BIOGRAPHY DETAILS

KERILIE MCDOWALL

“Well there may be 8 million guitarists in the world, but Kerilie McDowall is certainly one of the best. Guitar Player magazine calls her playing 'smooth and elegant,' to which I would add, intelligent and original.”

—Paul Grant, Host, CBC Hot Air, Vancouver.

"A very talented musician." —Guitar Player

SHORT BIO:

Canadian Online Guitar Lessons’ Kerilie McDowall is presently a DownBeat Critics Poll judge, and is a former DownBeat writer. She's a Polaris Music Prize juror, past JUNO Awards judge and talent judge for the Canadian Musicians Coop, 13x award-winning jazz short documentary maker and TV Movie Director of, In the Zone: Rick Kilburn (2020-22).

She was very honoured to receive the 2024 Creative Innovator Award from Nanaimo’s Women of Influence WIN Awards in February 2024.

McDowall was very excited when she won her first US award from the Atlanta, Georgia, USA, Black Women In Jazz & the Arts with a Stiletto Award (2016, radio/journalism). In total she has won 16 awards in film radio, and jazz guitar/composition. McDowall has in past years wrote for All About Jazz, Canadian Musician, Inspired 55+, Canadian Antique Phonograph Society, Nanaimo Magazine, and more.

Kerilie McDowall is the guitar instructor/owner and film/artist/writing coach at Canadian Online Guitar Lessons & Services. She is the 13x award-winning jazz short documentary filmmaker-director of In the Zone: Rick Kilburn.

In the 90s she was a jazz guitarist and jazz bandleader in Vancouver (1990-2000), music and arts events publicist/media contact (2015-22), #1 globally on google Player FM jazz radio podcaster from 2013-15 (7 year jazz radio podcast). Past jazz radio host/producer, volunteer (17 years), TV Hosting/co-hosting, volunteer producing, Shaw Spotlight (7 years), bi-weekly TV Director, Shaw Spotlight volunteer (5 years 2015-20).

WRITER:

A monthly Canadian music review contributor to prestigious DownBeat jazz magazine from 2016 to 2020 (USA). McDowall's freelance and past writing work includes The Polaris Music Prize Awards Gala (Canada), All About Jazz  (USA), Canadian Musician, Inspired, Canadian Antique Phonograph Society, Nanaimo Magazine, The Vancouver Island Symphony, Friends of Nanaimo Jazz Society, the Bethlehem Centre (2015-2020), Nanaimo Conservatory of Music's Chordial Notes (2013-2015), the Victoria Jazz Orchestra, add Kerilie’s continued writing and coaching work with elite Canadian and American-Canadian jazz and indie musicians.

MUSIC BIO:

A professional jazz guitarist, instructor, and music composer from 1990-2000 in Vancouver, McDowall is a York University Bachelor of Fine Arts music graduate. Her area of study was New Music Composition and Classical and Jazz Guitar Performance.

A current guitar instructor, McDowall has 20 years of guitar instruction experience and in 2024, 40 years of music industry expertise and currently instructs privately at Canadian Online Guitar Lessons.

Established in October 2015 as Oceanview Guitar Studio by jazz guitarist and short filmmaker, former DownBeat writer and current Polaris Music Prize juror Kerilie McDowall, Canadian Online Guitar Lessons went online in 2020. Kerilie offers guitar, music, songwriting, composing and theory lessons, music publicity services, media liaison contact and writing services for musicians. Workshops and coaching are now available for musicians, writers, tv/radio artists, new filmmakers and new or established indie performers. Kerilie assists students to develop their own unique artistic voices. Shaping, developing and composing. Students explore the music that they love.

GUITAR: A supportive, patient approach that encourages students to learn at their own pace. Ages 6 and up. Pop, country, blues, classical, jazz, folk, rock, includes guitar soloing, rhythm guitar, TAB, music reading and improvisation. Creativity is encouraged. From pop, rock, blues, country, folk, classical and jazz, more, Kerilie can help you get underway with your favourite style(s) of music on your favourite type of guitar from electric to acoustic. Learn, discover and explore your choice of fun ear playing, and music reading of TAB, charts, soloing, chord voicing, songwriting, composition, orchestration and performance training.

PUBLICITY: Kerilie first started her publicity, writing and concert booking business in 2015 working with recording artists such as Dan Brubeck, Mike Allen, and Benoit Delbecq and Francois Houle. She currently works as a writer on contract and has assisted organizations with publicity like the Nanaimo Musicians Association, Friends of Nanaimo Jazz Society, Bethlehem Centre and Crimson Dance Society, and more.

Kerilie has 17 years of volunteer performance and production work in the radio industry and 7 years in television. She created 380 podcasts during a 6 year period and afterward wrote for DownBeat jazz magazine. She is an active music judge. Recently Kerilie designed workshops to instruct non-profits, businesses, and emerging and established recording artists in publicity techniques, self-publicity, international radio and the media TV, radio, press, radio and on-camera interviews, magazine/blog features and writing.

TV/FILM: Kerilie was mentored as a volunteer from 2015-2022 in TV hosting, production, filming and directing at Nanaimo's Shaw Spotlight television studio, on location, and in the mobile unit. Kerilie directed television bi-weekly, directing up to 5 people (3 cameras, sound operator, graphics, host) while simultaneously camera switching/training and directing volunteers on the Shaw Spotlight program Coast Connections from 2015-2020.

Kerilie McDowall’s first short jazz documentary produced with the Shaw Spotlight team and her Shaw Spotlight mentor producer Todd Jones (2020), features the story of the life and career of multi-award-winning Canadian jazz bassist and music producer Rick Kilburn. The short won an 12th award in November 2022 after having won the distinguished Best Documentary Short award at the 2021 Hong Kong International Short Film festival. McDowall and her team were recipients of a 2021 Best Canadian Documentary award from the Toronto Independent Film Festival of CIFT. An award from the Japan International Film Festival in October 2022 for Best Documentary Short also delighted McDowall and her team along with three Hollywood Best Web and New Media awards.

Kerilie has skills in organic unpaid publicity. In November 2022, Kerilie's film STARmeter rating on IMDB Pro reached almost 10 million, with Rick Kilburn's apogee steady at 10 million and peaking at 11.4 million hits, and increasing to 13 million hits in November 2023. Kerilie’s directing/actress/voice narrator hits were at 12.7 million in September 2023 and February 2024. Here are McDowall’s Film Freeway up-to-date, accurate awards stats HERE.

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