After all, the Highland Park resident had been gigging as a pianist in Ottawa since she was a teenager. She played for everyone from Queen Elizabeth to Tony Bennett, for heads of state and hockey players, for downtown shoppers and Civic Centre horses.
Without any sheet music, they played what was essentially a half-hour medley of treasured songs, everything from On the Sunny Side of the Street to Charlie Chaplin’s composition Smile.
She took lessons to the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Grade 10 level. But as a professional, she played mostly by ear. By the age of 15, she was gigging in dance halls and eventually playing with the Royal Canadian Air Force Band. During the Second World War, she toured Ontario with a musical troupe.
On the wall of her home were eight portraits of her with Canada’s governors-general for whom she played, from Georges Vanier in the 1960s to Adrienne Clarkson 40 years later.
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