Jackson-Triggs concerts a family tradition for Chantal Kreviazuk

Niagara-on-the-Lake will truly feel like home for singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk when she comes to town for two shows at the Jackson-Triggs Estate Winery amphitheatre July 21 and 22. 

Of course, Kreviazuk has been in NOTL pretty much every summer since the start of the  winery's summer concert series 20 years ago. During many of those visits, her three children, Rowan, Lucca and Sal, were in the audience to catch their mom’s show, sitting with their father, Raine Maida, frontman of rock band Our Lady Peace. 

One year, this reporter witnessed Kreviazuk calling on Maida, who was enjoying the show from about halfway up the amphitheatre’s tiered seating area. To the audience’s delight, Maida sauntered down toward the stage and joined his wife for a couple of songs. 

“Those are some of the greatest memories for us,” Kreviazuk says on the phone from the family’s Los Angeles-area home. “Jackson-Triggs has given us unconditional love. They made the decision to make us part of their family, part of their organization. They have taken the journey with us.”

Kreviazuk says she feels emotional just thinking about it. 

“To know that after all this time they continue to put their love and confidence into me,” she says. “We’ve had those little peaks and valleys that make up the arc of life. Just to know that they’ve embraced me and my family through all of it is incredibly powerful and meaningful. This is such a mutually civilized thing.”

That alone would be enough to make the three-time Juno Award winner and her family feel welcome in NOTL. But this year it gets kicked up another notch. Krevaizuk’s oldest son Rowan Maida will be opening both shows next week. 

The 19-year-old graduated last May from nearby Ridley College, the same school his father once attended. His parents were there for his convocation this spring and performed in a 2022 fundraising concert for the Ridley Alumni Family Guild. 

Rowan Maida released his first single, Mountains, in late March. The track is an upbeat, atmospheric slice of R & B, and wears the influences of his parents on its sleeve, begging that age-old question about nature versus nurture. The central instrument is a piano, like most of Kreviazuk’s music, and his voice has hints of his dad’s unique countertenor. 

“He’s been opening some shows for us recently,” says a very proud mother. “He’s fantastic live. It will be really neat having Rowan open for us at Jackson-Triggs."

Kreviazuk’s own music career got a boost from her father when he hired Winnipeg-based composer Danny Schur to write a jingle for his business. She was just 13 years old but had already studied classical piano and voice, and had been winning music competitions in the city.

“Danny just passed away from brain cancer (April 10) at just 56 years old,” says Kreviazuk. “My father told him he had to meet me. I called Dan, and he let me audition for jingle singing. I don’t think he did another jingle without my help for the following six years. We had such great studio chemistry. He was such a great man.”

While working on jingles with Schur, she met musician Chris Burke-Gaffney of the band Orphan. She walked up and introduced herself to him as a musician and singer. Kreviazuk, Burke-Gaffney and Schur were soon collaborating on some demos and Sony Music took notice. Her debut album, Under These Rocks and Stones, was released by Sony in Canada in October, 1996, and in the U.S. eight months later. 

The album made an immediate splash in her home country, eventually achieving platinum status. Kreviazuk was nominated for best new solo artist at the 1997 Juno Awards (country singer Terri Clark won the award). Three years later she took home the Junos for best female artist and for pop album of the year for her second release, Colour Moving and Still, also platinum certified. The album topped releases by Bryan Adams, Alanis Morissette and Joni Mitchell for the award. 

Her big breakthrough in the U.S. came in 1998 when her version of John Denver’s Leaving on a Jet Plane, made famous by Peter, Paul and Mary, was chosen for the soundtrack to the blockbuster film Armageddon. That led to more soundtrack assignments, and she began making her name as a songwriter. Over the years, she has penned tracks for or with Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Josh Groban, Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears. 

Kreviazuk’s most recent release is June, 2020’s Get to You, her eighth full-length. Her voice is as strong as ever on songs such as Oleander and Love Gone Insane, and her songwriting shows much maturity. 

In fact, she’s always writing, and loves to test new songs out on her audiences. 

“Last year I wrote a new song to bring us up to speed after the pandemic,” Kreviazuk says of her 2022 appearance at Jackson-Triggs. “It was funny, a little clever but meaningful. It was called I’ll Write a Song. It was about all that happened during the pandemic, and instead of crying a river, I just wrote a song.”

Two weeks before speaking to The Local, Kreviazuk was in Bordeaux, France. She wrote another new song while there called You Look Better from Bordeaux.

“I can’t wait to play that for the first time at Jackson-Triggs,” she laughs. “In this crazy world, sometimes it’s hard to have traditions now. As a compassionate person, I’m happy that I have something like this that is a tradition in my life, this gathering there, to celebrate life, drink some fine wine and enjoy some music.”

Kreviazuk isn’t saying whether or not her husband, with whom she released a 2019 album as Moon vs Sun for a film about their life together called I Am Going to Break Your Heart, will be at the shows in NOTL. But a glance at Our Lady Peace’s tour schedule does reveal a conspicuous absence of dates between July 15 and 28.

So, if Raine does attend, and with Rowan opening it does seem likely, it will be another Kreviazuk-Maida family affair. And when she hopefully breaks into her 2002 hit Feels Like Home next weekend, chances are she really will be feeling it at that moment. 

Next Saturday’s show is sold out, but a few tickets are still available for Kreviazuk’s Friday night performance. Visit jacksontriggswinery.com for more information.