Durham region’s Lennon Stella set to tour North America in 2019

You may know Lennon Stella as Maddie Conrad from the hit ABC TV show Nashville. You may also recognize her by her voice.

But the rising star got her start in the tiny township of Claremont, Ont., where nearly everyone knew her name long before she was famous.

“When we lived in Claremont, we didn’t have TV or internet,” said the 19-year-old, who was born in Whitby, Ont.

“We were just making music and writing… and it was such a creative, peaceful place. We just lived off so much land, and we were just outside and making music… from the time that we were so little.”

Music has always been at the heart of Stella’s family — her parents, Brad and MaryLynne, are known as the duo The Stellas. They have lived all over Durham: first in Oshawa, until Stella was six, and then in Claremont, which is where Stella calls home.

In 2009, when she was nine years old, the family packed up again and moved to Nashville, Tenn.

A few years later, Stella and her sister, Maisy, forged their own musical path when their cover of Robyn’s Call Your Girlfriend went viral. The video has since racked up more than 30 million hits online.

Maisy, now 15 years old, later ventured into acting and so did Stella. The real-life sisters starred as siblings in Nashville, which aired its final episode earlier this year.

“I’d never considered acting,” Stella said. “It genuinely didn’t even cross my mind. It was because of the show Nashville that I had ever considered acting.”

Now, the actor-musician is pursuing music full-time and will be kicking off her North American tour in the new year. Her first stop is Toronto in March.

“It’s all been very unexpected,” said Stella.