It's a few hours before Chantal Kreviazuk's big-stage debut at Barrymore's last Wednesday, and she's understandably getting a little worked up over it.

"I'm really nervous talking about it right now," she says, fuelling jangled nerves with a cup of coffee at a downtown hotel. "I'm freaking out, actually."

Minutes ago, she was kicked off the hotel-lobby piano in the middle of a rendition of Don Henley's Boys of Summer.

"I was practising for tonight," she explains.

Kreviazuk has good reason to want to impress -- a lot of eyes are pointed in her direction these days.

The formerly unknown 22-year-old Winnipeg singer, songwriter and pianist became the object of much curiosity recently when Sony Music signed her to a global recording and touring contract on the strength of a demo tape and an in-studio solo performance.

That curiosity intensified with the release of her first record, Under These Rocks And Stones, a mature and accessible collection of often downbeat, confessional songs that occasionally drift far enough into the personal to make the listener feel like a voyeur.

Now, Kreviazuk -- whose performing experience is limited mainly to banging out sets in hometown hotel lounges and other places where she could remain anonymous -- has landed some coveted opening spots on Amanda Marshall's cross-Canada tour, which returns to Barrymore's tonight and tomorrow.

"I've played the piano and sung since I was very little and I'm not really good at anything else, so that's why I do this," she says of her career choice.

In fact, she believes, it was more or less fated to turn out this way. Kreviazuk has been immersed in music since she was two years old, winning a number of classical piano and vocal competitions over the years until she gradually turned away from classical and tuned into pop music.

"The fact that I could play by ear led me to play a lot of stuff I heard on the radio," she says. "I found myself feeling more fulfilled as a contemporary, modern artist instead of just replaying history."

A near-fatal moped accident in Italy two years ago ("I should have died, really," she says) that left her hospitalized with, among other injuries, a broken jaw and femur, almost put an early end to Kreviazuk's promising career.

And, although she's reluctant to lend the accident any great, epiphanical weight in the grand scheme of her life, a few months in bed did give Kreviazuk ample time to focus on "what I was and what I should be doing."

Apparently, music won out. A good call, judging by her live show.

In concert, she strips away the full-band clutter of the record to perform solo at the keyboard -- a tactic that makes the ultra-personal emotional exorcisms that are her songs much more effective.

"I like playing and singing. I hate having a band, to be honest with you," Kreviazuk says. "I really want to give (the audience) me ... I don't feel like I can do that as well with the guys playing with me. It sounds great, but the intimacy will always be the point for me.

"I want to be known for that. I really want to give that. That's what true entertainment is -- when people are so absorbed that they forget about everything else and it becomes sort of therapy or rest."

Judging by a lot of the gloomy material on Under These Rocks And Stones, one might assume writing is a form of therapy for Kreviazuk herself, although she seems quite jovial this afternoon.

"I think, if I'm honest with myself, I'm truly very depressive," she says cheerfully. "For the most part, I'm pretty dark.

"I wrote my songs. When you write your songs, the true you is going to come out ... Listen to my record -- that's who I am."

By: Ben Rayner