Photo courtesy of David Langford Photography

Growing up is hard! When I was younger, I never really fit in and I really struggled with expressing myself. I acted out all the time; in class, at home, wherever. I was only ever trying to make people laugh but, oftentimes, it just came off as annoying - disruptive.

It always felt like there were so many expectations placed on me concerning how I ought to model myself. Secretly, I always knew that none of those expectations were really me - but I had no understanding of what any of that really meant, nor did I have any means to advocate for myself even if I knew that something wasn’t right. I was tasked with maintaining an illusionary version of myself that I was simultaneously raging against.

I had always loved music but as I came into my teen years it became an absolute necessity. I would take my rinky-dink mp3 player to the park in the middle of our street and I would swing on the swing set there for hours at a time listening to whatever music I could get my hands on. I would download music on our laughably slow internet, rip CDs from the Stratford library, listen to radio - anything - it was everything to me. Alone, bizarrely swinging in an abandoned suburban park for hours on end, finally finding a place to be.

I want to give that to somebody. If I could ever make something good enough that somebody who feels the way that I felt then might add me to their mp3 player and find a swing set of their own to swing on, that would be really cool.



Music making was never really a choice for me, it was more of a compulsion.

When I was a child I would sing and hum to myself, much to the chagrin of my classmates. At home I would sing and bang on the cabinets. Before long, I began picking up my father’s instruments and noodling away until I figured out how to make them do what I asked of them.



From an early age I had always participated in music. My parents enrolled me in singing lessons, dance classes, musicals: I loved all of it. I suppose, however, the moment I knew I wanted to make music was when I asked my parents if I could take flute lessons. Choosing the flute somehow felt like my decision as opposed to the myriad of activities and lessons my parents put me into.

From that moment, I never looked back. I got so into playing the flute that I joined the youth orchestra and discovered a love for orchestral repertoire. I ended up going even further and studied flute at University.

But something about studying flute at University made me want to throw it all away and scream into a microphone instead. As much as I love flute (and I do still love the flute!), I also love singing. It’s something that I neglected for a long time. Shame, self-doubt, imposter syndrome; I felt all of the usual suspects. It gets us all at some point or another.

Somewhere along the way, I began writing songs - and it felt amazing. I began collaborating with the other members in our band and singing the songs we created. Making music with the band has allowed me the freedom to feel like my own musician for the first time. I’ve started writing music I thought I wasn’t allowed to write. I’ve started performing my songs with a new sense of stage presence. I’m excited to see what comes next.



I’d always found music to be alluring, whether it was Elvis on the radio, or my great aunt’s Readers Digest Big Band compilations, or my mom playing ABBA Gold and Paul Simon’s Graceland (such hip material I know) - all alluring but the sensations I felt at that time were somewhat nebulous. When I sat down at my friend’s drum set in grade 5, however, it hit like a slug to the solar plexus. I immediately went home and told my parents I wanted to play drums. They, being sensible, of course refused. The itch stayed with me through high school and eventually my persistence paid off. I was given a set of my own. At some point I discovered it was possible to go to college for music and that was that. I set my compass to the North Star and off I toddled like a wide eyed naïf to see what I could see.