As artists in the city continue to gear up for performances at Encore Ottawa, Sophie D’Orléans and Chantal Hackett are just excited to finally perform live again.Encore Ottawa has been streaming live since June 11 and will be ending September 3. For their second season running the event, the summer has been filled with virtual performances from over 60 local artists showcasing a diverse range of music. Performers were carefully selected by a team of professionals in the arts and culture sector and were given a day to showcase their talents. For D’Orléans, her upcoming set has given her the opportunity to get back to her passion, live performances.
“Encore was really a highlight for me. I’ll be playing all original songs, including five songs pretty much no one has heard before,” she said. D’Orléans and Hackett both pride themselves on wearing many hats as artists. Hackett is a pop singer-songwriter and entrepreneur having started her own award winning vocal and performance studio; Sing House Studios, while D’Orléans is an indie R&B singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Although both Hackett and D’Orléans have been successful in past few years, living through a pandemic has proven to be interesting. “I’m so lucky that I had the music school. There were sometimes where I looked back and go should I focus on my singing? In this situation I was really grateful I had this to fall back on because if I was just an artist it would have been hard to live,” said Hackett.For D’Orléans, the constant lockdowns weren’t all bad, as it brought new revelations and time to invest in more musical passions. “It enabled me to kind of focus on discipline and technique, so I built myself a schedule where I'd practice my instruments a certain amount of time per day. I had to rely on other skills of discipline and patience and just know that when I would start playing music with people, I’d be better at playing my instruments and have more songs to show,” she said.Hackettwill be performing at Encore Ottawa on July 30 and D’Orléans will be making her appearance on August 27. “It was so fun and I’m so excited for people to watch it. It’s streamable, so I have family from New Brunswick, from Quebec that are all going to tune in to watch it, which they’re so excited because usually they can’t really see me live,” said Hackett. For more information on Encore Ottawa and how you can watch performances all summer long, visit their website.
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