CREDIT: JONATHAN PARKER
Last year, students from Music Industry Arts put on yet another great show at Aeolian Hall, featuring artists from the program.

Music Industry Arts’ annual Share the Land event proves to continue its track record of one-upping the previous year with bigger attendance and bigger scale. The event is a big show where artists from the program cover and perform original renditions of popular Canadian hits, paying tribute to award-winning producer Jack Richardson, who taught in the program until 2007. The show is scheduled for February 11 at the Aeolian Hall, located at 795 Dundas St. near Rectory Street. Tickets will be in the $15 to $20 range.

All proceeds of the event go to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and the event planners are seeking to clock over the previous year’s near-$4,000 outcome.

Acts on the bill include secondyear MIA artists, such as DeSever, Kira Longeuay, Graphic Nature, TKP, Tracey Trace, Bailey Pelkman and Emma Thompson.

“There will be lots more too, so that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Tanner Simpson, one of the brains behind the event.

“We added a video element to the show, which includes interviews with the bands and people involved,” Tanner said. “Those will be available on YouTube before and after the show.”

“The clips will be played during the show, which will give the audience some extra insight into the production of the show and helping those who are not in Music Industry Arts become familiar with the acts performing,” he said.

Tanner says this will be the first year that the show will introduce some of the electronic artists in MIA to the public, something that goes largely unnoticed due to the artists being humble and the electronic music scene being a digital experience.

The electronic artists will intro the night with an extensive hour long set that follows the format of the show in covering – in their case remixing – Canadian music. With the other artists involved, this is sure to be one of the most diverse years yet with their plans to live up to the hype well under way.

On the projects production and progress, Tanner has been really thankful for the support from the Fanshawe Student Union and his peers, all of these people have proportionately placed lots of hours into.

While everything has been going great, Tanner still feels that the event could use some more exposure outside of the Fanshawe College/ MIA circles.

He remains optimistic, however, going on to say, “This year we’re going to hopefully change that, and if you haven’t heard of Share the Land yet, I guarantee you will hear about it soon.”