Artist Bio
Overview
Join us for this special screening of the celebrated MUSIC FROM THE BIG HOUSE with legendary Canadian BLues artist, Rita Chiarelli in person answering questions and performing after the film!In MUSIC FROM THE BIG HOUSE, Rita Chiarelli, Canada’s Queen of the Blues, takes a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the blues, Louisiana State Maximum Security Penitentiary a.k.a Angola Prison – what used to be the bloodiest prison in America. Rita’s trip turns into a historic jailhouse performance – playing with inmates serving life sentences. Their shared bond of music, and Chiarelli’s vivacious personality, draw striking revelations from the inmates. Rather than sensational stories of convicts, we witness remarkable voices of hope as their love of music radiates humanity and redemption on their quest for forgiveness.
ABOUT RITA CHIARELLI
Rita Chiarelli is Canada’s most highly acclaimed female roots and blues artist. With a JUNO (a Canadian Grammy) award and 4 subsequent JUNO nominations, she is known across Canada as the “Goddess of the Blues.” Chiarelli is a gifted songwriter and an entertaining performer, but it is her soaring 3 octave voice that sets her apart from her peers, inspires awe and often tears in her audiences, and causes critics to gush. “ a voice so blue it could make the angels weep”…. “a voice that can growl at her demons or soar with the angels, a gift for lyric, an ear for melody and the heart to combine them.”
Over the past decade Rita Chiarelli has won every major Canadian blues award, including multiple Mapleblues awards, CBCs Great Canadian Blues Award, Toronto Independent Music Awards, Hamilton Music Awards, Manitoba Blues Society and the Hamilton Blues Society’s Lifetime Achievement Awards.
