Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Diamond shines with kids

Long-time children’s entertainer to take the stage as part of Whistler Children’s Art Festival lineup
58521_l

What: Whistler Children's Art Festival

When: Saturday, July 11 & Sunday, July 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: Creekside

Cost: $5 kids, parents get in free. Workshops $4 to $8

Charlotte Diamond started out teaching children, classroom by classroom, but she soon discovered she could reach a broader audience simply by picking up a guitar and stepping onto a real stage.

Today, Diamond is known by thousands of children across North America and even further abroad as the lady who dons silly hats, sings fun songs, and is the president of the all-important Hug Bug Club. But Diamond's career as a children's entertainer actually came about almost accidentally. She originally had studied Zoology and French at UBC and went on to become a teacher, teaching science, French and music to junior high students.

Raised in a musical household, Diamond didn't truly begin to explore her musical side during her university years.

"My mom sang to us right from when my sister and I were very, very little, and it just seems like music was a way in which we expressed ourselves," she explained. "People have often observed that I live very musically, there's a rhythm to how I do things, and I think that you get that from childhood."

She later became comfortable in the limelight through performances with folk groups and performers like Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton, but didn't actually start writing children's music and songs until she had her own kids. Eventually, those songs fed into a preschool music program.

"I just started singing with them and the first song that I wrote was, 'Octopus, Slippery Fish.'"

That first song caught the ear of the students. Maybe it was Diamond's simple language, or the food-chain storyline, with tale of a fish being eaten by an octopus, being eaten by a tuna, and so on. Either way, it was a glowing success.

At the urging of other parents and teachers, she released an album of her work using her teachers' pension fund to independently produce and release 10 Carrot Diamond . That album went on to win a Juno Award in 1986, effectively launching her career. Today, 10 Carrot Diamond is a Certified Gold Record in Canada.

Next year will mark Diamond's 25 th year in the industry. In that time, she's won five Parents' Choice Awards, three American Library Association Awards, and produced 13 recordings, two music resource books and two nationally televised videos. Most importantly, she's become well-loved by thousands of children across Canada, the United States and as far away as Costa Rica, for catchy songs like "I'm a Pizza" and "All the Nations Like Banana."

Diamond is also multilingual and has translated many of her hit songs into Spanish ("Soy una Pizza" and "Todo el Mundo Come Banana!") French ("Nous sommes tous comme les fleurs") and now, branched into Norwegian for a show at a Scandinavian festival.

Clearly, Diamond's shows aren't just about entertainment, though she is quick to add that, first and foremost, she wants her audience members to enjoy a rich musical experience. This children's entertainer has harnessed the power of music, using it to build lines of communication with the kids and adults who listen to her songs.

She has found that, with young children especially, "tuning their ear" to other languages using music can help make it much easier for them to learn the languages when they are older.

"I have a lovely little two-year-old grandson called William, and I'm writing songs for him, and I noticed that I just started speaking French to him the other day - 'Bonjour!' and it comes back, 'Bonjour!' - perfect!"

Diamond also tries to weave history, science, and other educational subject matter into her music for the children to absorb, while building their vocabulary and exercising their memories.

"Kids come back to me and they say, 'I remember all the lyrics to that song!' Well, then you know that what you've done is you've instilled grammar and vocabulary, all within the language of music."

Today, music programming in the public school system is becoming scarce, but Diamond travels throughout North America speaking at major conferences about the value of music in child development.

"We do know that it's categorized as one of the seven major intelligences of children, right up there with math and linguistics and movement and everything else that they acquire when they're growing," Diamond said.

She encourages teachers to get attuned to their own musical sides, weaving music into their everyday curriculum and recommends that parents find new musical sources - not just the television - to share with their children.

Whistler parents and kids can get their fill of Diamond this weekend as she takes the stage as part of the annual Whistler Children's Festival with her entire Hug Bug Band, which features a mandolin, violin, electric guitar, banjo, keyboards, bass, drums and other instruments. She performs on Sunday at 12:30 p.m.

Ali Richmond, spokesperson for the Whistler Arts Council, explained that the Whistler Children's Festival was founded 26 years ago by a group of parents and volunteers who wanted to offer their kids access to arts programming, which wasn't available in the local school at the time. Since then, the grassroots event has grown to attract thousands of parents and children, and this year, the event boasts an impressive offering of nine headlining entertainers, including the renowned musical stylings of Charlotte Diamond. There will also be a wealth of fun, hands-on workshops for kids ages three to 13.

"This is fantastic - people look forward to this for months," Richmond said. "...I think people love the Whistler Children's Art Festival because its great for the kids, plus a lot of community members get together."

To check out Diamond's music before the festival, visit www.charlottediamond.com . The festival starts at 10 a.m. each day, and festivities wraps up at 4 p.m.