Violinist and vocalist Rosemary Siemens and her husband Eli Bennett have returned to Vancouver after their family's annual Summer vacation back home in Southern Manitoba and Plum Coulee.
"Summer vacation was amazing," said Siemens with a smile. "It's honestly my favorite time of year, and I love bringing my boys home so they get to experience what I got to experience as a child. It's very special that we can still spend time on the farm. My dad's almost 87, and still farming full time with my brother Jonathan."
Siemens stressed it's been incredibly special for her sons Amadeus and Theodore to experience farm life while her dad is still actively farming.
"Amadeus is obsessed with tractors and combines, Theodore didn't want to get off the combine and they're trucking with my dad," she shared. "It's an experience they could never have here, and to share what that is like, beyond special. They were bringing meals to the fields, and all those things are just so nostalgic for me. I honestly think it's the best way to grow up."
But it wasn't all hanging around the farm for the musical duo and their family, with nine Sunday Hymn Serenade video shoots on the agenda for songs recorded earlier in the year while Rosemary's parents visited their home in Vancouver.
"It was actually insane," Siemens said with a laugh. "If people would see the behind the scenes. Eli is doing everything behind the scenes. He wasn't in these videos, because he has to produce them basically, and he's carrying the keyboard into the wheat field. The boys we'd wake up at 5am to do a sunrise shoot at 7am, and then he's putting up mosquito traps, so we're not swatting while we're doing this."
The first of the Southern Manitoba shot Sunday Hymn Serenade videos is coming out September 1st, and it's for the hymn "Doxology".
Another video Siemens is particularly excited about sharing is for "Bringing in the Sheaves". The Sunday Hymn Serenade video will feature the entire family, including her brother Jonathan combining.
"We did this shot with 'Bringing in the Sheaves', and the combine's coming behind us, so we had to call him because he can't see what we're doing," she explained. "So, go for 30 seconds as slow as possible and then stop. It's just a lot of logistics that people would have no idea what goes into it, and to to get all these done while my dad is trying to harvest. That was the other thing, we tried to do them all before harvest time, but then this one had to be during harvest, and we needed the right weather. It was crazy."
Siemens noted it was an incredibly hot and windy day of the shoot, and those weather conditions brought their own challenges, but feels it was all worth it and people will enjoy the final video.
"We did 'Bringing in the Sheaves' with my brother combining behind me, and my dad B-roll with him farming, and the rest of our family in the wheat," she said. "It's going to be very cool, and I think will bring a lot of memories for a lot of farmers, and just nostalgia for people. It's going to be very, very special."
You can listen to Sunday Hymn Serenade - Radio Edition on CFAM Radio 950 the first Sunday of every month at 1 p.m., with an encore of the program at 4:40 p.m.
You can listen to our conversation with Rosemary Siemens, below.