Accompanists
Brigham Phillips has been on the Toronto music scene nearly 40 years as a player (piano and trumpet), bandleader, teacher, producer, composer and arranger, performing jazz, pop, Dixieland, theatre and orchestral music. His CD “And It Really Was” featuring Canadian jazz greats Guido Basso and Mike Murley was nominated for a Juno in 2002 and won Brigham the National Jazz Award for Producer of the Year. In the summer of 2008 Brigham went to Moscow twice to record the Moscow Festival Orchestra performing his arrangements of Celtic classics and songs from the American songbook.
Brigham was musical director for John McDermott for 15 years and the musical director for David Clayton-Thomas (of Blood, Sweat and Tears fame) for 4 years. For much of 2013-17 Brigham was touring with The (Canadian) Tenors playing keyboards, accordion and trumpet as well as performing with The Official Blues Brothers Revue and serving as musical director with Drayton Entertainment. He completed his Masters in Music Composition in 2018.
Tim has been playing and performing on piano and guitar (and some harmonica too) since he was 13 years old. His early influences were The Beatles but he embraces and plays many styles and genres. Tim derives his most enjoyment by seeing the amazing effect live music has on people and he hopes to be playing and entertaining for many more years.
David’s biggest passion has always been to create and play music that moves people and to teach others to do the same. Trained classically on the piano from age seven, David began to expand his repertoire to jazz, pop, rock and bossa nova in high school. Throughout university and beyond, David loved exploring music from other cultures, such as klezmer, salsa, Turkish folk, and French chanson. David enjoys performing for audiences of all ages and seeing the joy that people get from the music.
David also plays accordion and guitar!
Donald Guinn, born in 1950, acquired his ARCT from the Royal Conservatory in 1967 and his Bachelors of Music degree from the University of Toronto in 1978. Since then, Don has been teaching piano and performing in the Toronto area except for a five month engagement in Seoul Korea, in 2003 with a Jazz/Pop Trio. Most recently he has recorded with Catherine Hughes. His repertoire includes Classical, Ragtime and Stride as well as the usual Pop and Jazz Standards.