When Shari Ulrich teamed up with Jeanne Tolmie and Hilary Grist, it was only a matter of a few hours of rehearsal and they effortlessly put together a mainstage set that not amazed them at how well they fell into perfect harmony, it was a profound experience for the audience as well!
Originally a California girl, long settled on the west coast of Canada, Shari celebrates close to 5 decades as a touring recording artist and multi-instrumentalist (violin, mandolin, piano, guitar, dulcimer, & harmonica). From Pied Pumkin through The Hometown Band, and on as a solo artist and multi-instrumentalist has lead to 25 albums – including her collaboration with solo artists Bill Henderson and Roy Forbes (UHF), Barney Bentall & Tom Taylor (BTU), and more recently The High Bar Gang, a 7 piece bluegrass band with Barney Bentall. Her work has garnered 2 Juno awards, several Juno nominations, an induction into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, and a 2014 CFMA for English Songwriter of the Year.
Hilary Grist was composing music at the piano in pre-school. Later years of piano lessons and singing with the high school choir propelled her to Vancouver, where she studied jazz at Capilano University while deepening her pool of musical influences and honing her songwriting skills. Grist’s songs can evoke emotion with ease, and their cinematic conductivity translates as well to the big and small screens as it does to her listeners’ real-life narratives. Her music has been part of ten major television shows and she has an international following in Japan and South Korea.
Victoria’s Jeanne Tolmie is a singer songwriter with a great love and knowledge of country and folk music. She is an honest and emotive performer, a master harmonizer, and closet accordionist. Her resumé includes the bands Big Yellow Taxi, Daisy Duke, JT King, Sidecar, and the Golden Country Clan. Her mastery of back up singing earned her back-up vocal work on numerous recording projects for Steve Dawson’s Henhouse Recording Studio. Jeanne is also a social worker in the field of dementia and hospice care.
