The Dominion Tavern hosted a concert in honour of Mark Valcour on Feb. 6, offering a night of good music in memory of a great teacher.
Valcour did sound at the Dominion for the past 20 years, since the tavern began hosting shows.
The Band Whose Name is A Symbol, Steve Fai, and Lonesome Paul played, and the proceeds from the event will be used to fund a scholarship.
John Westhaver, member of The Band Whose Name is A Symbol, said the show offered people a chance to come together.
“The memorial concert went really well . . . My sense was, a lot of people were talking about Mark that night,” Westhaver said.
“Like when you run into people maybe you hadn’t seen in awhile . . . so it was sober yet it was upbeat. It was sort of a feel-good, but there was a certain sadness to it as well obviously.”
Jody Watts from the Dominion knew Valcour from his sound work there, and said Valcour put the heart into the tavern’s shows.
“Mark is a very giving soul, he tried to help out everybody that he could . . . He was the heart and soul of the Dominion sound-wise,” Watts said.
Valcour’s work at the Dominion started when the then-bar started to become a live music venue, Westhaver said.
“I hired Mark to do the sound at the very first Dominion Tavern show that I did, and following that Mark has probably done three or four hundred shows at the Dominion Tavern,” he said. “It worked so well, and there’s not that many people that did what Mark does, very reliable and very good quality.”
Valcour was an audio technician at Carleton, as well as a teacher at Algonquin. According to Westhaver, all teachers should be a bit more like him.
“He was easy to learn from. The world would be a better place if all instructors and teachers were like Mark Valcour,” Westhaver said.
Valcour’s family attended the concert, and proceeds from the concert will be used towards a scholarship fund in his memory, Watts said.
“His mother and brothers were there, his family, they stayed right till the end, 2 a.m. because I was sitting with them—they thought it was awesome,” Watts said. “The night went very well.”
Watts said the proceeds will be going towards a scholarship for sound engineering, and they plan on turning the show into an annual event.
