1) Help kids study music
Musicians gather every year to put on Closer To The Heart, a benefit for the Regent Park School of Music, the non-profit after-school program giving heavily subsidized instrumental and choral music classes to at-risk kids all over Toronto. The lineup for Thursday’s (February 12) concert is especially strong, including David Clayton-Thomas, Chris Tait of Chalk Circle, Kathryn Rose and many more, at Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas East. Regent Park student recital 6 pm, Closer To The Heart 7 pm. Pwyc-$30. rpmusic.org.
2) Strawberry ceremony
Elder Wanda Whitebird leads a singing and drumming observance in memory of missing and murdered indigenous women at Toronto police headquarters (40 College) on Saturday (February 14) at 12:30 pm. Relatives of several of the women are pushing for fuller police investigations into their cases. The event will be followed by a community feast at the Central YMCA, 20 Grosvenor. facebook.com/events/703866506400035.
3) The other side of the Charlie Hebdo story
A screening of Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, about three friends living in the notoriously impoverished and violent suburbs of Paris, opens a discussion of racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France on Thursday (February 12), 7 pm, at Beit Zatoun, 612 Markham. $5. beitzatoun.org.
