From the day Sophie was born, music has always been a monumental aspect of her life.  Beginning with piano lessons from age 4, Sophie’s musical intrigue quickly expanded to a multitude of choirs, bands and instruments including percussion, flute, alto/tenor/baritone saxophone, guitar and anything she could get her hands on.  She was fortunate to have a rich relationship with the music programs and communities in Winnipeg, MB throughout all of her studies. Her symphonic, jazz and honour bands performed in many festivals around Manitoba. At a point of culmination, a 2013 music exchange that traveled across Cuba had a major influence on Sophie’s desire to keep music alive and moving towards a professional context.

 

In 2017, Sophie connected with a folk/pre-war blues/country-swing/ragtime musician, with whom they quickly formed the traveling, busking duet: Po’boy and the Honeybee.  They toured across Eastern Canada for two summers in a row.

 

Upon returning from a five month tour in 2018, itching to play more music, two projects emerged.  The first: a group of recent university graduates who were seeking the same relief.  This quickly turned into the band: The Honeycomb Flyers - a rambunctious ’acoustic eclectic’ six-piece ensemble with a century-spanning repertoire of classic and contemporary jazz, folk, bluegrass, and klezmer. The band continues writing,  busking and playing all over Ontario regularly.   The second project to come to fruition: a solo folk music, dancing, traveling, busking clown: The Honeybee.  

 

In both of these contexts, Sophie’s set up incorporates a washboard with bells, cans and cymbals, a pair of red gloves, a set of tap shoes with jingle bells, a dock with harmonica and  kazoo, harmonica, many other silly whistles and a guitar slung on her back.

Incorporating all of her skills as a live musician, Sophie also has a practice in Sound Design for dance.  She has composed sound for several of her own pieces of choreography & dance films (Mountain Duets, Medicine Duets, carriers & keepers of the ancestral portals, journals of adoption, THAW, all roads lead home, parasol chapter x), as well as for choreography by Samantha Sutherland (naⱡa, Kaqwiⱡȼis, c̓inaⱡ upxamik)  & Katie Couchie (Nshoomis Jiibay Wag).