Tenille Arts is no ordinary 19-year-old girl. She hasn't quit her day job yet, but the guitar-strumming songbird is putting her best strides forth to create a dream career for herself as a professional musician. Arts could be destined to be the next big country star, but no matter what, she does it all for the love of music.
Tenilla Arts was always a natural-born performer, beginning with dance. She always felt comfortable on stage. It wasn't until neighbours heard her belting out her favourite songs in her family's back yard that she was encouraged to pursue singing as well as dancing.
Arts studied classical dance and took voice lessons, completed exams and developed her talents. Her classical training also included piano lessons from a very young age. Before too long, however, Tenille chose a guitar to accompany her voice.
"I was tired of singing karaoke, because the sound is so flat, there's no depth," said Arts. "I just randomly started playing guitar and taught myself, basically. That kind of started the whole song writing process."
Tenille's parents Kevin and Glenda Arts have been quite supportive of her musical aspirations.
"My mom is my number one supporter," said Tenille. "She's very opinionated. She has a very good ear." She noted that Glenda has a great sense of what people want to hear. "She pushes me to go further."
Through her management team's connections, Tenille makes regular trips to Nashville, Tennessee to work on song-writing with various artists and producers.
"In Nashville, everyone plays guitar," she said. "That I was trained in music is very helpful, because they have their own charting system, so if you know what they're talking about it's easy to follow along, but you definitely need to have a background in music to understand it."
But Arts is not putting all of her eggs in the Nashville basket. She has been actively pursuing a country music career on many fronts, including Saskatchewan's own music scene.
Tenille will also be heading to the semi-final competition of Yorkton's GX94 Star Search. The winner gets the opportunity to record two songs in the studio.
Arts attended two weekends of competition for the 620 CKRM Big Country Talent Show, where she was named second in the top 10. The prizes are quite exciting.
"We get to perform at Casino Regina and at the Craven Main Stage on the Sunday," said Arts of the weekend's results. The top ten will perform at the Big Country Talent Revue at the Casino Regina Show Lounge, a slot on the main stage at the Craven Country Jamboree, professional photography session, recording time, airplay across Saskatchewan with 620 CKRM and more.
On June 1, the results of Big Dog 92.7's Next Big Thing contest were announced and Arts was chosen as one of the top 12 finalists. It was not an event, but rather a submission-based competition.
"We sent in two recordings of ourselves," explained Arts, "and they had to be songs that weren't ever recorded by anybody else."
She will find out on June 10 whether or not she has made the top four in the opportunity to win $15,000 in cash and prizes as well as becoming Saskatchewan's next big country artist.
Arts was recently chosen by an ad agency in Regina called Look Matters, who were offering an opportunity for free consulting service to one individual or company. She applied via email and was selected to receive consulting to expand her following on social media - especially YouTube.
Not forgetting her potential for being discovered on the Internet, Arts hopes to post one cover song each week to her channel, youtube.com/tenillexoxo.
Arts knows she has more work ahead of her before she will be ready to write enough material for her first album, but she feels she is about a year away from going for it.
Grounded in her music and backed by supportive home ties, Tenille Arts aims to do what she loves for a living for the rest of her life.
"Music is something that I've always loved," said Tenille. "I think it's what I was born to do."
