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About The Project
Who is Joan Beckow?
You might not yet know her name, but it makes complete sense to put Bernstein, Sondheim and Beckow comfortably together in the same sentence.
Not all remarkable creators get the spotlight they deserve during their lifetime, and the Joan Beckow Legacy Project (supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council) came into existence to produce the debut, albeit posthumous album of prolific, brilliant, and TOTALLY under-celebrated female, Jewish, Canadian composer, Joan Beckow, who passed away at age 88 in January 2021.
Growing up in music in an era when female composer/instrumentalists weren’t really given a platform, Beckow’s undeniable ability to convey complex emotion in melody, and her mastery of harmony, has so far, fallen under the radar. Beckow’s work has been performed on-stage hundreds, even thousands of times, but never in her 50+ year career was her music professionally recorded in-studio.
Enter the Joan Beckow Legacy Project - 22 songs, 30 musicians, recorded live-off-the-floor on both sides of the country to produce a double-disc album, under the mother/daughter music-direction duo, Wendy Bross Stuart (Vancouver, via New York), and Jessica Stuart (Toronto, via Vancouver). Joan has been adjacent to exceptional artists-turned-celebrities throughout her career, starting with her long-time musical collaboration with best friend and 1950’s UCLA roommate, Carol Burnett, but remained modest in the pursuit of her own work.
The Joan Beckow Legacy Project double album and 25-minute documentary will finally give a platform to the exceptional repertoire of this praise-worthy, female composer, and give these special pieces a chance to live on long beyond the life of their author, Joan Beckow.

West Coast road trip, 1966


About The Team
Music Direction by
Jessica Stuart and Wendy Bross Stuart
Toronto Musicians
Vocalists
Jessica Stuart, Jessica Lalonde, Jocelyn Barth, Doug MacNaughton, Alex Samaras, Jackson Welchner and Danny Fong
Intrumentalists
Piano: Wendy Bross Stuart
Cello: Beth Silver
Violin: Aline Homzy and Brielle Goheen
Vibraphone/Percussion: Michael Davidson
Flute: Anh Phung
Viola: Laurence Schaufele
Trombone: RJ (Arjuna) Satchithananthan
Clarinet/Additional Strings: Drew Jurecka
Vancouver Musicians
Vocalists
Rabecca Talbot, Kat Palmer, Lisa Osipov Milton, Rosie Callaghan, Meghan Anderssen, Maisie Meneer and Taylor McKee
Instrumentalists
Piano: Wendy Bross Stuart
Cello: Dávid Szigeti
Violin: Katie Stewart
Flute: Brenda Fedoruk
Percussion: Phil Belanger
Double Bass: Wynston Minckler
Clarinet: Liam James Hockley

Production Team
Producer: Jessica Stuart
Recorded By: Julian Decorte, Canterbury Music Co., Toronto; and Zach Blackstone, The Warehouse Studio, Vancouver
Mix Engineer: Drew Jurecka
Mastering Engineer: Justin Gray
Editor: Andrew Jin Chung
Assistant Producer (Toronto sessions): Alex Samaras
Arts Administrator: Rosie Callaghan
Archival Digitization: Jay Pollock
Album Design and Layout: Katherine Morley
“These [musical] lines lead you emotionally from one place to another, seamlessly, and all of sudden you have goosebumps and don’t even know why.”
— Jessica Stuart, Producer / Co-Music Director

Joan and Jessica

