Peterborough Musicfest has announced Canadian country music artist Tenille Townes will open the 37th season of the free-admission outdoor concert series on Saturday, June 29th.
The 30-year-old award-winning singer-songwriter was born as Tenille Nadkrynechny and raised in Grande Prairie, Alberta, where she was introduced to country music by her parents and grandparents during trips in the family car. When she was nine years old, she attended a Shania Twain concert and was given a chance to sing with Twain on stage.
Townes began writing songs at the age of 14, influenced by singer-songwriters like Patty Griffin and Lori McKenna.
“My grandparents gave me a guitar and I started learning the chords I needed to make songs out of what I was writing in my journal,” Townes recalls. “It was so liberating to take all the things I had a hard time saying out loud and put them into a song. It felt like I’d found a much easier form of communication.”
When she was 15, Townes released her first single “Home Now”, a song written from the perspective of a daughter whose father is a soldier in Afghanistan, and, two years later, her first album Real and was nominated for a Canadian Country Music Association Award for Female Artist of the Year — an award she won eight years later in 2019 and in each of the next four years.
In 2013, at the age of 19, Townes released her second album Light and relocated to Nashville. After years of taking in sets at the famous Bluebird Café and pushing herself in writing sessions, she signed to Columbia Nashville and released her acoustic EP Living Room Worktapes in 2018.
VIDEO: “As You Are” – Tenille Townes
That was followed in 2020 by her major label debut, The Lemonade Stand, which won the Juno Award for Country Album of the Year in 2021 as well as the Canadian Country Music Award for Album of the Year. Townes captured the same two awards the following year for her EP Masquerades.
This past February, Townes released her latest single “As You Are,” described as an “indie rock masterpiece” and “a major sonic shift” for the singer-songwriter and, in April, released her five-song EP Train Track Worktapes.
In all, Townes has won 17 Canadian Country Music Association Awards, two Juno Awards, and two Academy Of Country Music Awards. She’s toured with Stevie Nicks, Miranda Lambert, Shania Twain, Keith Urban, Reba, Zac Brown Band, and Dierks Bentley, and recorded a duet with Bryan Adams.
Townes’ June 29th Peterborough Musicfest concert at Del Crary Park, her first-ever performance in the Peterborough area, is part of her “As You Are” tour this spring.
Peterborough Musicfest’s 2024 season runs from June 29 to August 17, with free-admission concerts every Wednesday and Saturday night as well as on Monday, July 1st (Canada Day).
Other performers already announced include indie alt-rockers Metric (July 17) and Toronto-based rap rockers Down With Webster (July 31). The full line-up of performers for the 37th season will be announced on May 14.
