THERESA SOKYRKA
Age: 23
Occupation: Musician
Hometown: Saskatoon, SK
Audition City: Regina, SK
Place of Birth: Moose Jaw, SK
Nickname: “T-Bone,” “Tess”
Sounds Like: Ani DiFranco
Identifies With: Sarah Harmer
Musical Style: Jazz / Folk / Funk
Fashion Style: “Unique”
“I breathe music; doing anything but music seems too much to ask. Getting up and doing music-related things all day… now that sounds like a wicked career.”
Theresa Sokyrka wrote her first musical composition at age four. Entitled “Chickens Climb Up the Ladders,” the song had to do with “chickens climbing up ladders and the farmer being quite mad about the situation,” she says. Fast forward 19 years and Theresa is the winner of C95 and CTV’s “Saskatoon Idol” competition – and now a Top 32 competitor in Canadian Idol. In addition to singing in church, where her mother was the choir director, Theresa has sang with the Ukrainian Orthodox Youth Choir, experimental band Phagoo, jazz band The Jeff Martin Trio and ensembles at Red Deer College. Indeed, Theresa credits Red Deer College, where she studied for two years, as “the reason I am the singer I am today… their belief in me from the beginning inspired my belief in myself.”
Theresa, who also plays the violin and guitar, says people would be surprised to find out that she is quite shy when not onstage. “I am a walking oxymoron,” she says. “I feel more at ease to be myself when I’m being watched.”
Theresa cheers for the Edmonton Oilers, enjoys watching Biography, loves her mothe’s cornmeal (“It’s sa-weet!”) and says if her pet cat Jaco was human, she’d marry him.
Who would Theresa love to meet? “John Lennon. What an honour to meet such a song-writing legend. I’ve been listening to the Beatles my entire life and Johnny always made me think.”
