“A Child’s Garden of Verses” by Robert Louis Stevenson was a treasured collection of poetry from my childhood, as it had been for my mother. When my children were 7 and 9 years old I introduced these wonderful poems to them. They asked me to sing them, just like the nursery rhymes, and so it occurred to me to set them to music. David Occhipinti and I had recently begun writing together. I brought my book to our sessions and the project evolved from there. David and I created 8 arrangements and then I asked Nancy Walker, Andrew Downing and Joe Lagan to write with me too. In total, 16 poems were set to music. I was extremely pleased to receive funding from The Canada Council for the Arts and The Ontario Arts Council. We went into the studio adding Kevin Turcotte, Blair Mackay, Carl Horton and the Madawaska String Quartet and in 2007 we celebrated the release of our CD, “VERSES” at Hugh’s Room in Toronto.
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