Anne began her professional career as a fiddler in the late 1970s touring with Harry Hibbs, Newfoundland’s “favourite son”. In 1983, as half of duo Muddy York with Ian Bell, she released the ground-breaking recording Scatter The Ashes: Music of Old Ontario (now re-mastered and released on CD).
In 1985 and ‘86, she returned to Manitoba to study and record the music of Indigenous fiddlers, resulting in a 4-record archival set of recordings titled Old Native and Métis Fiddling in Manitoba (re-released in 2004 as a double CD set on The National Museum’s Archive label). This was followed by work with Izvor, an ensemble devoted to Balkan, Greek and other East European traditions, and then The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band with whom she recorded two albums: The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and Agada.
In 1991, she released her first solo recording, Not A Mark In This World, a collection of Canadian traditional songs of social comment. This was followed in 1998 with a special collection of songs for children, Come From Every Way, about coming to Canada from all over the world. In 1999, Anne began to work with Njacko Backo of Cameroon and his Kalimba Kalimba! ensemble who have toured the Prairies, Quebec, B.C. and the North. They have released 6 recordings, Ka Koua (2001), The Conscience of Africa (2004) Ou est l’amour? (2009) Ici Bas, rien n’est impossible (2013), À tous les enfants de la terre, and one for children, Jaime mon Ècole
The year 2000 saw the appearance of Anne’s first instrumental fiddle recording, 7 Cats, featuring traditional and original tunes – Metis, French-Canadian, Celtic-Canadian, Klezmer and Macedonian. This was followed in 2003 by Fiddlesong, a work hailed by critics as an inspired expression of “Canadian world music”.
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