Take Your Songwriting
To The Next Level
Songs in The Garden Workshop
JUNE 6, 2026
Learn to song write like a pro with the 2026 Mentors: Ron Loos, Valerie Wiebe and BOILAN
Ron Loos
Ron is an award-winning guitar-slinging singer-songwriter from Saskatchewan, Canada. Born and raised on the prairies, he is inspired by the vast spaces and living skies where he still resides. His love and passion for the flatlands and its beautiful people shine through his music and through his mischievous yet charismatic personality.
Finding an old guitar in the attic at the age of 10 was the beginning of a lifelong love for creating music. Almost immediately he began making up songs, and enjoyed performing for anyone who would listen. He was a quick study on the guitar, and by the age of 14 was jamming regularly with friends. Eventually he would play in numerous bands across multiple genres, including hard rock, blues, pop, Celtic, folk, and country. He was the Z99/C95 StreetRock champion with his band The Toasters and represented Saskatchewan in the Canadian Rock Wars finals. His compositions have been included in multiple provincial compilations, and have received local, provincial, and national airplay. His latest album, Ordinary Shine released in 2025, is gaining popularity with well over 200,000 streams.
A delightfully transparent acceptance of musical variety comes through in his recordings. Impossible to categorize, his music contains fragments from multiple styles, often in unexpected ways. As a recovered addict and alcoholic sober since 1995, there is often a strong message of recovery and hope innately contained in his songs. He tells stories with an unapologetic sense of authenticity and vulnerability, leaving space for the listener to find their own interpretation.
Ron is a seasoned musical veteran with decades of experience. His masterful guitar work and distinctive vocals create a warm and inviting soundscape pleasing to a diverse audience. His recordings are beautifully and simply crafted with a superb cast of players. And when he performs live, his eclectic and engaging personality really shines. He connects to the crowd with great joy and enthusiasm, and skillfully delivers his unpredictable repertoire of songs!
Valerie Wiebe
Valerie Wiebe has been writing songs and singing since she was a little girl. She wrote her first song at age 12. Valerie studied voice extensively, and has a standing of Grade 10 in the Royal Conservatory of Music, as well as a music degree from Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg. She plays both guitar and piano. Valerie recorded her solo album of primarily original songs, Fallow Ground, in 2018. Valerie and her non profit organization, Wiebe Works, founded the Art in The Garden Festival in 2020 and began the Songs in The Garden Workshop in 2024. Along with her son, JUSTDAVEthe1, she released a 3 song EP, ReHumanizing, in 2024. Valerie is passionate about the arts and facilitating creative expression for others.
BOILAN
BOILAN (aka JUSTDAVEthe1) is a Saskatchewan-based hip-hop artist, songwriter, and creative producer with over a decade of writing lyrics and a lifelong connection to poetry. He’s been performing original music for 6+ years, including two tours across Western Canada, bringing real stage experience into everything he creates and teaches.
His approach to songwriting is rooted in honesty, mental health, and actually living what you write. For him, songwriting isn’t just a skill—it’s a way to process life, make sense of things, and connect with people on a deeper level. His sound is grounded in hip hop, especially boom bap, but stays open and genre-fluid—because hip hop itself was born from blending styles, flipping what existed into something new. The focus is always on what serves the message: clarity, emotion, and truth.
In workshops, Boilan focuses on helping people find their own voice without forcing it. Breaking through overthinking, getting out of your own way, and learning how to turn real experiences into something meaningful. He teaches both the feel and the fundamentals—flow, structure, and presence—while encouraging artists to lean into vulnerability and trust what they have to say.
