By Alex Browne
Arts Reporter
Sep 04 2007
You’re going to hear from Chanel Stasiuk.
At only 12 years old, the Peninsula country singer has a pure voice and a powerful stage presence that is attracting attention across the Lower Mainland.
“I’m really comfortable on stage,” she said.
“If I’m singing at some huge thing, I might get nervous, but once I get on stage I feel comfortable. Once I start singing, I’m fine.”
She may be in many ways a typical ‘tween’: fond of athletics and team sports and with a strong dance training background at the Freeflight Studio in Ladner. But as an aspiring singer, she already has a resume that would be the envy of much older performers.
And 2006-2007 turned out to be a banner year for the former White Rock Children’s Choir singer, with well-received performances at the Peace Arch Hospital Auxiliary’s Joy of Music gala in November, Ocean Park Day in June and White Rock’s Sea Festival in August.
She was a semi-finalist at the 2006 Vancouver Star Search at the PNE and a semi-finalist at this year’s PNE contest, the Red Robinson Talent Showdown.
And on Sept. 15 she’ll have a showcase set on the main stage at the Campbell Valley Country Festival, (204 Street and McBurney Avenue, Langley, south of 8 Avenue).
For the past three years she’s won voice scholarships at the Fraser Valley Kiwanis Music Festival, and this year she was selected to sing at the Kiwanis Honours performance.
Amidst a catalogue of precocious accomplishments, in 2004 – at age nine – she was one of the youngest performers selected for Perry Ehrlick’s Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance musical theatre program in Vancouver; the next year she cut her first CD: Chanel Stasiuk 8 X 10.
“That was a gift from my grandpa,” she says of the eight-song disc, recorded at Rock Beach Studio.
“But her voice has changed so much she really needs a new disc, possibly an EP,” said mom Janice, who acts as Chanel’s manager.
Not, mind you, that she’s pushing Chanel, just going into Grade 7 at Ray Shepherd Elementary, to single-mindedly pursue a musical career.
“I’ll see things and opportunities and say ‘Chanel, would you like to do this?’” Janice said.
“I tread carefully – I’m not trying to be a pushy stage mother.”
Janice, herself a veteran of Kiwanis festivals (she used to sing classical and musical theatre selections), and husband Jeff, who used to be in a band with his four brothers, can’t claim to be surprised at Chanel’s musical direction.
When she was only two she startled them by singing along with Shania Twain’s Man, I Feel Like A Woman with all the requisite feeling.
That opportunity for expressing emotion is one of the things that attracts her to the broad category of new country, Chanel, a student of Cloverdale’s Althea Di Gregorio, said.
“I really like Carrie Underwood and I’m really a big fan of Martina McBride. I also like Taylor Swift because of her new song Teardrops On My Guitar. I find in country music it’s all got a story. In hip hop or pop it’s like a bunch of teenagers trying to make some kind of story and doing a horrible job with it.
“Like that song by Rihanna, Umbrella in which she sings ‘ella, ella, ella’ and then ‘eh, eh, eh’. What does that mean?
“In country a song can be funny or sad, there’s so much you can do with it.”
Chanel has been listening to some pop and hip-hop lately and she’s not scathing about all of it.
“I really like Kelly Clarkson and some of Pink’s songs,” she said.
“I really like Nickelback, too.”
In picking her material, she has a lot of advice from her teacher and her parents about tunes that might sit, but also, ultimately has to connect with the song herself.
“I have to really like the song. If it’s a ballad, it should have meaning. There’s no point in singing a ballad about something like candy. And if it’s a faster song it needs to be fun and have age-appropriate lyrics.”
Although she’s had some good results with talent contests – she placed second in Dunbar Idol in May 2005, first in the 19-and-under category at the Cloverdale Country Festival and was a semi-finalist at this year’s Surrey City Jam – she, and her parents approach them principally as another performance opportunity.
I like half hour shows better than competitions,” she said.
“Contests can be too much rejection for kids – they can be really tough. Even I’ve had some breakdowns.
“You have to have a really thick skin.”
Fortunately Chanel has good support from friends and family, including her 14 year-old sister Alex, who comes to all her shows and advises her on her wardrobe choices.
She already has a strong sense of dressing for the stage – and the particular event.
“If you’re going to be performing you don’t want to be wearing ripped jeans,” she said.
“And you don’t show too much skin at a family festival. You have to remember you are putting on a show for the audience. What you’re wearing is your costume. It should be bright, with a little bit of dark for balance, and a little bit of bling.”
Chanel is always looking for other performance opportunities and event organizers interested in hiring the singer can check out music and performance videos at her website, www.chanelstasiuk.com, which also includes an e-mail contact.
“I’m going to take this as far as I can,” Chanel said.
“I want to make a living out of music when I’m older. I don’t have to become famous, but it would be really great. I would be doing something I love almost every day.”