Happy Mother’s Day to my beautiful mom! This Gordon Lightfoot original from his record, ‘Did She Mention My Name’, was released in 1968 which is the same year she became a mom.  She had this record in her collection and it was often part of the Sunday morning stack in queue on the record player while our parents made us brunch. I’ve always liked this song and the imagery conjured up by its lyrics.

Last fall I arranged this piece for 4 ukulele parts as a project for our C.U.T.E. music circle (we call ourselves the Carpooling Ukulelists of Toronto Ensemble). This is a group of wonderful women I met through the Ukulele Orchestra of Toronto. When I found out 2 members commute all the way from Lindsay to play in the orchestra, we began carpooling to rehearsals together in early 2019. We usually meet ahead at my place to play, practice or just have a bite and hang out together before the rehearsals. Last year, on Mother’s Day weekend, we played a couple of pieces together at the Ukes of T recital and were hoping to present this one at this spring’s event. Of course none of that will be happening again for a while now but we’ve been continuing to meet via Zoom every week and decided to try and put this one together as a video. Here we are in our very first virtual “unsemble” performance together. https://youtu.be/SdkwW6pKDJs

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, as we continue doing our part in social isolation. We are now completing week 8 here in Ontario. It’s been a time of creativity for me and connecting virtually with friends, students and family members. I’m looking forward to a time when we can all be together again.

Merci Maman, d’avoir toujours rempli notre maison d’amour et de musique. On se revoit bientôt! Je t’aime.