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| The Story | Performances |
 Junkyard Jonny, aka Jon Olsen, founder of Junkyard Symphony has been playing on pots and pans since the age of four and has never really stopped. He took private drum lessons for five years as a child then entered the concert bands and jazz bands in middle school and high school. As well as being an honors student in the French immersion program, he won the overall music award and most spirited student award at high school graduation for his creative efforts in forming The Enviro Band , a collection of 20 or so concert band members who played radical rhythms on recycle bins and pickle buckets for their Earth Day ceremonies.  As a teen, Jonny began juggling and learned to
ride a unicycle which became useful in his part time job as a clown
where he developed his passion for performing. These skills became
even more useful with the birth of Junkyard Symphony
in 1991, when Jonny took to the streets with tin cans in order to raise
money when a Western tree planting trip had gone sour. After
receiving a great response, Jonny decided to return to his hometown
Ottawa to pursue his childhood dream of being a professional percussionist.
He performed with his Junkyard kit for an entire summer on Sparks Street
achieving great success and a wee bit of fame. When Jonny's parents
returned home that summer from a bicycle trip in the Netherlands and
discovered that their pots and pans were missing, they were more than a
little surprised, but delighted to hear that Jonny had earned enough
money to pay for his entire year at the Univeristy of Waterloo where
he studied Environmental Resource Studies.The next summer Jonny decided to return to his favorite pots and pans pastime on Sparks Street, and although he was still having lots of fun and making lots of money he was becoming lonely as a solo performer. That's when sidekick / Lackey, Christian Duquette, a Carleton University anthropology student, entered the picture. Christian was a good friend of Jonny's who played guitar in his high school rock band. Christian didn't know how to play percussion, but he was a quick learner, and he was completely wacky, so with a little bit of Jonny's guidance, Christian turned into an Amazing Lackey, and so creating the birth of Jonny O and the Amazing Lackey. After graduating from University, having paid for their degrees with their enterprising talents of turning one man's trash into another man's treasure, the dynamic duo went on to achieve great fame on the many roads that they traveled, performing in schools and festivals, and spreading a little bit of happiness and environmental ethic everywhere they went. Christian's brother Jeff, who tagged along as a roady, eventually became the infamous Plunger Boy, who had a unique talent for catching plungers on his small planet sized belly. The fun went on for nine years. They performed throughout Southern and Eastern Ontario, the Maritimes, ventured into the United States, Singapore and England. They won first place in the Canadian Association of Exhibitions National Youth Talent contest in 1994. They won Best Act the Defies Description at the Kingston Busker Rendez-Vouz in 1995. In 1997 at the same festival, they won Best Musical Act. On Home Grown Cafe, Ottawa's famous talent show, they won first place overall in the variety category. They have been featured on many radio and television shows such as CBC's Basic Black, Newsday, and Jonovision, CJOH's Regional Contact, Midday News and Newsline, and Roger's Fanfare, and they have made over 50 newspaper appearances from places all over. |
 But eventually The Amazing Lackey and brother Plunger Boy decided that enough was enough. Plunger Boy's belly was becoming sore and the Amazing Lackey had a fiancée and a stepdaughter to support, so Plunger Boy became an electrical engineer at Nortel, and The Amazing Lackey moved to Brockville to work at Brocktel. That left Jonny O all on his own. Unsure of where to go in life, and not wanting to give up on his dream of being a professional percussionist, Jonny continued performing on his own, calling the show Junkyard Jonny. The show went over surprisingly well in schools and community events and smaller venues that could not previously afford Junkyard Symphony. It wasn't long, however, before Jonny got the urge to reform Junkyard Symphony again with a new partner. Trashcan Tony, aka Tony Raybould came on board to reform Junkyard Symphony with a a newer version of the show in which the audience could drum along with the band. This new show became immediatley popular as people loved to be inlcuded in the fun, and the new Junkyard Symphony traveled to such far away places as Singapore and Hong Kong where they were a big hit, and got to stay in five star hotels. They even played for the President of Singapore, quite an honour. It seems that rhythm truly is the universal language. |
 Soon Jonny and Tony were in so much demand, by so many differnt types of venues that they decided to create many different versions of the show that would taylor fit each venue. For schools, they perfomed the Recycle Rock, a workshop/show about Rhythm and Recyling that quickly became extremely popular among the schools in the Ottawa area as an organization called MASC (Artists for Schools and Communites) helped to spread their name and their environmental message to Reduce, Resue, Recycle and Rock! For festivals, they created The Junkyard Jam, a show in which there is no talking, only drumming, tricks and audience participation. They discovered this style at Winterlude when Jonny was too cold to stop drumming to talk to the audience. Junkyard Jam is a great hit as the flow is smooth, the energy is constant, and the fun in non stop. It is suitable not only for festivals but bar mitzvahs, community events and family reunions. The Fairly Festive show is a 1 hour version of the Junkyard Jam where Jonny and Tony perform their most difficult tricks and most complicated rhythms. This is a show not to miss. For adult events they created the Drum Circle. Have you ever seen a commercial on television where a gang of adults spontaniously erupt in to a drum jam using whatever product that is being promoted? Why are these commercial so popular? There are several reasons, adults so rarely get a chance to let loose and have fun, everyone has some form of rhythm, and rhythm can be created on just about anything as you can see from what Junkyard Symphony plays on. The Drum Circle is a hit and often goes over better than the children shows. For Christmas Parties there is the Rudolph Rock, similar to the Reycle Rock show but with a Christmas theme, a reindeer made from junk and Christmas songs played on a steel drum. Sports Teams can benfit for the Sport Rhythms show. A fun two hour hand on workshop to discover how rhythm is important to sports. The newest show, called Junkyard Symphony's Reycled Circus is great for Theatres, and features Junkyard Symphony joined by other circus artists such as a juggler, a magician and a trampoline artist. The show demonstrates how reused items can be used a props in many exciting ways. |
| Performances |
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Junkyard Symphony has performed thousands of shows since 1991.
Here are some of the highlights. |
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If you are interested in knowing when and where Junkyard Symphony
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