Ventanas brings the Mediterranean to Willow Point
Published 9:30 pm Saturday, January 31, 2026
Six-piece global music ambassadors from Toronto, Tamar Ilana and Ventanas perform Saturday, Feb. 7 at the Willow Point Lions Community Hall in Campbell River.
Ventanas perform original and traditional material in over 20 languages, weaving in and out of fiery Flamenco dance and music, Greek, Turkish and Sephardic love songs, upbeat Bulgarian dance tunes, and lyrical original melodies.
Lead singer Tamar Ilana is Ashkenazi Jewish and a member of Pasqua First Nation (Treaty 4 Territory, SK) with some Scottish and Roma-Romanian ancestry mixed in. She grew up on the road performing and traveling with her ethnomusicologist mother, Dr. Judith Cohen, which deeply influenced her life and career. Toronto indie-rock legend Feist said that “Tamar has a power in her performance that is completely joyful and transportive. Her singing and dancing are deeply naturalistic and she’s transfixed me with her capacity to unravel a song. I’m a huge admirer.”
The members of Ventanas, which includes Quadra Island raised violin phenom Jaron Freeman-Fox, draw from various backgrounds including Greek, Italian, French Canadian, and Indian and all grew up playing music and performing since they were children.
The project originally formed in 2011 when Tamar moved back to Toronto from Seville, where she had been living and studying Flamenco. Ventanas, meaning “windows” in Spanish, merges the members’ musical and cultural backgrounds together, creating their own sound which in turn reflects the sound of their city, Toronto.
As house band for FabCollab’s Women in Song series Tamar Ilana and Ventanas have collaborated with internationally renowned artists such as Meesha Shafi, Measha Bruggergosman-Lee, Tia Wood, Zeb Bangash, Eliana Cuevas, Amanda Martinez, Joanna Majoko, OKAN, Sintayehu “Mimi” Zenebe, Rosary Spence, Cotee Harper, Seanna Bailey, Ooldouz Pouri, Athina Malli, Leen Hamo, Tara Moneka, Suba Sankaran, and Paromita Kar. They’ve performed at Koerner Hall, the National Arts Centre, the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, the Aga Khan Museum, Calgary Folk Music Festival, Shambhala, and countless other theatres and festivals around the world, but this will be their first performance in Campbell River!
The concert is presented by the Highway 19 Concert Society with support by the Province of BC through BC Arts Council and BC Live, and the Government of Canada’s Department of Canadian Heritage. Tickets are available through the Tidemark Theatre box office and at www.tidemarktheatre.com for $30 with a limited number available for $20 to be accessible for those with limited means, and youth tickets are only $5.
