Now Presented By: Kurtis Nguyen and Emma Hawkins, at Le’s Family Restaurant!
Home Routes is a non-profit arts organization in Winnipeg, who coordinate a series of “house”concert circuits throughout Canada. These concerts provide an intimate up close concert experience for the audience. All 2025/2026 season shows will take place at Le’s Family Restaurant.
Visit the Home Routes Website for information, video clips, and more!
2025/26 HOME ROUTES CONCERT SERIES SCHEDULE:
Saturday, Sept 27th, 2025 – Ashley Ghostkeeper (AB)
Genre: Country
Bio: Alberta’s Ashley Ghostkeeper is a Métis artist who is deeply connected to music and storytelling. Growing up in a family where musical talent was shared, Ashley’s passion was ignited at a young age. Inspired by her Aunty and Grandpa strumming guitars in their Red Deer home, Ashley began crafting her melodies while dreaming of performing on big stages.
Valuing the essence of true self-expression and introspection in songwriting, Ashley believes in the power of music as a means of healing and self-liberation. Appreciative of pedal steel, keys, fiddle and honky tonk licks, Ashley’s songs have been featured on official playlists including Apple Music, The Lodge, Indigenous Now, Boots & Mocs, and SiriusXM CBC Country. She garnered three #1 hits on the Canadian Top Indigenous Music Countdown and a #5 spot on the Canadian Top 40 Indigenous Music Countdown.
Since 2021, Ashley has performed on diverse stages and venues ranging from small, intimate clubs to music festivals and arenas. She was hand-selected and included in programs, residencies, workshops, and invited to perform within elementary school systems.
Ashley’s self-description as “driven” is clear. Her consecutive nominations for Calgary YYC Indigenous Artist of the Year (2024,2025), (2025) Solo Artist Of The Year, Songwriter Of The Year, Single Of The Year, Country Recording Of The Year. Country Music Alberta Fan’s Choice (2023, 2024, 2025) and Horizon Female Artist of the Year (2024) is the direct result of her diligence, determination, and desire. A power-filled voice of proud Métis heritage, Ashley’s support of other young women to pursue their passions with a never-give-up attitude resonates on and off the stage.
Her encouragement towards others states it best: “Don’t think too much about it, or you’ll talk yourself out of it. Just go and giver. And chase that dream, it was placed in your heart for a reason.”
Sunday, October 26th, 2025 – Irvin Miller (MB)
Genre: blues, roots, old-school R&B
Instagram, Facebook, Website, Youtube
Bio: At just 22 years of age, Irvin Miller is quickly gaining recognition as one of Manitoba’s most exciting young performers. Elevating the room with his unique blend of blues, roots, old-school R&B, Irvin takes inspiration from the great performers of the 60’s and 70’s, firmly rooting his sound in the styles of past generations. Pairing that with his soulful voice and relaxed charisma, Irvin Miller is cementing himself as one of the finest rising stars that Western Canada has to offer.
Tuesday, March 1oth, 2026 – Kitty and The Rooster
Genre: Surf Rock
Website, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram
Bio: Kitty & The Rooster is a surf rock n’ roll duo from Vancouver featuring Jodie Ponto on the stand-up cocktail drumkit and Noah Walker on electric guitar. They are known for their big sound, laugh out loud lyrics, and ridiculously fun shows.
Kitty & The Rooster has toured all across Canada, played a cluck-ton of festivals including Vancouver Folk Fest, opened for Shannon & The Clams, and released two albums called One Gig Hard Drive and Ain’t Pussyfootin’ Around. Third album coming in 2025!
“Take the name Kitty and the Rooster, and combine it with the fact guitarist Noah Walker and drummer Jodie Ponto wear chicken and cat masks in their promo shots, and one might expect a barnyard version of Slipknot. Wrong. Because those things can be sweaty under stage lights, the masks tend to come off quickly as the duo unleashes a retro-spectacular sound that slots in nicely with Southern Culture on the Skids, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, and the Reverend Horton Heat. Those who like a serving of politics with their country-fried goodness will want to muscle their way to the front of the stage for the ode to local real-estate idiocy that is “Paid a Million Dollars (To Live Like You’re Poor)”—a song that might as well be modern Vancouver’s municipal anthem”
— The Georgia Straight
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026 – Marin Patenaude (BC)
Genre: Americana
Website, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram
Bio: Even in the quietest moments, Marin is fiery and alluring, a wild woman of the woods or urban sophisticate. Her songs, like her presence, are as passionate and beautiful as they are dark and raw. They weave in and out of Americana, deftly defying simple classification, landing beside the likes of Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies), Joni Mitchell, and hinting at the raucous sides of Neil Young and Jeff Buckley. She holds a crowd on her own but can be seen with a stellar lineup of adventurous musicians that play freely and with big feelings.
Marin was taught to appreciate the things in life built with your own hands and heart, and she has created a body of work that is exquisitely her own. Releasing her first album The Follow Through in 2016, Marin continues to reveal an indomitable and independent spirit, yet a heart vulnerable to deep desire for the intimacy of love and romance. Her second release Sight Unseen can be found among the precious but few to sign to Dallas Green’s (City and Colour) label Still Records. Distributed by Dine Alone Records (Toronto), her most recent album Sex & Dying hit the shelves early 2023.
In the small town of Horsefly BC, she was raised on harmony and sawdust in a family band of Folk and Country. She’s an accomplished piano player and plays an old guitar like a long lost lover and can find the harmony in everything. Marin works within the music industry from many angles. She has been Artistic Director and Production Manager for the festival Arts on the Fly for 12 years, has booked tours in Europe and across Canada, and is a regular session harmony singer for recording bands in Vancouver.
It’s a rarity to find an artist who is just as comfortable in the green fields of country/roots as they are in the smoky city backrooms of jazz and soul
— Michael Brennan (Ride The Tempo)
Sunday, May 10th, 2026 – Mark Schatz (Berkeley, CA)
Genre: Bluegrass
Website, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram
Bio: With his summer 2021 release of GRIT & POLISH Mark Schatz once again proves he’s true a ‘renaissance man’ of the acoustic music world. A two-time winner of the IBMA Bass Player of the Year Award, Mark is best known for his contributions on some of the most iconic recordings in bluegrass by artists such as Tony Rice, Bela Fleck, John Hartford, Claire Lynch, Tim O’Brien, Sara Jarosz, and Nickel Creek. But Mark is also a master of the clawhammer banjo and is featured playing his own compositions on two solo projects on Rounder Records, BRAND NEW OLD TYME WAY and STEPPIN’ IN THE BOILER HOUSE. Mark is always ready to cut loose with some Southern Appalachian clogging and hambone, and his stagecraft was honed through a long association with the acclaimed Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, for whom he still serves as Musical Director.
In early 2020 Mark called on his friend and ace multi-instrumentalist and singer, Bryan McDowell, to tour together as a duo. Live in Mark’s studio they recorded GRIT & POLISH, an acoustic tour de force that moves effortlessly from original fiddle tunes and songs to Louis Jordan Boogie Woogie and Bob Dylan. It garnered the #1 spot on the Folk DJ charts in June of 2021, and came in at #9 for the year!
Mark Schatz – The Solo Concert offered Mark the opportunity to engage an audience in a very personal way with his unique and animated charm and broad skill set. He pulls out all of the stops on banjo, bass and guitar, presenting songs, stories, and tunes, tapping on a board, dancing, and reciting poetry, offering a vaudevillian feast for the eyes and ears.
Always in demand both in the studio and on the road, Mark appears on Bela Fleck’s most recent Grammy nominated project, Rhapsody in Blue. He appears as well on an upcoming solo project by Rick Faris.
Mark currently resides in Berkeley, California with his wife, Lisa Berman-Schatz, who is a graphic designer and fellow musician.
