Tag Archives: Music

First post

23 Feb

Well, I meant to at least write a New Year’s post here in January because 2012 was an amazing year for me. But I didn’t do it.

I also meant to write a blog post about Jade turning 7, because she is a truly amazing kid. But I didn’t do that either.

But since the last post I wrote over here, I’ve written seven posts over on my other blog. (Sorry, guys. Not sure how that happened. Lots of them are just really status updates.)

Bedroom Voice 300

And guess what else? I finished recording my very first album. This project I’ve been breathing and dreaming forever is actually wrapped up, and the actual honest-to-goodness CDs are being manufactured right now. The album is going to be released in less than a month.

Anyone else feel like squealing with me???

Back in real life, the laundry is overflowing (and I just discovered that the cat’s litter box has been tipped over, onto some of that there laundry on the laundry room floor…ugh) and the dirty dishes are propagating at an alarming rate. And my blog reader is into the hundreds of posts I haven’t read, too.

But, dammit, life is good right now.

How are you doing?

Tags: , , , ,

Song Rise

20 Nov

Song Rise PosterThis Saturday, I’m going to be part of a fantastic concert!

I don’t think I mentioned it before — whoops! — but my original song I’m a Fool for You was chosen by a jury to be part of Yukon Women in Music‘s newest CD.

(Just look at the artwork! Isn’t it gorgeous? The painting in the background was donated by local artist Emma Barr.)

The gorgeousness keeps going inside the album, too. Fourteen songs are on it, in all sorts of styles, and I can’t stop listening to it.

And you can hear them all live at the Yukon Arts Centre this Saturday evening. I’m so excited, I could bust!

There’ll also be a reception afterward, so you can have your CD signed by your favourite artists and view the original painting by Emma Barr. (Which, by the way, will be going up for auction in a month or two.)

You can get your tickets on the Arts Centre website or by phoning the box office at 667-8574.

(Our last CD release concert sold out, so do get your tickets!)

Now, should I go with the long red gown… or the crazy colour-shifting shoes…?

Tags: , , , , ,

The next step

17 Oct

I never got around to telling you why I had such a long absence here over the summer. I didn’t even tell you about our trip to Thailand. (!!!!)

That’s because all my online time was getting sucked into this:

Fawn Fritzen Music Website Screen Shot

That there is a screenshot of the front page of my website. I poured myself into it for a couple of months. I had a pretty clear plan of what I wanted when I started, so I figured it wouldn’t take long, but… well, you know how it goes, right?

So my new website is where my other blog lives, of course, and it’s also the place where I post upcoming shows. I’m going to add a store once my album is ready.

Oh right, did I mention? I’m going to be in the recording studio starting this Friday. THIS FRIDAY!!!! So yeah, there’s a lot of work that has been going into that, too. (I’m going to tell you a secret: I’m excited, but I’ve got big butterflies. GIANT butterflies.)

One of my very favourite things about my new site is that there’s a spot on it for you to sign up for my newsletter. I am very excited about this! And I’d LOVE for YOU to sign up for my newsletter! I’m planning to send out the very first issue next week, with stories about how recording is going, photos of the work happening in the studio, and other fun stuff that I won’t post anywhere else. So you’ll totally be part of an exclusive club. (Besides that, when you sign up, you get a free download of one of my songs.)

So that’s where I’ve been between the end of Frantic Follies season and the beginning of my Nunavut/Ottawa tour. I’m about to plunge headlong into the next step of my music career, and I’ll come up for air here when I can. It’s been quite a journey here, hasn’t it? I feel like I’ve been so many different people on this blog — newlywed up north, Yukon transplant, new mother, grieving mother, health advocate, ketogenic cook, gluten-free cook, musician… Thank you for coming along for the ride.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

‘Tis autumn

4 Oct

I am back amid fiery maples and scarlet sumac. It has been close to a decade since I experienced an Ottawa autumn, and I love it as much as I ever did. Fall was always my favourite season: not too hot, not too cold, and gloriously alive with colour.

(It’s no coincidence my wedding anniversary is in October, at the height of Ontario fall. This year — just how did this happen?! I’m not old enough for this! — we will be celebrating 10 years of marriage.)

A week ago today, I was leaving Ottawa. With Michael at my side, and the kids safely ensconced at his parents’ house, we boarded a First Air plane and flew to Iqaluit, Nunavut. Iqaluit is the capital of Canada’s newest territory (formed in 1999), and a vital part of my own history. I spent two years at Inuksuk High School in Iqaluit, graduating with the class of 1995. Those two years went by in a flash, but made a lasting impression on my life.

I haven’t been back since my sister’s graduation in 1996. I’ve always wanted to visit again, but flying to and from Nunavut is prohibitively expensive. For this trip, I was invited to perform at a conference, and I jumped at the opportunity.

It was an amazing trip, revisiting familiar haunts, reconnecting with friends, exploring all the new areas of the much-expanded city, and finding musical opportunities at every turn.

Thursday, it was karaoke at the Legion with some of my high school classmates. Friday, I gave my very first house concert (with Grant Simpson from Whitehorse!) at my former music teacher’s house. Sunday there was a musical coffeehouse at the Francophone Association in the afternoon and then the conference performance we were hired to do, a “mini Frantic Follies”to give conference delegates a taste of the other end of northern Canada.

Now we’re all back in Ottawa. Grant and I will be playing (four sets!) at the Options Jazz Lounge this Saturday evening, and then we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving with Michael’s family. This trip has been warm and wonderful makes me appreciate more than ever how much I have to be thankful for.

‘Tis autumn . . . and it’s still my favourite season.

First glimpse of the Iqaluit airport

Best boat name ever

Best boat name ever

Inuksuk High School

My old stomping grounds

Bilingual stop (Harper) sign.

A coast guard boat in Frobisher Bay, with an inverted qamutik (traditional sled) in the foreground

It's always fresh in Inuktut

It’s always fresh in Inuktitut

St. Jude's Anglican church

St. Jude’s Anglican church in Iqaluit has always had this unique “igloo-with-a-steeple” design, but the original wooden one burned down. This new (bigger) incarnation was completed earlier this year.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Jade singing after breakfast

30 Aug

…to the tune of “Skip to My Lou”.

Moo, moo, skip to my cow
Moo, moo, skip to my cow
Moo, moo, skip to my cow
Skip to my cow my darling.

Off to oink, oink, two by two
Off to oink, oink, two by two
Off to oink, oink, two by two
Skip to my Lou my darling.

Tags: , ,

Jade, singing in the back seat of the van

15 Apr

“Yippee-eye-yaaaaaay!

Yippee-eye-ooooooo-oooh….

No spiders in the sky…”

Tags: , , ,

A little bit bad

24 Nov

The downside to songwriting is that the dishes don’t get done.  But I can always catch up with the dishes, right?

Besides, as my friend (and fellow-songwriter) Richard says, “It’s nice to be creative, making something that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for you, and it’s (hopefully) pretty, with no carbon footprint, and it might even inspire people or make them dance.”

I’ve posted a video of the latest tune I’ve been working on.  (I put it up on my Facebook fan page — have you “Liked” it yet?)  It’s so much fun to share a work in progress, so let me know what you think!

(And by the way, yes, Michael is currently in Russia. But don’t feel like you have to take the lyrics literally. *winks*)

Tags: , , , ,

Fawn at Arts in the Park 2011

7 Jun

Arts in the Park, June 14, 2001, LePage Park, noon to 1. Featuring Fawn Fritzen with Marg Tatam on piano. Hot vocal jazz in the summer sun.

Here’s one of the projects that is keeping me busy this month: rehearsing for a one-hour set at Arts in the Park next week.

Please keep your fingers crossed for good weather, as this is an open-air concert!  The show will go on, though, come rain or come shine.

Spread the word!  And if you’re in Whitehorse, I would love to see you there.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Rockin the Casbah

17 Mar


I am so excited about the bellydance show I’m going to be in on Saturday!  Someday I would love to learn how to bellydance, but for now, I’ll settle for helping to provide the music.

Nita Collins, who is the teacher of Celebrations Bellydance school and the leader of the Saba Middle Eastern Dance Ensemble, also happens to be the Big Band’s bari sax player.  For this show, she decided to combine her love of Big Band music with her love of dance.  I don’t have enough superlative adjectives to say how much fun the fusion is!

On top of playing piano with the Big Band for about half the dances in the show, I’ll be singing two songs.  I’d love to tell you what they are, but that’s top-secret.  I will say that they’re both beautiful tunes I adore, and I can’t wait to sing them.

Thank goodness I got the flu early enough to recover from it, right?

(Touch wood.)

Tags: , , , , , , ,

It’s Not This

30 May

Yesterday I sang in celebration.

Yukon Women in Music is an amazing volunteer-run society that supports women musicians.  Many of my public performances in Whitehorse have been at concerts organized by YWIM, and I’ve met some wonderful and inspiring musicians.  Last night, at a concert to mark 10 years as an official not-for-profit society, I was honoured to be asked to perform two of my songs, sharing the stage with about a dozen other women.  The room was jam-packed, both on-stage and off.

One of my favourite moments was listening to Nicole Edwards speak about starting to perform ten years ago, and how she didn’t think she could be a performer in her own right, without a band to back her up.  I could really identify with her story; in so many ways I feel like I am standing at an edge right now, realizing that I could do so much more and that the biggest obstacle I have to overcome is fear.

My least favourite moment was definitely the part where I fell off the stage. I was exchanging spots with another performer who needed the piano.  I sat down, perhaps a bit too jauntily, on a chair whose legs were precariously close to the back edge of the stage.  Thank goodness the stage was a mere 12-inches high, although I wasn’t thinking anything like that as the chair plunged backwards with me in it.  The small of my back painfully took the brunt of my fall while my head slammed into a cabinet.  I lay stunned for a while, wedged between the stage and the wall, my legs dangling awkwardly over the front of the chair.  I’m sure the entire room wanted to run over to pick me up.  I kind of wished the floor would swallow me up.

Anyway, the show must go on, and on it went.  And there really was fabulous music.  And I recovered enough to do my second song, which I wrote last month and have been waiting to post here.

A bit of background on the song: my dear friend Shannon came to visit us several years ago, and we spent many days in long and deep conversation.  During one gab-fest in which we were talking about a relationship she had ended, she made a comment that has stuck with me ever since.  “Some things that are said a relationship can never recover from,” she told me.  “They’re just too damaging.”  I’ve often thought about that insightful remark, and I think it has kept me from saying rash things in the heat of argument.

Last month her idea somehow transformed itself into the lyrics for this song, and its first public performance was at last night’s concert.

One of the ladies in the audience was kind enough to operate the camera for me.  Onstage with me are Lisa Turner (playing the brushes on her cajón — another favourite moment, with some of the ladies joining in!), Brenda Berezan, Kim Rogers, and off-camera Susan Phillips was strumming along, too.

Continue reading →

Tags:

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 56 other followers