It was at the Ottawa Bluesfest in 2008 that I first heard Jenn Grant sing. She was on one of the smaller stages at the massive, week-long festival. It was dusk, the sun was setting over the Ottawa River, and her voice stopped me dead in my tracks. Part Feist, part Patsy Cline, and all East Coast heart, Jenn’s voice and songwriting were truly unlike anything I had heard before. She moves between musical genres to create a sound that is full of intricate, subtle nuances. It is a sound that is uniquely hers.
Jenn’s debut album, Orchestra for The Moon, was released to critical acclaim in 2007. With four star reviews from the Globe and Mail, among others, along with several East Coast Music Awards, Jenn Grant was hailed as “one of the most promising young performers on the Halifax scene” by the Halifax Chronicle Herald.
Since 2008 I have seen Jenn in concert only one other time: I travelled to a small town in western Quebec in the dead of winter to see her at the Blacksheep Inn. The concert was in support of Jenn’s latest release, Echos, for which Jenn won the award for Best Female Artist Recording at the Nova Scotia Music Awards last week. A Jenn Grant show is rich with tales of love and loss, life on the road, laughter and the closeness of family. It’s more like a down home family reunion than a concert, and the audience is part of the family.
Thankfully, this time I won’t have to leave town to be invited to the party.
Don’t miss Jenn Grant live in concert at the Glenn Gould Studio on Thursday night.
Caroline Hall is the Marketing Coordinator for Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall.
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