Heather Feather: Children’s songs with a message

Canadian children’s artist, Heather Feather, is pleased to announce her second studio album, Together, out on June 27, 2025. The 2025 ECMA “Children’s Artist of the Year,” award recipient holds a PhD in Music Theory from McGill, a Bachelor of Music from Memorial University, and is a fearless disability advocate, recently partnering with international advocacy group, RAMPD (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities). 

Focused on social and emotional development, the album explores concepts in development in a direct and creative manner that is clear and accessible for young listeners. With straightforward lyrics and thoughtfully crafted melodies, the album emphasizes empathy, inclusion, and real-life experiences such as being left out, celebrating others, and learning how to belong. Drawing on her academic training and musical fluency in Folk, Jazz, and Indie music, Heather designed the songs to align with both a child’s cognitive development and emotional world. Her music has been described by CBC as “appealing to kids’ intelligence”.

Heather shared her song A Fishy Tale. Download the lyrics to follow along.

We talked about:

• Our songwriting challenge for 2025 to write a song in an odd time signature
• Including a moral message in children’s songs
• How Heather explores surprises and complexity in her songs
• Reusing melodies from traditional children’s song
• Do kids appreciate complicated things like rhythmic syncopation? (Spoiler: yes they do, as long as you repeat them enough)
• The niche market for children’s songs