Not everyone has the chutzpah to quit their day job to embark on a new adventure, but that is what Raine Hamilton is doing, and she couldn’t be happier.
The Winnipeg-based musician is going from music teacher to touring musician to share her original songs with folks around B.C.
“I’ve just left my job to do something more purposeful with my music,” said Hamilton.
A singer-songwriter, who also plays violin and guitar, Hamilton is embarking on her Rock and a Hard Place Tour that brings her to Vernon’s new music venue, Record City, Tuesday, July 12.
Hamilton is bringing her violin along for the ride. She is a classically trained player and until recently, taught the violin to students in the Winnipeg area.
She also incorporates the violin in the singer-songwriter genre, which can be heard on her latest album, Past Your Past, including track Lay Me Down, which was inspired by a visit Hamilton took to the Edge of the World music festival in Haida Gwaii.
“It’s been really important for me to take a song and transform it from an inside space to an outside space, to record and release an album, then make it public and share it,” she said.
This past year, Hamilton had the opportunity to perform another track off the album, Everything, with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.
“It felt like I had wings,” she said about the experience. “It’s been an exciting year with more travelling, touring and connecting with the arts community.”
Besides the violin, Hamilton also plays an acoustic steel-string guitar.
“I am five-feet tall and I used to play an oversize guitar, now I play a parlor guitar (made by Seagull), which is more fitting for my size,” she said.
Hamilton started playing in high school. She came to music naturally as her father is an accomplished guitarist, singer-songwriter and her parents met while playing in the band Night Hawk in Winnipeg.
“Both the formal and key part of my training was watching my dad as a songwriter. It was an organic process.”
Hamilton’s tour heads north after her Vernon show. She is performing with fellow folk-roots artist Saltwater Hank in Prince George, Smithers, Terrace and Prince Rupert, and well as at the Kispiox Festival near Burns Lake. She then heads to Manitoba and Ontario, and in the fall to Atlantic Canada for her first visit to the Contact East conference in New Brunswick.
“Part of the beauty of being on the road is who you get to share the bill with,” said Hamilton.
In Vernon, that will be local duo Small Kitchen Chaos, featuring Trista Bassett and John Fraser.
The show at Record City, located in the former KT’s Restaurant at 3127 30th Ave., starts Tuesday at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Cover is $10. More information is available at rainehamilton.com