Wednesday, September 29, 2010 • The Union proudly presents

VAN DYKE PARKS
with Clare and The Reasons

Doors 7pm, Concert 8pm
Tickets $30 + S/C at UnionEvents.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, charge by phone 416-870-8000, Ticketmaster.ca, Rotate This & Soundscapes

Born in Hattiesburg, MS, in 1941, Van Dyke Parks was a musical prodigy and attended the American Boychoir School in Princeton, NJ, and at the Carnegie Institute where he majored in music at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1964, a year after graduating, he was signed to MGM Records, and has spent the last 50 years working within the music and entertainment industry.
As a session musician, composer, arranger, lyricist, and singer, he's contributed significantly to several decades' worth of inimitable masterpieces credited to other artists, as well as generating two or three masterpieces of his own. Parks has been at the heart of some of the greatest albums of the last 50 years, whether it be writing the lyrics for Brian Wilsonʼs Smile, or the orchestral arrangements for Joanna Newson's Ys. He has worked with a countless number of performers including Grace Kelly, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Loudon Wainwright III, U2, Tim Buckley, Silverchair, Inara George, Saint Etienne, Frank Black, and Ringo Starr.
With the re-emergence of his work for a new generation of music-lovers, Parks has resurfaced, and like Frank Sinatra and Brian Wilson (who preceded him in retirement), Van Dyke Parks is back.
Van Dyke Parks will be performing a rare and intimate show at The Music Gallery in Toronto alongside Brooklyn's Clare and The Reasons, whose stellar list of accomplices and past collaborators include Sufjan Stevens and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) this September.