Jean Hewson and Christina Smith : Traditional music from Newfoundland
“A great collaboration of old and new, humorous and serious from two exceptional musicians.”
Sing Out!
Christina Smith is a classically trained cellist with a degree in music, and is a master of several instruments in a variety of styles, but is best known for her work as a Newfoundland fiddler. She has performed in Canada, Japan, England, Ireland, Mexico, and the U.S.A. She and Jim Payne also represented Newfoundland at the Canadian Pavilion at Expo ’92 in Seville, Spain.
Christina’s compositions and arrangements can be heard on several award wining CBC radio documentaries, short films and videos. In demand as a session player in her hometown of St. John’s, she has backed up Newfoundland’s best known musicians, including Emile Benoit, Buddy Wassisname, the Irish Descendants, Jean Hewson, Jim Payne, Fergus O’Byrne, Ron Hynes and others.
In July, 1995, she released her first solo album Fiddle Me This, (co-produced and accompanied by Jean Hewson). This album has received critical acclaim from across Canada, the U.S., Britain, and Ireland. It made the Rogue Folk Club (Vancouver) “Top 30″ list for 1995, and has been described in Dirty Linen (Feb/Mar. 96) as “an album of vibrant and compelling music, played impeccably.”
Christina has a special committment to passing on this music to the next generation. Over the past ten years, she has taught more than a hundred young people the music of Rufus Guinchard and Emile Benoit. She directs the Step Fiddlers, a group of twenty young musicians aged six to seventeen. She has given workshops in Newfoundland instrumental music at Sound Symposium and at the Sidmouth Folk Festival in England. Her specialty is teaching the Suzuki Method, and she has been invited to teach fiddle and cello at Suzuki Institutes and workshops all over Eastern Canada, including St. John’s, Kingston, Guelph, Goderich, and Montreal.
Jean Hewson has been a professional musician for thirteen years, and is one of the most talented balladeers singing and playing in Newfoundland today. She is best known for her work with the now defunct folk group Barkin Kettle. This band performed at the Edmonton, Vancouver, and Hamilton folk festivals at Expo ’86, and at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986.
Since then, Jean has been involved with a variety of other bands, spanning a wide variety of musical styles. Folk fans remember her in Tuckamore, the Sub-Sisters, and Strings Attatched. Her versatile voice has also been heard in the country music trio Saddle Sorority and she rocked along with This Side Up. She was a member of Sweet Absalone, a Newfoundland traditional group including Christina Smith, Fergus O’Byrne, and Jim Payne.
Jean is well known in Newfoundland for her unique rhythm guitar arrangements and is the accompanist of choice at local sessions and festivals. She developed her accompaniment style backing up such notable Newfoundland fiddlers as Emile Benoit and Rufus Guinchard.
Jean has had many appearances singing and playing piano and guitar on CBC radio and television. She has one solo recording to her credit, entitled Early Spring, and with Christina Smith, she co-produced and arranged the instrumental album Fiddle Me This (1995) which recieved critical acclaim from the folk publications Sing Out and Dirty Linen. Jean has toured extensively throughout her home province performing and giving workshops in schools and at festivals and special community events. She is fluently bilingual in English and French, and holds a degree in Linguistics. A trained Classical pianist, and a qualified Suzuki Method piano teacher she resides in St. John’s where she teaches piano, voice and guitar.