got started with songwriting when she was seven years old, writing
gut-wrenching songs of love and loss :) a la "Oh my darling Clementine"
on a toy guitar.
In the following years, she wrote an operetta, for which she was
featured in an article in the Toronto Star. In her teen years she sang
with the Canadian Children's Opera Chorus and later with the Oberlin
College Choir. At Oberlin College she performed her own songs at the
Cat in the Cream Coffeehouse. Also at Oberlin, she started to learn
Indian classical singing, which has coloured her style ever since.
In the late 1990's, Gillian performed her material in venues around
Toronto, including Free Times Cafe, the Cameron House, and the Tranzac
Club. She put out her first cd in 1999, called "It's High Time", partly
a nod to her father's 1960's pioneering research in the use of
psychedelic drugs for therapeutic purposes.
Living in China in the early 2000's inspired her to learn Chinese
folksinging, an endeavor that continues to this day. Since this time
her performances have been sprinkled with Chinese folksongs and she has
even written songs of her own in Mandarin Chinese.
Her next album, "The Big Game", recorded by Roman Riccio, came out
in 2006, the title alluding to the game of politics. After a long
recording hiatus, "Small Packages" was released in 2018. "Small
Packages", recorded by Myke Mazzei, features stellar guest performances
by Toronto artists such as Tom Hamilton, Chris Gartner and Ed Hanley.
Currently Gillian is working with stand-out guitarist Bob Cohen on
her next recording project to deal with a substantial backlog of
unrecorded material.
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