MICHAEL KAESHAMMER PRESENTS: AN UPSIDE CHRISTMAS
Where: McPherson Playhouse, 3 Centennial Sq., Victoria
When: Saturday, Dec. 7, 7 p.m.
Tickets: $53.25 from the Royal McPherson box office (250-386-6121) or
Michael Kaeshammer is blending his professions — music and television — Saturday during what will be his final performance of a very successful 2024.
The piano-playing dynamo has put together a variety concert at the McPherson Playhouse that will pair him and various local musicians with Jeff King and Ed Bain, who co-host the popular CHEK program The Upside.
Michael Kaeshammer Presents: An Upside Christmas gives the native of Offenburg, Germany a chance to put a twist on the finale of his recent mini tour, which took him to Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Vancouver, and Markham, Ontario in recent weeks. The fact that proceeds from the event benefit the annual CHEK Drive-Thru fundraiser in support of the Salvation Army, makes the evening all the more special for Kaeshammer.
Nick La Riviere’s Victoria Rock Choir will also perform a set.
“I book the McPherson once a year or once every couple of years to do a concert, and it’s always great to do my own show in Victoria,” Kaeshammer said. “But I thought it would be great to give something back to the community. I am able to do what I do for a living is because of Victoria, so I thought it would be great to do something different.”
His relationship with CHEK co-hosts King and Bain is an offshoot of a second profession for the six-time Juno Award nominee. Kaeshammer’s Kitchen, a 30-minute cooking show filmed in his North Saanich home, airs on CHEK, and he collaborated with The Upside co-hosts in various ways during the promotion of the show.
One highlight of the current season, according to Kaeshammer, was when Bain played guitar and King played drums, while Kaeshammer sang and played piano. “It’s been great to work with them — I can sit around and listen to the two guys tell jokes all day,” he said.
Bain, the longtime morning show host on rock radio station 100.3 The Q!, was the first on-air personality Kaeshammer remembers hearing when he moved to Victoria from Germany in 1995. “That was the station I listened to. He was a larger-than-life figure when I was starting out.”
Ties to Kaeshammer’s Kitchen run throughout the upcoming variety show. Stephen Fearing of Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, who lives in Victoria, will perform a set Saturday, including songs with Kaeshammer and his band. Fearing, a two-time Juno winner, was a guest on the second season of Kaeshammer’s Kitchen.
“He’s community oriented as well,” Kaeshammer said of Fearing. “It was a good fit.”
Victoria is a place Kaeshammer feels deeply passionate about, and he’s grown over the course of 30 years in the area into one of the city’s premiere talents. His status today is that of an international artist with pockets of support across the world, including China and Germany (where he will spend Christmas and New Year’s there this year.)
The 47 year-old recently signed a recording contract with Sony Music of Germany, which released his 15th album, Turn It Up, in March. The jazz-pop recording — which earned Kaeshammer a nomination for recording of the year at the 2024 Western Canadian Music Awards — is light years beyond Blue Keys, his 1996 debut, which landed when he was a fresh face in Victoria, and had just turned 19 years old.
Kaeshammer vividly remembers the era, and recalls finding supportive audiences in Victoria haunts like the James Bay Inn immediately upon his arrival.
“When I first came here, I dropped my cassette tape off in every pub, to get a gig. I saw people playing music for $100 a night, and thought that was amazing. I immediately wanted to do that.”
Pub gigs are a thing of the past for Kaeshammer. The second season finale of Kaeshammer’s Kitchen, featuring Juno Award winner Aysanabee, will air soon. It will be the 20th episode of the series, which CHEK, Kaeshammer, and his partner-manager, Josephine Neumann, have committed to extending the show into 2025.
Kaeshammer said Season 3 gets underway with episodes featuring fiddle icon Natalie MacMaster and guitar great Tommy Emmanuel. “Some people fly in to do it, for a day. Some of them we can catch when they are here, like Tommy Emmanuel, who lives in Australia. But quite a few come here to do the show, and stay a couple of days.”
Kaeshammer remains consistently busy on the music front, but he’s having fun balancing music duties with his passion for food, which rose to the fore during extended periods of time at home with Neumann during the pandemic. “It’s been awesome. It’s two things I like to do.”
