Jillian Horton

Horton's star began its rise in London

By James Reaney
The London Free Press

The echoes of Jillian Horton's amazing days at Western, when she was already a young master of words and music, are now being heard across Canada.

"It was during my second or third year of undergrad that I really started to sit down and write a ton of music," Horton says from Winnipeg.

"I regard Western as the place where I really got my 'start,' and I'm always delighted to have an opportunity to rave about how the school — and specifically, the department of English and drama — put me on a path to the exciting things I am doing in my life right now," the singer- songwriter/doctor/playwright says.

It was at a cast gathering after a UWO Players Guild Society's staging of The Crucible by Arthur Miller in November 1992, that Horton sat down at the grad pub's piano. The classically trained pianist began to sing her own songs, something she seldom did. Her fellow cast members were enthusiastic. Horton suddenly realized those songs might have a life far beyond her private performances.

"It was like an epiphany. I was like, 'Wow! Maybe people will like this music,' " she says.

Around Horton was a cast of supportive friends, including teachers, fellow Western students and actors, Fanshawe music industry arts grads and members of the Ivey family. The Iveys are the London philanthropists whose national scholarship brought Horton to Western and they have remained friends.

Horton, 30, has been a little busy since her days in the creative crucible at Western in the 1990s.

Even the thumbnail version of her life and art makes her sound like a person the CBC might dream up, if she didn't already exist. Leaving out her Brandon years, which came before Western, and skipping over her medical studies at Hamilton's McMaster University and her residency and fellowship at a Toronto hospital, which came after UWO, let's jump to the present.

The UWO English grad is now a Winnipeg physician specializing in general internal medicine with a sparkling debut CD of her own songs, brilliantly produced by Eitan Cornfield and recorded by former Fanshawe College music industry arts student John (Beetle) Bailey.

She's married to former Londoner Eric Hachinski, a fine classical pianist now studying law at Manitoba, has already been heard on Stuart McLean's The Vinyl Cafe, a CBC Radio home for emerging musical talent and is soon to be heard on Shelagh Rogers' CBC Radio show, Sounds Like Canada, if she isn't bumped for Rufus Wainwright or Anne Murray again.

To me, all these remarkable accomplishments in life and art recall Horton's fine piece of music theatre, Some Greater Name. A magical exploration of Canada's weirdest prime minister, Mackenzie King, and his beloved terrier, Pat, the 1997 work stands out as one of the great moments in London cultural life.

Horton acknowledges an obvious model in Billy Bishop Goes to War, by John Gray with Eric Peterson. That work that also combined Canadian history, a small cast and the composer-playwright on stage to shape the songs.

Horton's words and melodies proved to be an eerie and entrancing flight into the mind of the Canadian leader and the heartbreaking nobility of the terrier, who was — in my opinion — far too good for King.

UWO teachers as John Lingaard, Richard Green and Ernie Redekop all helped Some Greater Name reach the stage, showing the university's lead role in those days.

Through its stars, UWO-connected actors Jim Doucette (as the PM) and Rachel Holden-Jones (as Pat), the play helped introduce a new generation of theatre talents. Lingaard and Green have left London, a loss for our theatre scene. But Doucette, Holden-Jones and Anne-Marie Caicco, another close friend of Horton's, all appeared on separate London stages this month, proof that the new talent is still flourishing.

Some Greater Name wasn't performed often, with performances at Cape Breton, the McManus downstairs at the Grand, and Woodstock among its credits. Horton says works like it probably need their playwright-composer on stage, at the piano. In Horton's case, her medical studies had to come first.

Now that she's a doctor, she's found more time for the piano and her songs. But she's singing, not accompanying singing dogs or PMs. Horton can be heard on her excellent self-titled CD (Marquis/EMI). If it were a play, the CD would have a couple of acts with a lot of witty romantic grief leading to a happy, serenely passionate ending. It's probably no accident that the guy in track No. 2, Winnipeg, is a jerk and the guy in the finale, Song for an Evening in June, is a piano concerto, a maestro who steals her heart to a standing ovation.

Years ago, a Free Press critic said of Horton's work in The Crucible that "(she) makes few missteps, but . . . doesn't go as far as one might wish in an admittedly taxing role."

Well, this Free Press critic says she was just getting started when it comes to conquering taxing roles — and we were lucky to see those first steps.

He can be e-mailed at: jreaney@lfpress.com