Barbara Budd

It takes a special talent to introduce the wide range of stories presented on AS IT HAPPENS. It calls for authority and sincerity, for humour, sometimes a little cheekiness - and the ability to create character voices when a reading of a short story is programmed in a live 90-minute broadcast.

Budd delivers, and with style.

Before she became host of AS IT HAPPENS in 1993, Barbara was already familiar to audiences through her extensive work as a broadcaster and stage actress, including leading roles in five seasons with The Stratford Shakespeare Festival. She has performed with every major symphony orchestra in Canada as host and narrator, and has narrated scores of award-winning television documentaries,(PBS, CBC,CTV, DISCOVERY, HISTORY). She is heard in feature roles on four award-winning recordings on the Classical Kids label. (Vivaldi's Ring Of Mystery, Mozart's Magic Fantasy, Hallelujah Handel and Tchaikovsky Visits America.)

Less recognizable is her voice, in cartoons and animated films for which she has created a host of madcap characters.

Her CD recording of "Bone Button Borscht,* for narrator, Klezmer Band and full orchestra,was released to coincide with her highly successful performances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, The National Arts Centre Orchestra**, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal **, The Winnipeg Symphony and The Vancouver Symphony.

Budd's broadcasting career began at the age of seven when she became a regular performer on The Children's Hour, a Saturday morning live radio broadcast from CKTB in her home town St. Catharines, Ontario. At age 16, she was hired to write a bi-weekly newspaper column for The St. Catharines Standard. That same year, she was invited to the United Nations to address a meeting of the World Health Organization. And with that, Barbara's love of sharing stories in every possible medium was born.

Barbara is a graduate of York University and has maintained a happy association with her alma mater, representing York and hosting numerous events on its behalf in Canada and the United States.

She is a frequent guest lecturer at Seneca College's Department of Broadcast Journalism in Toronto.

*based on the book Bone Button Borscht by Aubrey Davis, Published by Kids Can Press.

Recording is available from CBC Shop 1 800 955-7711

Book Adapted, with music composed by Sid Robinovitch and arranged by Barbara Budd.

Performed by Barbara Budd, Finjan, and The Winnipeg Symphony, conductor Bramwell Tovey

Carol Off

With extensive experience in both Canadian and international current affairs, Carol Off has covered conflicts in the Middle East, Haiti, the Balkans and the sub-continent, as well as events in the former Soviet Union, Europe, Asia, the United States and Canada. She reported the fallout from the 9/11 disasters with news features and documentaries from New York, Washington, London, Cairo and Afghanistan. She has covered Canadian military missions around the world including its latest combat operation in Kandahar.

Her award-winning documentaries include: “Fatwas and Beauty Queens”, the story of a young Nigerian woman journalist who fled into exile when her article on a Miss World Pageant was deemed blasphemous; “Of Crimes and Courage”, the story of a child who survived the massacre of her family in Kosovo and then went on to personally hunt down the killers; “In the Company of War Lords”, the story of Washington’s complicity with Afghanistan’s most murderous criminals; "Playing with Fire," about the anti-Indian movement in North America; "Children of Chernobyl”, the story of Cuba's medical therapy program for child victims of the Chernobyl disaster; “Flight from Bosnia”, an investigation into war criminals who found safe haven in Canada’s refugee system; and "Thou Shalt Not Kill”, a profile of religious extremists who kill abortion doctors.

Carol Off's coverage of the post-war reconstruction of the Balkans and the war crimes trial for Yugoslavia led her to write the best-selling book, The Lion, the Fox and the Eagle: A Story of Generals and Justice in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and another national best-seller on the war in Croatia, The Ghosts of Medak Pocket: The Story of Canada’s Secret War, which won the prestigious Dafoe Foundation Award in 2005. Her most recent book, Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World’s Most Seductive Sweet, chronicles the international cocoa industry and the machinations behind Big Chocolate.

Carol Off was an arts reporter for CBC Stereo in the early 1980s, when she also wrote for several periodicals. She was the CBC Ottawa correspondent for Sunday Morning in the late 1980s covering the Canada/USA Free Trade Agreement, the Meech Lake Accord, the founding of the Reform Party and the re-election of Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives. She then became CBC Radio’s National Reporter for the Province of Quebec where she covered among other stories the Bloc Quebecois, the Montreal massacre, the Oka crisis and several election campaigns.

Carol Off has won numerous awards for television and radio work, among them: a Gemini; two gold medals from the New York Festival of Television; a selected screening at the Monte Carlo Television Festival; several awards and citations from the Columbia Television awards; a Gabriel award; a B’nai Brith Award and number of awards and citation from the National Radio and Television Association.

She is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario. She lives and works in Toronto.