Ian Tamblyn

Early life

Tambly was born and raised in Fort William, Ontario, Tamblyn studied at Trent University, graduating in 1971 and subsequently settling in Chelsea, Quebec.

Career

Tamblyn released a demo cassette, Moose Tracks, in 1971. In 1976 he released his full-length debut album, Ian Tamblyn, which won a Juno Award for Best Folk Music Recording that year. Since that time he has completed over 25 recording projects. He plays guitar, piano, hammered dulcimer, and synthesizer, as well as singing.

Tamblyn has recorded a number of instrumental music albums inspired by his adventure travels to remote places such as the north shore of Lake Superior, the Nahanni River, and the Chukchi Sea, and his participation in scientific research expeditions to locations such as Greenland and Antarctica. Magnetic North and Antarctica incorporate on-location field recordings into the music. Magnetic North was nominated for a Juno Award for Best Instrumental Album of 1990. Over My Head was recorded in-studio after a live concert commissioned by the Canadian Museum of Nature, in which music was blended with tape looped field recordings of birds.

In 1999, Tamblyn composed the background music for the first season of the Canadian animated TV series Toad Patrol. Tambyn entertained on the main stage at the Peterborough Folk Festival in 2001.

In 2008 Tamblyn, along with Bruce Cockburn and other Canadian folk artists released Dancing Alone, a two CD tribute album of the songs of influential Canadian songwriter and poet William Hawkins. Tamblyn also produced the majority of the tracks on the album.

Tamblyn won a Canadian Folk Music Award in 2010.

Partial discography

Selected plays