Biography
Kyrie Kristmanson is a fresh voice on Canada's music scene. Her unique style evokes the various Canadian maritime, prairie and urban landscapes she has grown up in. At twenty, she has already captivated audiences in various parts of the country and abroad with her elemental and vocal-driven fusion of folk, jazz and alternative rock influences. She writes powerful, exciting and thoughtful songs in English and French.
Kyrie plays the nylon-string guitar she received for her ninth birthday. As she grew up in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and London, England, she studied voice, guitar and trumpet with a series of excellent teachers and mentors. She collaborates regularly with other musicians both on guitar and trumpet. Internationally, she performs in the U.S. and is now establishing a presence in France where she opened for Feist with Melissa Laveaux. Kyrie's sold-out Paris debut took place in October 2008 with other dates following in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, at the Printemps de Bourges festival and a series of dates supporting the French singer/songwriter Emily Loizeau and Canadian hero Hawksley Workman in Paris and London.
Her career blossomed at fifteen when she was selected to play at the Winnipeg Folk Festival's youth stage. Since then she has performed at the Ottawa and Montreal jazz festivals, the Edmonton, Regina, Shelter Valley and Ness Creek folk festivals, the Montreal Fringe Festival, the Stan Rogers Festival, Ottawa Westfest, Winnipeg's NunaNow Icelandic Festival, and various showcases including the Memphis Folk Alliance, Canadian Music Week, Pop Montreal and the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals. Recently, she was selected to perform at the Canadian Music Café at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Canadians first heard Kyrie nationally on CBC and SRC in a much-praised edition of "Fuse" in collaboration with the Skydiggers; since then she has written, performed and recorded two commissioned songs for an innovative CBC Art of Time broadcast from the Harbourfront Centre as well a third song for CBC's 2008 edition of Canada Reads. She has been recorded in concert for Sounds Like Canada, Canada Live, Bandwidth and The Signal, as well for Radio Canada and various regional CBC programs.
Toronto's Globe and Mail praises her "owlish lyrical concentration" and notes "something of the prodigy in her style." Her song, "Wind, Rocks, Pine", selected by Youtube as a feature video early in 2008, presaged the #1 worldwide feature of "Origin of Stars". In December 2007, Kyrie was named the Best Young Performer of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards based on the success of her first disc.
Her current independent CD release, "Pagan Love", has achieved high rotation on college radio and the CBC. It is a top-ten favorite among music bloggers. Kyrie spent the last year living and studying the 12th century female troubadours in Lyon, France. She recently returned to Canada where she is happy to be recording again.
Instrumentation
Kyrie Kristmanson - voice, guitar, trumpet
Performances may include any muscians from the following line-up:
Martain Pearson - Double Bass
Gordan Bintner - Voice, Beat Box
Discography
The Kyrie K Groove (2006)
Pagan Love (2008)
Links
| http://www.myspace.com/kyriekristmanson |