In My Own Key

Book excerpt: Exotic venues, sold-out concerts, and the companionship of the world’s most powerful people have given Liona Boyd a lifestyle that, like her music, is one in a million. Exotic venues, sold-out concerts, and the companionship of the world’s most powerful people have given Liona Boyd a lifestyle that, like her music, is one in a million. The internationally acclaimed classical guitarist has crossed numerous boundaries, both musically and romantically. In this colourful memoir covering her life up to 1998, she serves up a rich and fascinating mix: childhood with her progressive parents in England, Canada, and Mexico, exacting music studies in Toronto, down-and-out years in London and Paris, her eight-year romance with Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, drug experimentation in a Mexican artists’ colony, and whirlwind trips around the globe to eminent concert stages. It all makes for a rousing, feisty, passionate tale, as compelling and entrancing as the music of her Ramírez guitar.