Music flows as freely from Kansas-Lee as the blood flows through her veins.
The musician from Osoyoos, B.C. is easily recognizable throughout the valley, from busking to local festival stages. Now, she is preparing to take on a larger stage in South Okanagan at the Venables Theatre in Oliver.
“It’s basically going to be like sitting in my room with me and I’m going to be bouncing over from the piano to the guitar and playing music that I’ve written and songs that I love to sing that I haven’t written,” said Kansas Hatherly, who performs as Kansas-Lee.
The musical artist has lived around the world and is now back for the winter, to share her talents and create new music to be released in the spring. Hatherly said she has hundreds of unreleased songs floating through her head, scrawled in notebooks and recorded on her phone. She can find a song in almost anything, she explained – she is a conduit allowing music to flow through her.
“Sitting at a piano I get into a trance playing chords for 10 to 15 minutes and then I start singing and sometimes a whole entire song will come out or sometimes just one word or an idea and I’ll sing something and be like, ‘Oh that’s it, that’s something,'” Hatherly said.
Some of the original songs she plans to perform revolve around finding her independence, while others are from her forthcoming album.
One yet-to-be-named song is sung while playing the guitar.
“It’s about how I’m going to speak and sing and do whatever I want to do without worrying about what you think about it,” said Hatherly. “(It’s about) sovereignty and oneself.”
Hatherly is performing at the Oliver venue as part of the Venables Alive! series, which gives local talent a chance to perform on a larger stage.
“She is an honest alt-folk artist with a powerfully dynamic voice and presence,” states Aimee Grice, marketing and promotions at Venables Theatre in a press release.
“Her songwriting identifies with no genre in particular but carries a theme of raw authenticity summoned from living a life of total creativity.”
Hatherly will take the stage at the Venables Theatre in Oliver on Oct. 19 and tickets are available online.