Facilitators
The hosts of Women’s Music Weekend—Jane Lewis & Katherine Wheatley—have years of experience writing songs, performing, touring, and facilitating workshops for people of all ages. Together they create a weekend that encourages you in a safe and nourishing space to play, break through any barriers you have to exploring your music, and have fun. Different weekends will have a guest facilitator (or two!) bringing their own skills and areas of expertise to share with the group.
Hosts
Singer-songwriter Jane Lewis is a strong believer in the power of music and singing to bring people together. She leads regular choir groups as well as workshops on harmony singing, finding your voice, vocal meditation, vocal improvisation, Circle Singing, and more. She has studied with Rhiannon and Música do Círculo, and attended Bobby McFerrin’s CircleSongs workshop.
Jane is a published YA author, and she harbours a deep fascination for words and poetry. She has two solo recordings of original music, and performs most often in the folk duo Gathering Sparks. Their album All That’s Real was released in October 2019 with Borealis Records, and the lead track from the album—”Bringing in the Light“—won that year’s Folk Music Ontario/Songs From the Heart award (singer-songwriter).
“Everything about this record from the gorgeous songs, crisp lead vocals, stunning harmonies, creative arrangements, the stellar band accompaniment and its production are top drawer.” — Jan Hall, Folk Roots Radio (Stay With Me solo album)
It’s been 35 years since Katherine Wheatley sold her first 4-song cassette, did her first radio interview (CBC’s The Entertainers), and played her first folk festival (Northern Lights in Sudbury, ON). Over those years, she’s had the great pleasure of playing with a variety of artists in different duos and trios in Canada, the US and Europe. For her job entertaining intrepid polar travelers as musician/adventure guide, Katherine learned over 400 cover songs, as well as the habits of whales, penguins, polar bears, and icebergs. These days, she performs as a solo singer-songwriter, plays in the hilarious and moving duo “Wendell and Wheat,” backs up songwriter James Gordon and tours with the trio “Boreal.” Katherine co-leads weekly choirs in Guelph, ON, and regularly leads music workshops in Haliburton, ON.
“An absolutely transcendent concert…she exudes sheer kindness and love. Blessedly, refreshingly, a truly Canadian original.” — CHRONICLE JOURNAL, Thunder Bay, ON
Guest Facilitators
Special Guest – May 2026
Caroline Marie Brooks, perhaps best known as 1/3rd of Juno-award and CFMA winning folk-pop trio Good Lovelies, has been writing songs and melodies for as long as she can remember. Learning to sing harmony with her mother and sister, and strumming chords on her father’s beautiful old Martin, Caroline naturally turned to songwriting to express the everyday. That’s where her songwriting lives; open to each passing moment, and wide-eyed in wonder at this miracle that is life, even in the mundane.
After many years of recording and touring with Good Lovelies Caroline released her first solo album, “Everything at the Same Time” in 2021, inspired by the inevitability of time passing from the vantage of motherhood and middle age and the desire to stay present through all of it. Outside of making and performing music, Caroline is a co-chair of the Mariposa Folk Festival Climate Action team, a co-founder of the Canadian chapter of Music Declares Climate Emergency, and the Artistic Director of the Restoration Music & Nature Festival in the Almaguin Highlands.
Special Guest – May 2026
Kate Weekes is a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter based in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec. As a touring and recording artist, Kate has released five albums of original material influenced by her time spent in the northern parts of the world working as a dog musher, canoe and hiking guide. Kate’s songwriting unearths a stirring, picturesque collection of original songs ranging from Appalachian-influenced ballads to anthemic folk-pop to whimsical instrumental waltzes. Kate’s most recent album, Rideau Roots (2025) maps a route by canoe through eastern Ontario to question the settler narrative of the Rideau Canal.
Growing up in a folk music family with both parents playing music, Kate is focused on building community through music. She is the Artistic Director for Blue Skies Music Festival and a board member of the Gatineau Hills Fiddle Festival. Kate is an enthusiastic music educator, teaching private and group lessons in guitar, banjo, songwriting and ukulele at music camps and at home in Chelsea Quebec.
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Special Guest – September 2026
Roots and Blues musician Suzie Vinnick is a 3X Juno Nominee, a 2X Canadian Folk Music Award winner, and a 12-time winner of the Maple Blues Award for songwriting, female vocalist, acoustic act and more. Suzie has a voice you’ve heard a thousand times and one you’ll never forget. It soars, it growls, it whispers and it shouts from a deep, deep well of emotion. The pure joy she exudes when she plays her guitars is so worth the show.
Suzie has performed internationally, and she has toured nationally with Downchild, Stuart McLean’s The Vinyl Café, with ASV (Charlie A’Court, Lloyd Spiegel and Vinnick), and the John McDermott Band. She was also the voice of Tim Horton’s for 5 years. Her latest album is entitled “Fall Back Home”.
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Special Guest – September 2026
Saskia Tomkins is a master musician of violin, viola, cello and Nyckelharpa, as well as an educator and composer. UK born, she is classically trained with a folk background and a B.A.hons. in Music (Jazz). She is an All-Britain Champion Irish Fiddler, and in 2022 received an award for services to Irish Music in Canada. Saskia was the official Artist in Residence in 2022 with Folk Alliance International, and is currently Artist in Residence with British-based organization The Mixed Museum, which works to preserve and share the social history of racial mixing in Britain of Black and ethnic minorities for future generations.
Saskia’s current groups include Medusa Quartet, Sultans of String, Steáfán & Saskia, and 2ish. Saskia is in demand as an educator, including at Upbeat! Downtown Peterborough (an El Sistema programme), and music camps across Canada.
Special Guest – September 2027
Saskia Tomkins is a master musician of violin, viola, cello and Nyckelharpa, as well as an educator and composer. UK born, she is classically trained with a folk background and a B.A.hons. in Music (Jazz). She is an All-Britain Champion Irish Fiddler, and in 2022 received an award for services to Irish Music in Canada. Saskia was the official Artist in Residence in 2022 with Folk Alliance International, and is currently Artist in Residence with British-based organization The Mixed Museum, which works to preserve and share the social history of racial mixing in Britain of Black and ethnic minorities for future generations.
Saskia’s current groups include Medusa Quartet, Sultans of String, Steáfán & Saskia, and 2ish. Saskia is in demand as an educator, including at Upbeat! Downtown Peterborough (an El Sistema programme), and music camps across Canada.
