Sherry Squires, Accompanist

Throughout junior high school, she wanted to be a psychiatrist. But in the summer of 1975, she went to Mount Allison music camp in Sackville, New Brunswick, with her piano teacher, where she played clarinet for a week. "Everyone else was 10 and I was 15," she recalls, "but I had such a great time, I decided that music was what I wanted to study. It was mainly because of the social aspect of making music with other people. Being [just] a piano player can be a lonely thing."

Sherry graduated with a Bachelor of Music and Music Education from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1981.

Since moving to Toronto in 1986, she has worked at many jobs, including being a piano teacher and accompanist for soloists, ensembles and community theatre. She was music director for Scarborough Music Theatre's productions of The King and I in 1996 and Guys and Dolls in 1997, as well as for a revival of Once a Beacher, an original musical performed at Toronto's Balmy Beach Club in 1996. She also conducted a mixed-voice choir of about 15 employees of the Bayer Company in Toronto for three years.

In 1997, she became one of the founding members of Daughters of the Rock, an a cappella trio of women who all have connections to Newfoundland. The group began as a chance for three women to share their roots and become familiar with songs, stories and legends of the Island. When word got out, all of a sudden they began to get gigs. They had to rethink their commitment and get more serious about the music. Their first CD, Maiden Voyage, was released in December 2000. "We've performed everywhere from a fish-and-chip shop in Scarborough to Hart House Theatre in Toronto," says Sherry, who arranges all the group's music. One of the highlights for the trio was performing on both the west and east coasts of Newfoundland, as part of an international choral festival called Festival 500: Sharing the Voices, in July 2001.

Since Sherry's arrival in Toronto, she has been the accompanist for the Jubilate Singers as well as a strong voice in the alto section. She's skilled at coaxing musical sounds from the un-Steinway-like piano that the Jubilate Singers rehearse with. The only thing quicker than her wit is her finger hammering out the correct note in rehearsal a nanosecond after a section has just muffed it.

Since 1998, Sherry has been the coordinator of the music school at St. Christopher House, a social service agency serving the west end of downtown Toronto. St. Chris Music School offers individual lessons in piano, voice, violin, clarinet, guitar and accordion as well as a MIDI lab. Because it's a non-profit school, the base price for lessons is cheaper than most places, plus the agency subsidizes lessons for low-income families in the area who demonstrate need. St. Chris's adult choir, the Toronto Song Lovers (which Sherry conducts), is an excellent and safe place for those who were told they couldn't sing as children.

Although Sherry's work at St. Chris includes a lot of paper pushing, she's still able to use some of her creative skills, particularly with the music school's many fundraising events. She also organizes and directs student concerts, concerts to celebrate International Women's Day, and every May, the Scoff 'n Scuff, an evening devoted to the music, food and culture of Newfoundland.

Sherry works closely with our conductor, Caroline Spearing, and together they are the musical force which drives the choir.

- Susan Lawrence