Newfoundland and Labrador's arts and culture newspaper The Overcast has named a Prince George musician as one of their favourites of the past year.
To be fair, Naomi Kavka was residing in St. John's for the past couple of years before moving back to her P.G. hometown this spring. In her wake she left some tunes behind including a duet with singer-songwriter Nick Ryan called Lilies and that made The Overcast's list of Top 5 Favourite Quiet Songs from 2013.
The Overcast could have picked a number of songs with her name on it, she said, since she was a vocal collaborator on Ryan's entire project.
"It was an album of duets he wanted to do, and he asked me to be the backup vocalist. He'd heard me sing around town when I was gigging in St. John's," Kavka said. "The entire album was done in a day. I'd never done that kind of session before, where you just roll through the songs in a matter of a few hours, but it was so painless. It was one of the best studio experiences I've ever had."
The CBC show Heavy Weather Presents did a feature on Ryan which will also include Kavka. The show has a Vimeo channel (www.heavyweather.ca) as well which has Kavka featured in her own video segments in amongst those of David Myles, Basia Bulat, Jenn Grant, The Long Distance Runners, Great Big Sea, Joel Plaskett and other national notables. In one she is backed up by fiddler Carole Bestvater and in the other she is solo.
According to the producers of the guerilla video show "After seeing her perform a few times around St. John's we knew Naomi was someone we really needed to film. With such an incredible voice and incredible talent she blew us away with the two songs we filmed."
It was just one indication, Kavka said looking back, of how the Newfoundland and Labrador music establishment could teach the rest of Canada a thing or two about acceptance and inclusion. She is now trying to live those lessons back into the Prince George scene.
"I learned a lot by seeing such a high-functioning music community there," she said. "It was so unpretentious, so inclusive and quick to accept new people, new ideas. And there were so many opportunities to play, and so much collaboration."
If anyone has the tools to collaborate here, she'd be the example. With a clarion voice, skills on guitar, her main instrument being the cello, and other instrument abilities as well, she is her own musical weather system.
Audiences here will remember Kavka's pre-Newfoundland and Labrador band The Arbitraries, and her new unit is called Pocketknife. She is also in the orchestra for Judy Russell's production of Spamalot, and has worked with the PGSO. She is on the current roster of teachers at the Prince George Conservatory of Music.
Her next personal appearance will be with Corbin Spensley as Pocketknife, live at the Lambda Club (1177 3rd Avenue, upstairs). Admission is $10, doors open at 7 p.m.
