She's a 24-carrot Diamond, she says in her CD title and she's coming to Prince George.
Charlotte Diamond is the keynote speaker at the Great Beginnings conference Feb. 1 and 2 in Prince George and she's performing at Vanier Hall for all her fans on Feb. 2 at 4 p.m.
"Even right from the beginning when I began my work with children, families and schools in 1985 I was already doing workshops because my background is in education," said Diamond, who just completed a workshop at the pre-school her two sons attended when they were little.
"That's full circle - there I was back where we started," laughed Diamond.
Presented by the Family Y, School District 57, Early Childhood Educators of BC, Caledonia branch, and the P.G. Child Care Association, the Great Beginnings workshops are geared for teachers and early childhood educators.
"It's really important that teachers and parents have a chance to see what a wealth of uses you can put music to," she explained. "It's songs, literacy and it's about communication. Music is a wonderful, wonderful tool for learning. So I will keynote on Friday morning, do the workshops and then I'll do the concert on Saturday."
Diamond lives near Vancouver and is a Juno award-wining performer, composer and recording artist. Besides being fluent in French and Spanish as well as English, Diamond is also a national representative for UNICEF Canada.
With a long history of visits to Prince George, she first toured ten of the schools in the area in 1986 and returned often as an entertainer for the Prince George Children's Festival.
"I am so happy to be coming back to Prince George," said Diamond. "I always enjoyed performing there and I look forward to the conference and concert."
Diamond will be performing some of her most popular songs like Four Hugs a Day, Each of Us Is A Flower, The Hug Bug, Dicky Dinosaur, I Am A Pizza, Octopus (known also as Slippery Fish) and La Bamba.
"I think songs sustain us, they're like food," Diamond explained. "They take us through troubling times and they nourish us like food. It's a very active concert. We have very passive societies and it's winter so we're tied pretty tightly to our televisions and our video games so it's great to step aside from that and just do things with your own resources."
Diamond will be accompanied by her son, Matthew, 37, who will bring along his guitar to join in the fun. The duo has written some new songs they will present to the audience at the concert.
"This concert will be rich musically as well," said Diamond. "It's for all ages. Grab a kid and come along for the fun of it."
The proceeds from the concert will help offset the cost of the conference for care givers.
Tickets for the concert are at Studio 2880, 2880-15th Ave., for $15 for adults and $10 for children. It's free for those two years old and younger.
