Beverly Glenn-Copeland

Beverly Glenn-Copeland (born 1944) is an American singer and songwriter. He has spent most of his life and career in Canada. Glenn-Copeland began publicly identifying as a trans man in 2002.
Early life.
Glenn-Copeland was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a musical family. As a child, Glenn-Copeland listened to his father play the music of Bach, Chopin, and Mozart on the piano, and heard his mother occasionally sing spirituals.
In 1961, Glenn-Copeland was one of the first black students to study at McGill University in Montreal.
Musical career.
Glenn-Copeland started his career as a folk singer incorporating jazz, classical, and blues elements. He also performed on albums by Ken Friesen, Bruce Cockburn, Gene Murtynec, Bob Disalle, and Kathryn Moses, and was a writer on "Sesame Street". He spent twenty-five years entertaining children as a regular actor on Canadian children's television show "Mr. Dressup".
Glenn-Copeland's 1986 electronic album, "Keyboard Fantasies", recorded using equipment including a Yamaha DX7 and a Roland TR-707, and other recordings were rediscovered and promoted by a Japanese collector in 2015. Before Glenn-Copeland's gender transition was made public, "Keyboard Fantasies" was selected as one of the 70 greatest recordings by women by "The Stranger".
Other albums by Glenn-Copeland include "Beverly Glenn Copeland" (1970), "Beverly Copeland" (early 1970s), "At Last!" (1980), "Primal Prayer" (released under the pseudonym Phynix in 2004), and "Transmissions" (released in September 2020).
"Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story", a documentary directed by Posy Dixon, was released in 2019.
Planned 2020 international tours to Australia, the United Kingdom, and other European destinations were re-scheduled to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A fundraising campaign was initiated to help Glenn-Copeland and his wife after the loss of their house that resulted from these changes; the campaign raised over $90,000. In the same year, Glenn-Copeland created a prerecorded video performance of his song "Courage" for Buddies in Bad Times and CBC Gem's online "Queer Pride Inside" show.
The "Keyboard Fantasies" album was named as the public vote winner of the Polaris Heritage Prize at the 2020 Polaris Music Prize.