"touches something very deep ... ... just like Thomson"           - Robin Pacific

DAVID SEREDA  sings songs inspired by the life, art & times of Tom Thomson

Masterful singer/songwriter david sereda delivers in this themed concert.   Audiences laugh, cry, quietly contemplate -- and leave satisfied.

It's a rendezvous with Tom Thomson, one of the most unpretentious and mysterious painters of them all.  Tom was down-to-earth, unpredictable, impatient and tenacious.  He was a fisherman, a music-lover, a loner and a loyal friend.  Clues to the mystery of his life and talent -- the true mystery of Tom -- are explored through songs and story in Songs in the key of Tom. 

Some songs paint his boyhood in Leith, near Owen Sound; others find him in Algonquin Park.  Some sing of the mystery in the act of painting. To set Tom and the songs in a context, we use anecdotes and historical facts from his improbable life, and music of his time and ours. The original music is drawn from Brush, a music theatre workshop process.   Music and lyrics are composed by david sereda and the brush collective.

The programme runs about one hour and forty minutes with intermission.  If the venue is suitable, the performance can take place entirely acoustically.   It has played to delighted audiences in theatres, galleries, art centres and concert venues in Toronto, Huntsville, Sarnia and Owen Sound.

This show is suitable for adult audiences, and youth age 14 and up.

The Songs in the key of Tom trio:
david sereda, voice & piano
with
Keira McArthur, cello & voice
Tyler Wagler, bass & voice

(Depending on availability, the trio can be augmented.)

"Songs in the key of Tom" is available to be performed at a place of your choosing!

Contact us to present "Songs in the key of Tom" at your function or event!

Praise for Songs in the key of Tom:

"Songs in the Key of Tom is a moving but fun concert both for people who know nothing about Canadian artist Tom Thomson, and for experts on his paintings. The lyrics in many cases are based on the participants' long looking at the artist's production, and connecting with what he was trying to do as a painter in response to the northern woodlands. Tom's story is told in song in a sensitive and engaging manner. Each "number" is distinct and different from the last, as the story unfolds. I found the event gripping, emotional, and uplifting. The sense of a strong and vital connection between visual art and music was very powerful and exciting."
– Liz Wylie, curator, The University of Toronto Art Centre

"…how amazing and profound and brilliant this concert is -- I was deeply moved and inspired. I think you have a huge hit on your hands, this work definitely has legs, I can see it touring Canada. It touches something very deep in our collective psyche, just as Thomson did and does."
– Robin Pacific, artist


"Thank you again for that sublime concert."
– Lilie Zendel, City of Toronto


"Loved the songs and the evening was so beautifully conceived and coordinated....
so much rich material..."
-Cynthia Grant, theatre director

“Songs in the Key of Tom is charged by David Sereda's clear voice and strong songwriting. I was able to see, as well as hear the music which artfully carried me through the painter's life."
- Martha Johnson, singer, songwriter

Notes on the songs from singer/composer david sereda

The music was begun during the Brush workshop of 2002 in Owen Sound.  The workshop was the inspiration of Joan Chandler, Artistic Director of Sheatre, to answer a  call from the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery.  The gallery was launching a new festival called Tom Thomson Days to celebrate Tom, a local hero.  Brush was a fresh response to Tom Thomson in theatre, music and writing, and I was invited to be the music resource on the project.  The result was a 25-minute piece performed in Owen Sound and Leith, Thomson's boyhood home.  The response to Brush, from performers and audiences alike, was wonderful. We were on to something, and through subsequent workshops in music-theatre and choral singing, we developed a strong beginning to an exciting new concert.  Joan and I co-wrote the full-length musical, TOM, produced in 2007, which found me writing even more songs.

These songs are the musical side of our show.  Some were written collectively, some written by myself.  I won't speak of the songs.  I'll follow Tom's cue: when other artists started talking about painting he'd quietly get up and leave the room.  But within some of the songs I've composed I've quoted from songs that Tom would have lived with.  For instance, in Song of Songs you'll hear music from three sources of the Leith area in his era:  Bonnie Charlie's Now Awa' (aka Will Ye No Come Back Again), trad. Scottish song; Guide me now Thou Great Jehovah, trad. hymn; and Steal Away, trad. black spiritual.

To set the songs in a context for the audience, I tell stories about Tom, his family, his times.  He was musical and came from a musical and artistic family.  He grew up in a time where country people made their own music at home and for each other.  His short life spanned this homesteading, first generation Canadian experience to the beginning of the Jazz Age, the First World War and the opening up of Algonquin Park to tourists, painters and the Canadian imagination.  He led a fascinating life, with no lack of loose ends and strange coincidences.  With Tom, the truth is so interesting you don't have to make things up.  Through our performance we celebrate the true mystery of the ever-engaging Tom Thomson - his life and his art.