Annabelle Chvostek

Annabelle Chvostek is a versatile multi-instrumentalist who was born and raised in Toronto, and who made her professional debut with the Canadian Opera Company at just seven years old. She earned a degree in interdisciplinary fine arts at Concordia University and stayed on in Montreal after graduation.  There, unencumbered by the expectations of the Anglo roots world and surrounded by Montreal’s avant-garde arts scene, she began composing for dance and film, playing in bands and performing solo shows on the Montreal-Ontario-New York circuit.

Between 1997 and 2004, she released three independent albums and an EP, toured Europe with a new-media performance piece called the Automatic Prayer Machine – a collaboration with Anna Friz – and performed across North America with artists like Po’Girl, Rae Spoon and Barlywick.

In 2004, she was selected to replace Cara Luft in the Juno-winning Wailin’ Jennys – a gig that took her from obscurity to international acclaim. Chvostek’s songs were repeatedly singled out by critics as highlights of the Jennys’ Juno-nominated CD, Firecracker. “Devil’s Paintbrush Road” was the most downloaded song from the album on iTunes for months.  It was also the #1 Canadian song at U.S. folk radio in 2006, and it remained at #3 in 2007. During her two and a half years with the Jennys, Chvostek toured Europe, performed on A Prairie Home Companion, sang on the Juno Awards telecast and earned a Juno nomination for Best Roots and Traditional Album – Group.

Then, in 2007, she left the Jennys and reprised her solo career, signing to Borealis Records and releasing what many see as her solo debut:  Resilience.

It was nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award for Contemporary Album of the Year and became the second most-played Canadian album at U.S. folk radio at the start of 2009.  Since the album’s release, Chvostek has done yearly tours of the U.K., criss-crossed Canada and the U.S. and completed a 2009 tour through Poland and Slovakia.   She also released a Live from Folk Alley live album in 2010.  And last year, her co-written duet with Bruce Cockburn was released on his Juno-winning album Small Source of Comfort.

“The Wailin’ Jennys’ loss is the world’s gain,” declared the Saskatoon Star Phoenix in response to Chvostek’s post-Jenny debut – adding, “her original compositions are full of aching desire dressed in poetry and rendered with a musical imagination that seems to know no bounds.”

That same musical imagination is in evidence on Rise, for Chvostek has managed to take a decades-old art form – the protest song – and completely reimagine it for a new era of activism.