has been a member of the filk community for almost fifteen years. Her songs, songbooks, recordings, and performances (solo and with Cynthia McQuillin), are all gems. Jane writes of dinosaurs, makes irreverent attacks on academia, and has a vision of her music which is elaborate and fun.
She is noted for the sheer number of musical styles she has mastered. Whether it’s ragtime, polka, patter song, blues, or rousing march, she can write a great original tune, and witty lyrics to match. Her recordings, Dr. Jane’s Science Notes (reincarnated as Wackademia), Fossil Fever, and Dr. Jane’s Remains, appeal to all ages and draw people into filk. She has also performed as a backup vocalist, musician, or arranger on numerous tapes. She plays keyboard, electric bass, flute, guitar, and percussion. She also turns her jeweller’s skills to polishing the people around her. She is funny, self-effacing, and very wise.
She is among the most dedicated “filk gardeners” in the community. In a chaos circle she is the fairness police, drawing out the shy ones, making sure they get a chance to sing, and making the others like it. Dr. Jane has recently moved into filk organizing. She has worked on Consonance in programming, as chair, and in any other job that needs doing, making her a very good person from whom to ask advice, when planning a convention, a filk program, or the running of an organization. She has long been involved with Unlikely Publications, running their dealer’s table at cons. She was on the board of directors for Off Centaur for a short time. She has also done more than her fair share to facilitate filk by being personally supportive of aspiring filkers. She can be counted on for both her kind words and her healing hands.
For these contributions to filk music and the filk community, “Dr. Jane” Robinson is inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame this First Day of April, Two Thousand.