On a late evening in March, 2026, Cati Landry '13 checked her email before bed and found a message that didn't seem real. Her song Mind's Eye had been selected for Vladimir, a new Netflix series starring Rachel Weisz. For the Victoria-based singer-songwriter, it was the kind of moment she'd been quietly growing toward for a long time — one with roots that trace directly back to a single formative year at St. Michaels University School.
After a Grade 11 year at a school that wasn't quite the right fit artistically, Landry was looking for a fresh start. She had always admired SMUS, had friends who spoke warmly of it, and that summer attended a drama camp on campus where she performed in a production of The Wedding Singer at the Fringe Festival. By the time she sat down for her admissions interview, she had already made up her mind.
A Community Like No Other
"I have one year and I'm going to make the most of it," she told herself.
She did. Landry threw herself into everything: jazz choir, drama, clubs, lunch-hour performances. But what struck her most wasn't the programming. It was the culture.
"If you were creative and you wanted to be a part of a community like that, it was encouraged and there was no pitting against each other," she said. "Everyone could be celebrated for being their best."
Coming from schools where the arts felt like an afterthought, that environment was transformative. So were the teachers. English teacher Terence Young introduced her to the poetry of songwriters Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell alongside the curriculum, and made The Great Gatsby feel like a revelation.
"I had read that book before I came here and then reading it with Mr. Young was eye-opening in a whole new way," she said. "If I spoke up in class, he was so excited to hear what I had to say.”
Drama teacher Morgan McLeod, who was also new to SMUS that year, became her favourite drama teacher she'd ever had. "You could trust him, but also feel really encouraged to take risks," she said.
Letters of recommendation from her SMUS teachers helped her earn a full scholarship to UVic. There, studying English felt like a natural extension of what Mr. Young had already sparked in her. But before that, her gap year unfolded the way many of her best things have: through the people she met in that Grade 12 classroom.
Her grade was unusually rich with musical talent. Guitarist Charlie Gannon was in the jazz band while Landry sang in jazz choir, and the two quickly became collaborators, playing open mics, gigging around Victoria and recording demos together.
"I was a little bit like a bird with a broken wing when I got here," she said. "It was not only a nest, but it really taught me — sounds cheesy, but — you can soar again."
When Landry later completed a hybrid Master's in Songwriting at Berklee College of Music, recording Mind's Eye in a historic West Hollywood studio as part of her final portfolio, she drew on the foundation built during those years playing around Victoria with friends she'd met at SMUS.
The song itself captures the playful inner monologue of having a crush, a daydream set to warm, unhurried indie pop. It was, in her words, "the little song that could" — gathering momentum quietly, on its own timeline.
Old Connections, New Blooms
That momentum eventually brought another SMUS connection back into her life. When Ann Makosinski ‘15, a fellow alumna, returned to Victoria during the pandemic after years in New York, the two reconnected over a shared love of film and music. They decided to make a music video for Mind's Eye on a shoestring budget, filming at John's Place diner and, with a characteristically generous yes from Mr. McLeod, in the Copeland Lecture Theatre at SMUS. Conrad Moore ‘13, another SMUS alum, played the love interest. Several more alumni appeared as extras.
"She didn't have any cynicism about trying things," Landry said of Makosinski. "Let's email every venue we actually want to film in, not just what we can realistically get."
That attitude, Landry noted, felt deeply familiar. It was the same spirit SMUS had encouraged in her years earlier.
The song kept finding its way into the world — picked up by a chain of French cafes, then, through her publicist and a Francophone sync agency, InTempo Musique, selected for Vladimir.
When confirmation arrived by email, it was the moment she had barely allowed herself to imagine. Now, weeks later, after having watched her song play in Episode 3 of the series, she is ready to look at what comes next.
"When something good happens, you think okay, what's the next ceiling I want to try and reach?"
Today, Landry is working on an EP (an extended play short release longer than a single but shorter than a full album) and considering collaborative projects with Makosinski. Charlie Gannon, her SMUS bandmate from jazz choir days, remains one of her closest creative collaborators. She sees those threads clearly now.
"Really good seeds were planted and I could feel them being planted at the time," she said. "But they've continued to flourish, and every year, different blooms will come up."
"You never know who you are sitting next to right now that you'll be building with ten years down the line."
