It was a classic night out at the theatre when Winnipeg singer/composer Chantal Kreviazuk joined the Victoria Symphony at Victoria’s Royal Theatre.
Kreviazuk started off the evening with one of her first singles, “Wayne,” and spent the evening playing the piano, singing her heart and soul out, and reliving some of her favorite writings, all accompanied with riveting orchestration from the Victoria Symphony.
Most of Kreviazuk’s songs come from moving experiences in her life; she introduced each one by explaining the root of her lyrics.
Whether it was about losing a close friend, finding the love of her life, or empathizing for others (specifically a girl who passed away from AIDS), each intro made listeners relate to how she was feeling when she wrote these pieces.
I held back tears a few times (and heard many other sniffles around me) during some of her songs, but she made sure to keep things light by adding the perfect amount of comedy in her pre-song intros.
But growing up to Kreviazuk’s music, I was a little sad to not hear a few of her hits that are nostalgic to me (specifically “Dear Life,” “In This life,” and “Before You”), but considering she’s been in the game since 1996 it must have been hard to pick out a limited playlist.
Kreviazuk introduced her last song as her “fake last song” then instructed us on how we could get her encore happening in a ridiculously hilarious way. She laid out the typical way that encores happen and made sure that we’d all get a few extra songs out of her.
When the encore happened, Kreviazuk played a new song of hers about her love for her husband, and followed that up with a few Christmas classics: “O Holy Night,” “Winter Wonderland,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”