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![\"Megan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4267387_web1_CEC_Briefly_05282025IMG_8893.jpg\")
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Megan Kwan photo<\/p>\n
Winnipeg songwriter CEC\u2019s second EP, Briefly, is being released on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Returning to Winnipeg in 2024 after wrapping up graduate studies in Ottawa, CEC \u2014 whose mother Tamara played three years of volleyball and basketball at the Canadian Mennonite University \u2014 began the process of refining and refinding their idea of chosen community.<\/p>\n
As an organizer and artist mentor, CEC \u2014 pronounced Seece \u2014 found support through Good + Plenty, an organization started by Lana Winterhalt in 2020 to open up the production field for more women, trans and non-binary musicians.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the artist worked with Misfit Music Inc. in an administrative capacity and began to connect with other creatives seeking a quiet sanctuary to create loud noises.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how CEC \u2014 whose soft-spoken voicemail message is set to R&B singer Teddy Pendergrass \u2014 wound up in an Exchange District loft above a boxing gym and a record shop and below an accountant\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
CEC\u2019s backing band for the UMFM session \u2014 drummer Paul Klassen, bassist Fred Warner and pianist Tirian Plett, each of the jazz trio No Fuss \u2014 settles into the jam space at Good + Plenty\u2019s Clubhouse; the bandleader explains the desired volume level. Taken in the groove, a few times Klassen makes the upstairs calculators shake.<\/p>\n
Across 45 minutes, the group is running through Briefly, the second EP from CEC, named after Ocean Vuong\u2019s epistolary 2019 novel On Earth We\u2019re Briefly Gorgeous.<\/p>\n
While the public gets to hear Briefly as of the EP\u2019s release this weekend, CEC hosted a letter-writing listening event with two sittings on May 16, inviting guests to write or type appreciative, responsive letters to strangers that will be given out Saturday night at Sidestage (700 Osborne St.), an installation through local initiative The Love Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody kept telling me how special it felt, which was so pure, because people really felt they were part of the EP, or I don\u2019t know, the world?\u201d CEC says. \u201cThe first group of people was mostly friends, and the second group of people had a lot of strangers, which is also cool, and different for me, because I feel like I\u2019m starting to branch out of friends-and-family-only listeners, which is interesting, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Featuring lead single Enormous, Briefly, like the most treasured letters, is worth revisiting over and over \u2014 a book not worth logging on Goodreads because you know you\u2019ll remember exactly where you were when it found you.<\/p>\n
CEC plays Saturday night at Sidestage with Roots In Harmony Choir and Dream+Flow (Marisolle Negash with Kevin Waters). Tickets are available at sidestagewpg.com. After a tour that includes stops in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, CEC and Ila Barker play Poor Michael\u2019s Emporium in Onanole on June 27.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t Ben Waldman Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University\u2019s (now Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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