CN Tower to shine blue and gold, commemorate Humber’s 50th anniversary

Jan 11, 2018 | Arts

By: Olivia Morris

The CN Tower will beam blue and gold next week in Humber College colours to help celebrate the school’s 50th anniversary.

The lighting of the iconic tower and the Toronto sign at Nathan Phillips Square is scheduled to happen on Jan. 17 to shine a light on Humber’s success throughout the years.

“We want people to be made aware of our 50th anniversary and how Humber has been such a great college for the city of Toronto and how our alumni, faculty, staff and students are making such an impact in the community and Toronto as well,” said Raina Faza, Events Officer of Advancement and Alumni at Humber College.

The official Humber 50th anniversary concert will also take place on Jan. 17, after being rescheduled due to the five-week college faculty strike.  It was originally supposed to take place on Nov. 8 but will now be held during the college’s 51st year.

Humber staff had to think on their feet to organize a new date.

“Things happen, and that was something that was unfortunately out of our control, but we make allowances for it, we move on, and made the event bigger and better as we can,” said Faza.

The ‘Humber at 50’ event takes place at The Royal Conservatory in downtown Toronto from 6 to 10 p.m. on Wednesday. The event will begin with a cocktail dinner followed by a special concert in Koerner Hall and will close with an after party.

The concert will feature Canadian artists  such as Grammy winner Kurt Elling and Humber alumnae Laila Biali as well as musicians from Humber’s faculty big band.

For students, the strike got in the way of their education, but for performers like Biali she was able to take a break during a busy touring season before performing in front of fellow Humber alumni.

“In a way, it was a blessing to be able to catch my breath. While I’m sure it was disruptive and difficult to reorganize, the celebratory spirit of it hasn’t lessened. If anything, it’s almost increased with the timing [because] There’s something elegant about the new year,” she said.

Faza agrees with Biali that the timing of the anniversary event still works for the Humber community.

“Our goal was to move forward and to really make this happen because we wanted to close off our 50th anniversary with a bang,” she said.

The event was fortunate enough to have most of the performers come back for the new event date of January 17, apart from having to change MC performers due to last minute rescheduling.

Faza said Humber expects up to 800 guests to attend the concert and tickets are still on sale.