Doris Folkens
Program Facilitator
Doris Folkens is an award-winning Singer-Songwriter from Guelph. She’s been teaching Hillside Festival’s “Girls and Guitars” course for nearly a decade! She’s a graduate of Berklee College of Music’s Singer/Songwriter Program, and has won a Folk Canada award for a song on her 2018 self-titled album. Roots Music Canada has described her as “having a voice as pure and sweet as the country and a timeless acoustic sound. She’s recently released two singles, and is looking forward to joining her “Girls and Guitars” students for their performance at Hillside.
May Davis
Program Facilitator
May Davis is a western-americana singer-songwriter residing in the beautiful Ottawa Valley. Whether performing on a festival stage or out on tour showcasing her original music, Davis brings her memorable stories to life through song. She continues to write, record and produce music for adventure documentaries, promotional videos and for her own developing discography.
Amanda Tkaczk
Amanda Tkaczyk is an emerging BIPOC multi-disciplinary artist exploring themes of loss, belonging, connection, and the magic of spontaneity through her experimental anxiety-inducing music compositions, abstract boldly coloured visual art, and emotional wordplay in her poetry and lyrics. She has performed poetry at Hillside Festival (Guelph), National Festival of Spoken Word (Ottawa), Fuze Studio (Philadelphia) and Nuyorican Cafe (New York). She joined Girls & Guitars in January 2025 to reconnect with her love of music and songwriting after a period of deep grief. She can be found at www.whatsoever.ca and Instagram @whatsoever_creates
Kate Hall
Kate has been writing songs for more than 3 decades and began singing and performing at the tender age of 49. Her songs are an honest account of her journey and a commentary on the world around her. She lives off-grid with her husband and two dogs in Haliburton County.
Maddy Mount
Maddy Mount is an aspiring singer and songwriter. She has studied vocals, guitar, and most recently drums, at the Adrian Jones Music School for the past seven years.
Maddy has partaken in numerous local music events including the Elorg Farmer’s Market and the Emerging Insights art exhibition at the Aboyne Museum. She is a regular at open mic events around the area.
Maureen Pollard
Maureen Pollard is thrilled to be part of Girls and Guitars for the second time. In 2024, this program inspired Maureen’s journey from fumbling singer-songwriter with stage-fright to passably-more-confident performer. A grief and trauma therapist who writes songs, sings, and plays a little guitar as part of her strategy for personal resilience, Maureen believes in the healing power of story and song. Her memoir Writing to Heal: The Transformative Power of Story and Song offers insight into her journey finding healing through writing and songwriting in mid-life, and invites readers to explore their own stories and songs.
Nathalie Kleinschmidt
A nomad at heart, Nathalie has collected thousands of stories from strangers and friends in Paris cafés and around Prairie campfires. Early on, creative journaling helped anchor her experiences and make sense of the chaos. When her words found melody as a place to land, songs became her healing joy. As one of the Girls with Guitars, she’ll brave the stage to share “Tom Power Gets Me” a song where societal expectations, ADHD, and CBC converge!
