Tara Mackenzie-Local Musician Profile

June 12, 2007

Tara Mackenzie
Tara has called Canada, Ireland ,Hungary and the Netherlands home in her 34 years, and is passionate about indigenous languages and music. Since posting her music on the web and playing out at festivals occasionally, Tara has received many accolades from renowned irish artists, songwriters and canadian folk heroes alike. Her CD, “simple irish ballads and other songs for singing” had excellent customer reviews and strangely, individuals seemed to buy multiple copies at a time. Then they came back and bought more copies till there were only a handful left. One customer ordered a spool of 40 copies for their school!

Irish Music has been a natural part of Tara’s daily life since childhood. It was said early that Tara could sing on pitch before she could speak words. The daughter of a West Belfast man (a wonderful singer himself) and an English woman from Barrow in Furness, both were strong advocates of traditional singing and rebel music, which in all cases the apple did not fall very far from the tree. For Tara, growing up in the cultural melting pot of Malton, Ontario in the 70’s, it was easy to continue on with the culture imported with her parents and live-in Irish grandmother. The standard was having to take Irish dancing lessons and she started playing any instrument she could get her hands on.

Tara spent most of her 20’s roaming/playing gigs around Europe (Ireland, Hungary,Romania, Netherlands) with YWAM in various Christian rock outfits doing everything from busking to sometimes playing at very large concert venues in many countries.

After falling for her handsome husband, she decided to move permanently to Canada in late 1998. The traditional music was always nearby and active for Tara as a solo artist. Primarily a singer, Tara also plays Harp, Tin whistles, keyboard and guitar on the recording.

One evening after being asked to open for a David Francey concert (he is a wonderful human being), She fell into playing several Ontario folk festivals, notably on main stage at Summer Folk. One interesting story regarding this evening is that Don Bird (an artistic director of note) uncharacteristically hired Tara, an unknown to him, on the spot for a main stage gig opening the festival. This is an accolade many would chew their own arm off for.
Since then, Tara has had the privilege to meet and share stages with many wonderful Trad/Celt groups in Southern Ontario, earning a modest reputation as a Trad singer with a memorable voice. For this, Tara is eternally grateful for the blessing of sharing time and space with passionate people who continue to hone the art of the historical and future music of the Celtic countries.

Tara Mackenzie
Tara has an alter-ego musical project that she has just started to release music under. She has dubbed her new project “The Daisy Tree” and she uses the project as a vehicle to write music about her personal experiences. Daisy Tree is a joint project with her husband Trevor and other talented friends to bring a more textural leaning to Tara’s ability to get right to the heart and matter of things.

In partnership with her husband Trevor (An Absolute Guitar Monster/God) she runs VERT Productions. They have a very cool modern project studio facility, an on location recording arsenal and live sound provider. They also offer services in post-recording production and editing, the creation and publication of podcasts, voice-overs and sound edits over video. They offer session musician services and vocal coaching. Also their space can be rented as a small house concert facility. More information can be found by following the VERT Productions link in this article’s “Tara’s Links & Contacts” section.

Listen to Tara’s Tunes

Track 1: my cavan girl

Track 2: the curragh of kildare

Tara’s Collaborators

Kiera McArthur, Trevor MacKenzie, Tammy Kroezen, Nick Barclay, Joel Morelli, Bob Robins.

Tara’s Links & Contacts

Tara’s Myspace

The Daisy Tree Myspace

VERT Productions

Tara’s CD Baby Site

A special thanks out to Tara for lending us her tracks, and a gentle reminder that it’s easy to find more local musicians or create profiles at theOwen.com!!