John Welsman - Artistry & Leadership

The Screen Composer's Studio

"I’m an optimist by nature, and I really believe in the Guild and our community. We’re facing a lot of challenges, but we’ve got a lot of creative, motivated people working really hard to move us in the right direction."
John Welsman comes from a family that is not only musical, but is practically a Toronto institution. His roots go back to the first iteration of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, founded by his grandfather, Frank. Though John went on to study composition in university, he found the environment stifling, and instead followed his love of roots and folk music down a different path. He played keys and guitar in various groups, also providing string arrangements for recordings; a skill he lent to other acts including Sarah McLaughlan and Loreena McKennitt. But it is undoubtedly his work on Road to Avonlea that John is best known for - a show so popular and successful that it is used as a case study in US film schools, and still sees fan conventions held all around the world. In this candid interview, John and I chat about how he came to land his first TV scoring gig, his experiences on Avonlea, and his recent work on a beautiful series of documentaries about the Group of Seven. John is also the current president of The Screen Composers Guild of Canada, and we discuss what it means to hold that position, the challenges facing screen composers today, and the hard work that the Guild is doing to protect our rights and value in the digital age.
www.welsmanmusic.com