-piece ‘operatic folk’ ensemble characterizes Wing’s current work.
His group consists of members from Bell Orchestre, Arcade Fire, and Godspeed! You Black Emperor as well as a 10-piece opera collective called Liederwolfe. Together, this dynamic group contributes to Wing’s compositions with symphonic textures so rich they melt even the most bitter-struck hearts.
Since the group’s formation in 2009, Wing accepted an invitation by the CBC to play an exclusive performance for an intimate audience at a local Montreal studio. The show would be recorded and featured on the home page of CBC Radio 2’s ‘Concerts on Demand’ and aired across the country on CBC’s ‘Canada Live’.
Following their national radio debut, Wing took the NXNE conference by surprise with a triumphant showcase where the group not only played to a packed house but also graced the cover of NOW Magazine and received the critic’s choice nomination for ‘bands not to be missed. Wing and company have since been granted artist feature articles in Chart Attack, the NY Times, the Montreal Voir, Montreal Mirror, Toronto NOW, Vancouver Sun, and the National Post to name a few. Such high appraise has launched Wing straight to the forefront of most talked about acts on the Canadian music scene.
A brief look into the past ….
Raised in a multi-cultural family (born to a Chinese Father and Russian and Icelandic Mother), Courtney’s first musical experiences ranged from playing traditional Chinese percussion for kung fu demonstrations to singing and dancing with members of the local Icelandic folk community. Wing continued to develop his musical education in his early twenties by traveling to Belize where he played in a reggae band and to the South of France where he learned and played flamenco in a busking dance group. Lorraine Carpenter of Exclaim Magazine describes Courtney as a “nomadic singer-songwriter who has gathered a pocketful of local color at every stop.”
Since the beginning of his professional career in 2001, Wing has completed three albums – ‘For the Good Times’ (2001) and ‘Starlight Shuffle’ (2005 – Maple Music), ‘Bouquet of Might & Fury’ (2010 – Proxenett) and has performed at Pop Montreal, SXSW, NXNE, the North American Folk Alliance, New Music West, The Indie Arts Festival, The Freedom Festival at the Forks, The Montreal Chamber Music Festival, CMJ in New York, and The Edge of the World Festival to name a few, and has performed extensively across Canada and the U.S.