A slew of concerts kicks off tomorrow night as vocalist Colina Phillips presents her Get Happy show in Ancaster's Old Fire Hall Arts Centre, 334 Wilson St. E.

It's a comeback of sorts for Phillips, her reintroduction to the music scene.

The Nova Scotia-born Phillips lived in Hamilton for a year when she was three but cut her teeth professionally in Toronto in the late 1960s singing Motown covers with The Tiaras, a girl group consisting of Jackie Richardson, Brenda Russell and Arlene Trotman.

After being rejected for the Toronto production of Hair, Phillips found steady work as a session singer, thanks to Tommy Ambrose. In that milieu, Phillips, Shawne Jackson and Sharon Lee Williams became affectionately known as "the girls," go-to gals whenever female voices were needed for an advertising jingle or backing up a big name.

Phillips sang backup for Anne Murray, Murray McLauchlan, Ronnie Hawkins, Long John Baldry, Ronnie Prophet, Fred Penner, Bruce Cockburn, Bryan Adams, Chaka Khan, Alice Cooper and many others.

By the early 1990s, with session work tailing off and her 1992 CD Blue Mood not exactly burning up the charts, Phillips made the transition to film production, working as a continuity supervisor on TV series such as Exhibit A and Paradise Falls. Two years ago, she moved back to Hamilton.

"I just realized I feel more comfortable here. This just seems like my town," said Phillips from her Dundurn Street home. "I had come back with the intention of getting going, and getting singing again. It was something on my mind to do, and I was slowly working up to it."

Phillips' Get Happy gig will include tunes such as Baby Face, Cape Breton Lullabye, and standards such as I Can't Give You Anything But Love and Over the Rainbow. She'll be backed by the rhythm section from Kollage-- Artie Roth on bass, Robi Botos on piano and Archie Alleyne, who once gigged with Billie Holiday, on drums. Tickets for the 8 p.m. show are $25. Call 905-304-8863.

On Saturday, Oct. 4, at 7: 30 p.m., the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra opens its brand new series, Elegance, at Central Presbyterian Church, 165 Charlton Ave. W.

This three-concert series will feature a chamber-sized HPO performing popular fare. On tap are Haydn's Fire Symphony, Bach's Double Violin Concerto featuring Lance Elbeck and Bethany Bergman, and Beethoven's First Symphony.

James Sommerville and company, who opened their Hamilton Place season two Saturdays ago with Mozart's 39th Symphony, will play the composer again, this time the Overture to Der Schauspieldirektor. Ticket prices are $25 regular, $23 senior, $10 student, and $5 child. Call 905-526-7756.

Next Sunday, Oct. 5, chamber music fans are caught between a rock and a hard place with two concerts to choose from.

At 7:30 p.m., Jack Mendelsohn happily opens his chamberWORKS! season in the Dofasco Centre for the Arts, 190 King William St. The All'italiana concert includes works written or influenced by Italian composers. In the former category are Rossini's Sonata No. 6 for two violins, cello and bass, and Martucci's Quintet in C major, op. 45, for piano and string quartet. In the latter category is Russian composer Mikhail Glinka's Divertimento Brillante on themes from Bellini's La Sonnambula.

With pianist Valerie Tryon engaged elsewhere that evening, Brantford native Bernadine Blaha, who currently teaches at the University of Southern California, will be making her chamberWORKS! debut. Tickets are $30 and $25 regular, $25 and $20 senior, $5 student. Call 905-522-7529.

The other Oct. 5 chamber music concert begins at 8 p.m. in the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts, 126 James St. S. Chamber Music Hamilton has booked Valerie Tryon and the Belgium-based Arriaga Quartet to perform Schumann's gratifying Piano Quintet, a work Tryon has played and recorded with chamberWORKS!. Also on the bill, Turina's La Oracion del Torero, and Mendelssohn's String Quartet, op. 44, no. 2. Ticket prices are $27 regular, $22 senior, and $10 student. Call 905-528-5628.

Leonard Turnevicius writes on classical music for The Spectator.

leonardturnevicius@hotmail.com