Perhaps there’s no greater sign that you’re well on your way in your country music career than being able to say that you’re calling from Nashville.
That’s where Grande Prairie native Tenille was last week when she dialed the Advocate to talk about her forthcoming appearance at the Magnificent River Rats Festival.
“I am so excited to be a part of that,” the 20-year-old said with just a hint of a drawl. “I think it’s going to be a really fun celebration day.”
Tenille takes the Riverfront Stage on Canada Day at 6:30 p.m., just before Maritime Kitchen Party.
“I’m excited to share some original music and tell some stories about the inspiration behind some of the songs and hopefully reach and connect with some of the people in the audience,” she said.
For the young artist, connecting with her audience means more than idle banter of the “get your hands in the air” variety. After wrapping up high school, Tenille embarked on an ambitious national tour called Play It Forward. She wasn’t hitting clubs or cafés; she was performing in schools (106 of them) and pairing her music with motivational speaking for 32 weeks.
“I was looking for an opportunity to get out on the road and do what I love, which isn’t just music. For me, music is a really amazing tool to be able to reach out to people,” she said.
The message was for kids “to do what they do best, which is play,” she said, and take whatever it is that inspires them and use it to change the world.
The expression on which the tour name riffs, “pay it forward,” also informed Tenille’s approach. At each school, three students were given $75 to “play forward” to their school in any way they chose.
Students used their Play It Forward money on everything from team building exercises to buying a classroom pet.
All those students were put into a draw at the end of the tour, and one was selected to win $10,000. $5,000 of that prize was to go to charity, and $5,000 was to go towards something in their school to keep the Play It Forward project going.
“It was an amazing way to meet some phenomenal young peers throughout Canada, and I’m very, very touched by their stories of leadership,” said Tenille.
On top of her “Play It Forward” tour, Tenille founded a benefit concert five years ago called “Big Hearts for Big Kids” to fundraise for a youth shelter in Grande Prairie. To date, it’s raised $550,000.
A song she co-wrote with two friends, “Pictures on a Crooked Wall,” is the signature song for the fundraiser, and it’s on her set list for River Rats.
“It’s a story about a girl with a really weak family foundation,” she said. “I’m looking forward to playing that song. That one’s very close to my heart.”
Projects like these have earned Tenille as much attention as her cascading, well-controlled vocals. She became the youngest recipient of the Slaight Music Humanitarian Award in 2012 at the Canadian Country Music Awards.
Add to those philanthropic efforts the work she does with Tim Hortons kids camps — some 30 days this summer alone in Perry Sound, Kananaskis and Kentucky — and it’s a wonder Tenille has time to write and record music.
That’s what the recent stint in Nashville is for, she said. By the fall, she hopes to be working on a third album — a followup to 2011’s Real and 2013’s Light.
Recording your third album while barely into your 20s may seem like a lightning-fast trajectory, but Tenille says music has always been a part of her life.
“I come from a pretty big family, and we always had lots of great weddings and dances,” she said.
At 13, she received her first guitar from her grandparents, and the rest, as they say, is history — or halfway to it, anyway. Tenille’s recent single “Halfway to Somewhere” shows an artist acutely aware of how early it is in her career and life.
“I’m really grateful to be continuing to be able to get to do what I love every day and work towards whatever the destination’s going to look like,” she said.
For more on the River Rats lineup, visit www.riverratsfestival.com/.
