One on One with Markus — Iona Reed

Growing up, Iona Reed's love for music started through her family. The accordion player was part of a family orchestra while growing up in southern Ontario.

"It could have been the economy," she said.

"At that time, farming wasn't great. We had a small farm so we used our dance money for groceries most of the time."

Eventually, her love of music brought her to Sudbury. She came in 1957 to take music lessons. Her accordion teacher Karl Pukara, who eventually became her husband, found her a teaching job.

She says Pukara was the one who got her competing in music. She took part in the Kiwanis Music Festival in Sudbury in 1958.

"I think that might have been the year that Karl and I were in the same class and I won," she said.

"The article in the paper was student beats teacher."

International competitions

She started competing at the international level, something she says happened by accident. She won a competition and the adjudicator was from New York. He invited her to the World Championships in New York as a second Canadian competitor.

"In that competition, there were 32 wonderful [musicians] from Europe," she said.

"In ways it was discouraging but in ways it was a shot of adrenaline. So I started working harder."

She placed 11th and the original competitor chosen for Canada placed 16th.

Reed continued to compete internationally and in 1962, she won the competition. She was only 20 years old at the time.

"I thought I was going to faint. It's like a dream," she recalled.

Learning something new

She came back to Sudbury and continued to perform, but also shifted her focus back to teaching.

Karl Pukara died in 1998 after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.

Reed is now with Ron Kelly who is also her musical partner.

"Ron is wonderful to play with," she said. "Everytime we play together, I'm learning something new."

Today, she still focuses on teaching and plans to get back to performing soon. In August, she had bypass surgery and says she's practicing again after putting her accordion down for a short time while she recovered.