If you missed it live, you can check out Chantal Kreviazuk on the Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos here: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/The_Hour/ID=1297335195

Its that time of year everyone - on the 29th of Sept, in the cold of Toronto, Canada, I am going out to busk in support of War Child.

If there is anything innovative you can think of (media opportunities etc) to lend support, that would be greatly appreciated.

Aside from that, I’m asking you to help me in my personal initiative to raise enough money to build and run a youth centre in Darfur, Sudan.

That is about 30 K.

It is a lot in this economic climate, I know, but I also have faith!

The situation in Darfur is desperate, especially for young people. Forced from their homes, unable to go to school and in physical danger most of the time. It is intolerable.

War Child’s youth centres offer a respite from the difficulties of life in the Displaced camps. Kids can learn, they can play and they can get the skills the need to avoid exploitative work. The Centres are a place of normalcy in a situation that is anything but normal. A place of hope amidst the horror.

Darfur is a problem that won’t go away but it’s often difficult to know how to help. Well, this is how. You can make your pledge to my campaign right now at www.warchild.ca/chantal.

 ....

Thank you for taking the time to read this, for your support, and for considering contributing to a very worthy cause. For more information on my favorite charitable organization, War Child, go to warchild.ca.

I look forward to hearing from you and thank you in advance for your generous pledges!

 

best

chantal

 

Chantal is hitting the road beginning November 6th in Vancouver, BC! The majority of the dates go on sale this Friday, unless otherwise noted below.

For the first time, there is an exclusive VIP option available in select cities. This package includes a ticket in the first five rows, admission to an exclusive meet and greet and one autographed copy of Plain Jane to be delivered by October 13th, 2009 (day of release). The VIP experience for the Toronto show sold out in a matter of minutes, so act quickly!

To purchase a VIP Package for a select number of dates, click here

Tour Dates

11/06/09 - River Rock Show Theatre - Vancouver, BC - Tickets
11/07/09 - Red Robinson Show Theatre - Coquitlam, BC - Tickets
11/10/09 - PW Enns Centennial Concert Hall - Winkler, MB - Tickets
11/11/09 - Pantages Theatre - Winnipeg, MB - Onsale Sept. 18th
11/12/09 - Thunder Bay Community Auditorium - Thunder Bay, ON - Tickets
11/14/09 - Deerhurst Resort - Huntsville, ON - Tickets
11/15/09 - Centennial Theatre - London, ON - Tickets
11/17/09 - Capitol Theatre - Moncton, NB - Tickets
11/18/09 - The Playhouse - Fredericton, NB - Tickets
11/19/09 - Casino Nova Scotia - Halifax, NS - Tickets
11/20/09 - Casino Nova Scotia - Halifax, NS - Tickets
11/21/09 - Olympia Theatre - Montreal, QC - Tickets
11/22/09 - National Arts Centre - Ottawa, ON - Tickets
12/06/09 - Charles W. Stockey Centre - Parry Sound, ON - Tickets
12/08/09 - Massey Hall - Toronto, ON - Tickets
12/09/09 - TCU Place - Saskatoon, SK - Onsale Sept 18th
12/10/09 - Conexus Arts Centre - Regina, SK - Onsale Sept 18th
12/12/09 - Jubilee Auditorium - Calgary, AB - Onsale Sept 18th
12/13/09 - Esplanade Arts Centre - Medicine Hat, AB - Tickets

Hey everyone, just checkin in....getting close to delivering a
complete album, and I thought I would give you an update....there is
an album title floating out there, of Plain Jane, which leads to a
question that I am getting a fair bit now...

PLAIN JANE......."why?"

There is a song on my album entitled PLAIN JANE

I lead a very unique life I think, not because I am a singer-
songwriter, but because I am a singer songwriter whose material is
most celebrated in my native country - Canada, but I live part time
in another country.
In California, where Raine and I have a home/home studio, I am simply
a mom - a working mom, yes, but I am mostly a typical mom.
In Canada, I am a singer, who does interviews and has videos, a
commercial and lots of very public advocacy work for many
organizations I believe in - which puts me far more "out front."

Anyway, I feel like I lead a double life.
I won't get into the insight I get into fame AND obscurity, but
wow....it is quite a trip to live out both.
In the song Plain Jane, I explore the beauty of anonymity and
privacy, and the realization that quite frankly hard work and
obscurity makes a much more grateful person of you.....I abhor
entitlement...the belief that one ACTUALLY deserves the privileges
they find themselves basking in, and I have come to appreciate the
TRUTH the comes from being immersed in a life of typicality and
unpretentiousness. I realize that I am living out my life as it is
supposed to be lived....having the ability to appreciate the little
things, because I am not entitled to anything, really.
Of course I recognize HOW incredibly lucky I am, duh....I know what a
crazy great life experience I am having.
But I have friends who struggle living out the life that EVERYWHERE
they go, they are "known" and cannot get away from it.
I feel incredibly fortunate to not be in that ridiculously "high
profile" situation where there seems to be pretense attached to
everything.
i see the way that it can affect someone over time.....and cause them
to become a mutated version of who they should have been.

Anyway, that is a bit of an insight into Plain Jane "the song."
NOW, the ALBUM TITLE "Plain Jane" is of course pulling from the song,
but not really the lyric of the song.....the album title Plain Jane
reflects more my feeling that I am an incredibly plain person.
Everyone I tell that to laughs, but I always truly feel so plain and
"safe."
I see people like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, and i am like, WOW, I am
SUCH a prude, plain jane.
Ha!

Oh well, I am who I am.
Anyway, that's the title in a nut shell!

(I have heard that for my Garnier Hair Campaign they are going to be
taking my hair into a LIGHTER colour direction! THAT should be tres
riske for me!)



I think there is a bit of footage on my myspace page of me delivering
the vocal for the song TODAY....I am really excited about this song.
I hope it is a single. I love singing it live, and it reflects my
whole-hearted belief that we need to be present in the moment, and
not wishing we were somewhere else EVER, be it in another place or
time! The past is OVER, and we cannot go back! AND don't bother
living in the future, because you will miss YOUR LIFE!

All we TRULY have is where we are, I feel right at THIS very second.
That is all.

I am excited about my album.
In some respects I am not happy about the process, because I was
pregnant, had a new born, was working on other projects, so I was
always going back and forth, in and out or MY album making process.
It created an album that reflects an extended period of time, and so
I am somewhat nervous about it not sounding fluid. However, I also
think that due to the way that is was made, over time as such, I
ended up getting a diverse album, and I certainly did not write the
same song over and over again!
SO, people may at least find it very interesting and entertaining!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE a few songs on this album, perhaps more than any I
have ever had.....the song (first single) called INVINCIBLE - I am
just so pumped about it, such a joy to perform. I am SUCKED right
in. Also, a love song called 5000 days - sort of part 2 of Until We
Die, which is a love song about Raine and I from my second
album.....Half of Me is truly one of my favorite songs I have ever
written, because it just "came" to me in this very magical way -
which I feel is how all songs should come - the world would be a
better place!!! I SWEAR IT! Bibi, our beloved nanny, my sister from
Africa - she and I wrote and performed an African language song for
the album called Na Miso, and it KILLS me - to hear her voice on the
album...it is SO touching, and for me is a culmination of all of the
choices that Raine and I have made in our life together, what to do
with our energy and time and resources.....she is the manifestation
of so much that we care about....she is from Congo, and I have
learned of her plight, and the plight of so many from her region. So
many are separated from those they love due to escaping persecution,
and it has been my honour to write a song with her on the subject of
connecting with loved ones, and singing it with her in the studio.
She sings a verse alone, and I feel a sense of great contentment to
hear her voice, to hear her being heard and validated. Truly a
privilege, and so transforming. I hope that others will hear that in
her when they listen to the song. I feel a compassion for all people
of this world when she sings her verse, I cannot explain it, but
there is a vulnerability and purity in the way that she sings. UGH,
it friggin kills me.

ok, I have also been asked to mention my feelings on the subject of
twitter.
I dunno...its bloody weird. I don't think that I am destined to be a
twitter hit....as I teeter totter too often on my feelings about it!
SO, I don't tweet for a while, then I retap into the twit again.
Anyway, it seems sort of ridiculous, but hey, if peeps are into it, I
will try to do it from time to time, as much as I can while there is
a demand for it. Ugh.

The album is droppin in September, and I cannot wait to get out and
perform.....the new set ( i am doing a few shows here and there,
including at Hotel Cafe in Hollywood over the summer before the
official release) has so many new songs in it, and not because I feel
the need to showcase new music, but because I am truly fulfilled when
playing so many of the new songs!!! So, between those songs and the
other songs in my set that are already known, I really feel it is the
best I have had yet to offer in terms of the live experience. Maybe
this is a bit self deprecating, but I used to think I was a little
over the hill to be trying to come out with new music and expect to
be relevant, and now, with these songs, I feel the opposite - I feel
more worthy to get up in front of people, and I feel like rather than
having faded, I have finally arrived.
See ya soon.
xx
chantal k

Hey everyone...
Thanks for your patience.

It is really quite a constant flow/show around here. MY goodness- one minute I have a babe on the boob, the next I am searching for the right keyboard/synth pad, the next I am planning and configuring travel with family/nannies...who stays who goes....It is just MADNESS....we've had a child get his tonsils out, we're constantly fighting off the latest cold/flu from the kids preschool....someone needs to be on a nebulizer on a schedule.

Exactly HOW does one get out to do the groceries? Let alone finish an album? And Sleep!!! WHEN does one sleep exactly???? what a bout a date with the husband/producer???

If I had the "ambition" I would have had a camera follow me around for the "making" of this album.

Note to SELF - in the next life, maybe try to hold off on the birth of next baby until finished with recording of album.
Ha!

THAT doesn't work anyway, because one is just finishing one, and the next one is to begin, so SO much for that plan!

Now I am in the final stretch....and it is getting really fun...mixes are comin out, songs goin into the mixer...
GOOD times.

I am really happy with how things are sounding.

It is definitely a diverse album, but I guess you don't need the same song over and over again, right?

I feel like telling you the name of the album, so let me just check in with my team, and see if they're cool with that!

It's certainly an easy title to remember!

I am going to be doing some traveling coming up for the Junos (Garnier is major Sponsor) and then some touring dates around Ontario, so I have SO much to do before I go, it is a bit stressful.

One moment at a time.

I must fold in to my list of activities....
depression.
I was frozen for some of the day the other day, feeling so helpless - I was reading up on the current situation in Eastern Congo...there is an increase in tribal conflict.
Why is it that women and children suffer the brunt of that increase in conflict? (and seemingly all conflicts)
Rape is on the rise, but it is rape in ways that I have never thought possible....destroying the insides of not just women, but babies, with rifles, releasing bullets into womens' vaginas, etc.

It was Tuesday that I read this article, and I could only weep and feel disturbed and disrupted, and hope for so many miracles.
One doesn't want to ruin the mood of others around, so I just keep it in that I am aware, and that is kills my spirit to know that beautiful innocent babies - babies 11 months old, who now go into hysterics at the SIGHT of a man - are being victimized by men, who if I am to analyze, are themselves are or have been a victim in one way or another. This cycle of violence. I knew that my friend Sam at Warchild could handle it, as she is one of the people who makes these discoveries, and through the programs at Warchild Canada, attempts to help.....her prompt response was comforting, but not because she took away the reality, or in a word fixed anything.....it was comforting because we could actually communicate about it. I guess part of my profound sadness lies in the reality that it is almost taboo to discuss these atrocities, as it is just too much of a joy kill.....we've made a bubble around ourselves, and if anyone says something dark and true, it would be regarded as too heavy. That is such bulshit. If reality was bankable, what a truly different world we would live in...instead, we are affected by the Kardashians, and the Bachellor, and DWTS.....WTF?

I just don't understand. Am I alone?

Ok, back to the album......see? Get my life???? HOW on earth do I even get OUT of bed in the morning?

xoxox
chantal

Chantal now has an official facebook page...

Click here to join Chantal on facebook and get all of the latest news!

I wanted to choose a category of how I feel at the moment, and there was not a category for Grateful.
There should be.

I am not sleeping much at night, my baby Salvador has 2 eye teeth coming in, his accompanying cold is a nasty one!
Babies need to be held the WHOLE time they are sick.
No one tells ya that one.

There, now I have told you.
They will NOT sleep while sick unless you hold them, not you, no....let me correct that MOM.
MOM has to hold them while sick, or they will not sleep.

I kind of love it...I am fully sleep deprived, but what are the chances that I will have a fourth baby? I dunno, not great. It is a LOT.
I am still breastfeeding this one too, greatest achievement of my life besides delivery without drugs
YAY!!! THE TRIUMPHS continue.
Anyway, enough of the tooting of my own horn.
Why am I so grateful right now?

For my comforts....the comforts and freedoms that we take for granted everyday.

The first thing I read on the news page this morning was the story of a woman who was accused of sorcery/witchcraft in New Guinea, and she was tied to a log and set ablaze this past weekend. Burned at the stake.

My beliefs, as conventional as they may seem to some here in the Western World would probably constitute a burning at the stake as well in some parts of the world today.

I had a pain go through my person (soul or body or both, not sure) when I read this article.
There is nothing I can really do about her fate.
I can wait for change, hope that the communication and progress we are seeing in this generation will influence even the most remote areas of the world, and convince people that each human is an individual with their own unique imprint on their world waiting to be cast.
We all have a force inside of us that is designed to electrify this life differently, add a different colour to the landscape of the world....it cannot be denied.

I will celebrate her efforts and her life today, by being grateful for my own freedoms.

Her life will not be wasted as the rest of us utilize every moment of our lives, never wasting our opportunities to express, or be grateful for our liberty.

My album is going well, the sights are set high, so thank you for your patience.
Help me with mine!
best
chantal k