 Hi, I'm Chanel Llorea Stasiuk. I'm 16 years old and a student in Surrey (That's in British Columbia, Canada if you're reading this from somewhere else around the world and don't know). I LOVE to sing! In fact, my parents say they really knew I could sing when at the age of two I sang along with Shania Twain’s “Man I Feel Like a Woman” …with feeling! From there I progressed to singing with Ariel, Belle and every other female "star" of Walt Disney videos (I even had the costumes)! Okay I still like to watch those shows but don't tell anybody! My Mom has always said that my vocal chords are attached to my leg muscles, because everytime I move I sing!
This year is really exciting - music wise! I'm continuing to write lots of music and this year Brett and I started writing on our own as well as with his Dad. I did some demo recording at The Barn in Ladner which was a very long fun day and got 3 of our original pieces recorded. I'm continuing to work on my guitar and have even been coerced into performing a few times on my own - just me and my guitar. Another challenge this year was writing a Christmas song. Usually I just write about whatever I'm thinking about at the time, but this time it had to be Christmas related which made it a little difficult. I'm hoping it will be out this Christmas season! Another new thing this year was getting my Youtube channel up and running. Check it out at www.youtube.com/chanelstasiuk I also started a blog this year so check out that new page - I usually have lots to say and some of it's even interesting! I've had lots of shows this year (check out my performance page) and even did a full 2 hour show at a local coffee shop. That was really fun and lots of friends came out to cheer me on so that was awesome. I'm kind of thinking I like doing longer shows as one of the hardest things is when I'm asked to do a 1/2 hour set and I have to pick which songs I want to do!
My first memory of performing was when I was 5 and in kindergarten. We'd just started at a new  school and I sang for the music teacher. I guess she liked it, because a few weeks later I was singing my first solo of “Silent Night” at the school Christmas Concert. In January 2001, I began my formal training with the White Rock Children’s Choir (there I am to the right - aren't I cute!) and I sang with the choir under conductor Sarona Mynhardt for 7 years. The highlight was in May 2007 when we travelled to Disneyland and performed in the park.
In May 2005, I began private voice lessons with Althea Di Gregorio, and then my performance career really started taking off. Althea is a great coach and lots of fun. Check out my performance section for a list of all my recent and upcoming performances!
In 2006, I got to record my 1st CD, "Chanel Stasiuk 8 X 10".. I guess technically it was my second time in a recording studio because when I was 8, I sang back up on Max Tell's CD, "A Dragon with a Flagon" (see picture below!). If you couldn't guess from the title, he's a children's entertainer and he needed some kids to sing on a couple of the songs. Anyway, working in the studio on my own CD was a lot of hard work for a 10 year old, but tons of fun and I learned a lot!
 For the past 6 years I've performed in the Fraser Valley Kiwanis Music Festival and and I've won several voice scholarships. In 2007 I sang Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better from Annie Get Your Gun as a duet with Brett McCrady and we were selected to sing at the Kiwanis Honours performance. It truly was an honour and it was great to do a duet for a change. This year I entered "Live On" in the composition class and got some really positive feedback.
Besides singing, which takes up a lot of my time I like to play lots of sports. But my favorite is basketball and I'm on the junior team at school
Kind of a fun thing to know about me is that in grades 6 & 7 , I conducted the "Ray Shepherd Stars in Training", the primary grade choir at school with some help from some of my friends. We performed at the school Christmas concert and then at the year end Fine Arts Night the kids did some really fun African songs. It was a great experience to share my love of music with some younger kids although keeping control of the group was really tough.
I live with my parents, my older (and now shorter) sister Alex (a super soccer player), my nanny Vi, my two dogs Elvis (a black lab) and Jazzy (a shepherd, retriever cross) and a fish (It's named "Breakfast". We started with 3, but "Lunch" and "Dinner" died). Based on our dogs names, you can kind of tell that we're a musical family. My Mom used to do a lot of musical theatre and my Dad was in a rock band with his 4 brothers. So I guess music is in my genes!
I'm always looking for an opportunity to perform, so if you are planning any events and would like some entertainment, I'd love to hear from you! Also, I hope you take the time to visit my video and audio pages and listen to some of my songs. Drop me an email and tell me what you think!
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