(COLLINGSWOOD, NJ) -- The Scottish Rite Auditorium presents Bruce Cockburn with special guest Patty Larkin on Saturday, November 9, 2024. For 50 years, this Canadian musical legend has been capturing in song the essence of human experience–while fiercely striving to make it better. Doors are at 7:00pm, showtime is 8:00pm.
One of Canada’s finest artists, Bruce Cockburn has enjoyed an illustrious career shaped by politics, spirituality, and musical diversity. His remarkable journey has seen him embrace folk, jazz, rock, and worldbeat styles while traveling to such far-flung places as Guatemala, Mali, Mozambique, and Nepal, and writing memorable songs about his ever-expanding world of wonders. “My job,” he explains, “is to try and trap the spirit of things the scratches of pen on paper, and the pulling of notes out of metal.”
That scratching and pulling have earned Cockburn high praise as an exceptional songwriter and a revered guitarist. His songs of romance, protest, and spiritual discovery are among the best to have emerged from Canada over the last 50 years. His guitar playing, both acoustic and electric, has placed him in the company of the world’s top instrumentalists. And he remains deeply respected for his activism on issues from native rights and land mines to the environment and Third World debt, working for organizations such as Oxfam, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and Friends of the Earth.
Throughout his career, Cockburn has deftly captured the joy, pain, fear, and faith of human experience in song. Whether singing about retreating to the country or going up against chaos, tackling imperialist lies or embracing ecclesiastical truths, he has always expressed a tough yet hopeful stance: to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. “We can’t settle for things as they are,” he once warned. “If you don’t tackle the problems, they’re going to get worse.”
For his many achievements, the Ottawa-born artist has been honored with the 13 Juno Awards, an induction into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian songwriters Hall of Fame, as well as the governor General’s Performing Arts Award, and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada. But he never rests on his laurels.“I’d rather think about what I’m going to do next,” says Cockburn.“My models for graceful aging are guys like John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt, who never stop working till they drop, as I fully expect to be doing, and just getting better as musicians and as human beings.”
His commitment to growth has made Bruce Cockburn both an exemplary citizen and a legendary artist whose prized songbook will be celebrated for many years to come.
Tickets range from $39.40 to $75 and are available for purchase online starting Friday, May 10th at 10:00am. Scottish Rite Auditorium Member Presale: Wednesday, May 8 @ 10:00am & Thursday, May 9 @ 10:00am. The Scottish Rite Auditorium is located at 315 White Horse Pike in Collingswood, New Jersey.
The Scottish Rite is one of the largest auditoriums in South Jersey. Voted one of the “150 Best Buildings and Places” by the American Institute of Architects in the 2011 AIA New Jersey Guidebook, the property rests on eight acres of land and comprises two separate buildings. The largest building is a five-story structure that houses the Collingswood Grand Ballroom and the 1,050 seat Scottish Rite Auditorium. The Scottish Rite Auditorium presents over twenty concerts per year by notable performers and bands such as America, Gordon Lightfoot, and Kansas to name a few. Musician David Crosby calls the stage “the coolest place I ever played!”
