For losing herself in the music

Meaghan Smith sits on a stool with her guitar,  shaking. It’s the silence before playing she finds most terrifying, the silence she has to fill. Fumbling through a cover song to a room of 25 people gathered for the open mic, she lifts her head and everyone looks at her, willing her to succeed.

The 30-year-old songstress attributes her artistic growth to the Halifax music community she became part of in 2001. With a bass-player father and a piano-teacher mother, Smith began her battle with stage fright playing at open mic venues at local bars. By 2005 she had been invited to perform in a tsunami-relief concert at the Halifax Metro Centre. “I was terrified,” she says. “But as soon as I heard the wave of sound from the crowd, I lost all fear.”

After a decade-long battle with stage fright, Smith has come a long way; she has since shared the stage with k.d. lang, Sarah McLachlan, and Chantal Kreviazuk, and in February she released her debut album, The Cricket’s Orchestra, a mix of vintage jazz and string quartets. Her big break came in November of 2007, when she recorded The Cricket’s Orchestra with Toronto-based producer Les Cooper. Promoters from NBC, Warner, and Sony loved it. Their response: Don’t change a thing, fly to L.A., and get a manager. In 2008 she signed a deal with Warner, and her music—which the New York Times called “wry and retro”—took care of the rest.

Despite the advice to relocate stateside, Smith lives 20 minutes outside Halifax in Timberlea with her husband and guitarist, Jason Mingo. She’s still a regular at local gigs but no longer fears the stage.  “Now it’s the silence before a song that I love,” she says. “I get to fill it up by telling stories, conveying personal moments, and losing myself in the music.”