An Emmy Award-winning songwriter, musician, composer and producer with 30+ years of experience, Toronto-based Anthony Vanderburgh has been called upon for his musical skills by prominent artists, networks and record companies.
His producing work with Dan Hill helped garner the Canadian songwriting legend a number of hit covers for artists as varied as Celine Dion and The Backstreet Boys. Vanderburgh also helped launch the careers of adult-contemporary singer Amy Sky, Juno Award winning metal group Slik Toxik (Hard Rock Album of the Year1993), and Chicago’s current singer Neil Donell. His work with Sky earned two Top 5 singles, and writing for Donell led to a Top 5 hit.
As a guitarist, Vanderburgh toured extensively with acts such as Roch Voisine, Dan Hill, Alan Frew (of Glass Tiger), and numerous Top 40 bands dating back to the eighties. He has recorded in Los Angeles, Frankfurt and Nashville. He’s also written with artists Alanis Morrisette and David Cassidy.
Vanderburgh has composed soundtracks for over 200 episodes of television. He received a 2009 Emmy Award for his co-written theme song to the animated series 6teen. He has been honoured with other awards, including SOCAN's Top International (and Domestic) Television Series for his composing on 6teen in 2010 and, more recently, an Alumni of Distinction from Humber College of Creative Arts and a Premiere’s Award nomination.
During a long-overdue hiatus from music, Vanderburgh has refocused his creative energies on writing his own narratives, and is excited to have completed his first novel, an adventure-thriller entitled, ‘Careful What You Die For’.
Regarding the experience of writing his first book, Vanderburgh says, "Writing a novel is like composing a symphony. Every character is an instrument with their own unique voice, timbre and melodic arc. How these characters are juxtaposed and the ways in which they interact, in both harmony and dissonance, creates an ensemble of powerful and sometimes beautiful music."
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David Wesson must have been absent the day his grade three teacher taught the parable of “curiosity killed the cat”, because he has inadvertently witnessed an exchange he should not have seen. Though he doesn’t realize it, the barely employed musician and single father is about to become entangled in a terrifying plot, in which he will unwittingly play a pivotal role.
Wesson’s courage, resolve and street smarts will be tested to their limits, as he gets caught up in an intrigue that takes him to a remote Bahamian island— where danger lurks along its sandy shores, in its craggy mangrove swamps, out on the turquoise sea and even under the blood-warm waters of the Caribbean. He will soon find himself in shark-infested territory, one of black-market weaponry and stolen military technologies.
Will David Wesson, a mysterious woman and a cast of misfit operatives fall prey to a maniacal leader with a diabolical agenda? Or will our unlikely hero and his covert crew summon their deepest inner strength and save humanity from an unspeakable act of destruction.
EDITORIAL REVIEW: JD Shipton
The everyman doesn’t often get to live their fantasy life, and even if they could, what’s to say they’d be able to handle it? Here we get to take this plunge with David Wesson- flawed, mostly honest, and doing his best like the rest of us- into a strange world of intrigue and insanity, where the stakes are a little higher than he might have bargained for.