Latest news.........

Belting out a sassy Bluegrass tune........

                 2008 Central  Bluegrass  Awards

 Orange Blossom live at the 2008 Tottenham Bluegrass festival - Click Here

• Here is an update - We'll find out this coming weekend what happens with that. Those of you who called and spoke to Tony DeBoer for ballots seem to have the impression that Tony runs these awards "his own way", and I know that some of you were successful in getting a ballot and some not.  Whatever happens I feel it is a great honour to be on the ballot and I thank you all for your efforts! I am looking forward to being up at Deerhurst where I will be doing a fiddle workshop on Saturday afternoon and then playing a set with Hometown on Saturday night.

• I've been very busy shooting "Gopher Wood", mostly outside in a very beautiful location near Blyth Ontario. We are hoping to have everything filmed in the next couple of weeks. I have another shoot coming up, this time for a short called "Yakim". More to follow on that
  

Exciting times for the TSO these days! Reviews from our recent Carnegie Hall Concert can be seen by following this link to the TS Media page.
My life these days is splitting my time between Roy Thomson Hall, Hometown Bluegrass, more acting, and my Family - not necessarily in that order. It can get hectic, but it's a wonderful hectic. I am very happy to be busy with things I love doing  I have now created a page here devoted to my acting career, which is going really well. 

We are busy at Hometown with engagements and recording. The other night we enjoyed a packed and lively house for our concert in Hockley. We played at the Senior's Centre right in the little village, a lovely old converted church which was perfect.  We are planning more concerts like this one soon. The next morning we played for the Rich Hill United Church 20th Aniversery service, and were as always, very inspired by being there and sharing our music. There's a Stephen Lewis Foundation benefit concert taking place soon in Tottenham which we will be participating in. Details of that can be found here.  We are a good ways through recording  our 2nd CD and are very excited about what we are doing. Jason LaPrade  at Crystal Clear Sound is just wonderful.  It's been very difficult to choose what to put on it with all the great tunes in the band's rep, but for the fiddle tunes for sure will be "Amazing Grace"  plus "Doc Harris the Fisherman" (that's the one everybody calls a gypsy tune the way I do it :-) I will also be singing lead on a super sassy one called "You Tried to Ruin My Name" and harmony on some others. We are proud at Hometown to have developed into a very versatile band where everyone sings and plays also. It is definitely a plus to have the ability to choose from a lot of possible approaches for tunes and it's a very rewarding process finding out what feels right to us and working things out - certainly never gets boring!   Please do check out our 1st CD, "Population 5. 

about me..... 

Eclectic is probably the best word to describe my rich, and  quite varied artistic life. As a violinist, violist, mandolinist, singer, and actress, I'm excited to find myself an ever expanding variety of creative adventures.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra concertgoers will know me asone of just a handful of TSO violinists permanently seated in the first violin section, where I have been a fixture since joining the orchestra in 1975. On occasion I've also played in the orchestra's viola section, and have played mandolin for them as well.

Once in awhile I will be asked which type of music I prefer - classical or bluegrass and my honest answer is neither. I think we all have unlimited capacity to love, and for me the love I have for music just expanded to include bluegrass and country when I started in four years ago. The ability of all music to transport ourselves and listeners in time and space as a shared  experience is wonderful thing, powerful whatever the genre, and I am pleased to be a part of it always.